Buying a new pc

[Nadeem97]

Hello guys,

I decided to buy a new computer, and i searched all over the internet for some hardware parts (great quality and cheap price) , and i got this list:

MotherBoard: Gigabyte GA 965P-DS3P Rev 2.0
CPU: Intel Core Duo 2 E6600
Graphics : XFX GeForce 8800GTS
Memory : OCZ PC2-6400 Gold Edition 2*1024mb
Power Supply : OCZ GameXStream 600W
HardDisk Drive : 400 GB Samsung Spinpoint T HD400LJ SATAII


so guys,, do anyone of u have any suggestions >?
one more thing....the gigabyte motherboard and the 8800GTS doesnt have any compatibility issues ? cauz ive seen that it supports CrossFire..so does this have anything to do with my single 8800GTS ? i mean,,is it only optimized for ATi Cards?


Regards....

Nadeem Ateyeh

 

[akhilles]

:trophy: A winner is you. Great setup. See my sig. I run 7900gtx perfect. Hell, at one time I ran 7900gtx SLI with a SLI bridge & modded driver. No problem at all.

 

[Nadeem97]

Thanks for ur reply buddy! ...u also have a great setup

one more thing, could u please explain a little bit more about that SLI Bridge and the Modded Driver ? how did u do it ?!

 

[Nadeem97]

also,,, i've got another question:

i got the following memory Modules...and i'm confused about which to choose (considering the price and the Latency ):

Kingston 2GB kit HyperX DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 2.0v - 224,90 EUR
Crosair 2GB kit DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 2.1v - 269,90 EUR
OCZ 2GB kit DDR2-800 Gold Edition 5-5-5-12 2.0v - 208 EUR (which is mentioned above in the first post)

so guys , which to choose ?!?!?


Thanks..

 

[akhilles]

Thanks.

Officially, running SLI on non-SLI mobos with 2 PCI-E isn't supported. Unofficially, it is possible to run SLI on such mobos with the right tools. In my case, a modded driver:

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=85.96_mod.exe&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

& a sli bridge:

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&q=sli+bridge&btnG=Search

I didn't benchmark it. I think the 2nd PCI-E is slower at 4x. It played games fine.

For ram, the lowest timings & fastest speed are the best & very expensive. These are supported ram for DS3:;

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/modelsinfo.asp?SysID=31685&mfr=Gigabyte&model=GA&root=us&LinkBack=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kingston.com&Sys=31685-Gigabyte-GA-965P-DS3+Motherboard&distributor=0&submit1=Search

You searched for theGigabyte GA-965P-DS3

Part Number Type Size Latency Sel
CM2X1024-5400C4 DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 1GB 4-4-4-12-2T
CM2X1024-6400 DDR2-800 (XM2S-6400) 1GB 5-5-5-15-2T
CM2X1024-6400PRO DDR2-800 (XM2S-6400) 1GB 5-5-5-15-2T
CM2X512-5400C4 DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 512MB 4-4-4-12-2T
CM2X512-5400C4PRO DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 512MB 4-4-4-12-2T
CM2X512A-6400 DDR2-800 (XM2S-6400) 512MB 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X1024-5400C4 DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 1GB Kit (2 x 512MB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2X1024-5400C4PRO DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 1GB Kit (2 x 512MB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2X1024-8500 DDR2-1066 (XM2S-8500) 1GB Kit (2 x 512MB) 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X1024A-6400 DDR2-800 (XM2S-6400) 1GB Kit (2 x 512MB) 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF DDR2-1250 (XMS2-10000) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 5-5-5-18-2T
TWIN2X2048-5400C4 DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2X2048-5400C4PRO DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2X2048-5400C4PT DDR2-675 (XM2S-5400C4) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2X2048-6400 DDR2-800 (XM2S-6400) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X2048-6400C4D DDR2-800 C4 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2X2048-6400PRO DDR2-800 (XM2S-6400) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2-1066 (XM2S-8500) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X2048-8500C5D DDR2-1066 (XM2S-8500) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 5-5-5-15-2T
TWIN2X2048-8888C4DF DDR2-1111 (XMS2-8888) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
TWIN2XP2048-6400C4 TWIN2XP2048-6400C4 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
VS1GB533D2 DDR2-533 (PC2-4200) 1GB 4-4-4-12-2T
VS1GB667D2 DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) 1GB 5-5-5-15-2T
VS1GBKIT533D2 DDR2-533 (PC2-4200) 1GB Kit (2 x 512MB) 4-4-4-12-2T
VS1GBKIT667D2 DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) 1GB Kit (2 x 512MB) 5-5-5-15-2T
VS256MB533D2 DDR2-533 (PC2-4200) 256MB 4-4-4-12-2T
VS2GBKIT533D2 DDR2-533 (PC2-4200) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 4-4-4-12-2T
VS2GBKIT667D2 DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) 5-5-5-15-2T
VS512MB667D2 DDR2-667 (PC2-5300) 512MB 5-5-5-15-2T
VS512MBKIT533D2 DDR2-533 (PC2-4200) 512MB Kit (2 x 256MB) 4-4-4-12-2T

 

[Nadeem97]

thanks again for ur reply....

but my budget is limited..and i'm still confused about those 3 types of memory above....so is the performance increase worth the difference in the price ?

 

[Nadeem97]

i made a few changes ( the mobo , the memory , and the hard disk ) :

Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (rev. 2.0) ( i switched to it due to its cooling capabilities )
Intel Core Duo 2 E6600
OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 2*1024 4-4-4-15
XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB DDR3, PCI-Express
WESTERN DIGITAL - WD Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB
OCZ GameXStream 600W


Any Suggestions ? should i order ?

 

[akhilles]

Memory timings don't matter to non-overclockers.

That's an awesome setup. Go ahead.

 

[Nadeem97]

Memory timings don't matter to non-overclockers.

That's an awesome setup. Go ahead.

Can i still overclock well with these Timings ? or the 4-4-4-12 are more suitable ?

 

[Wonderwill]

i made a few changes ( the mobo , the memory , and the hard disk ) :

Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (rev. 2.0) ( i switched to it due to its cooling capabilities )
Intel Core Duo 2 E6600
OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 2*1024 4-4-4-15
XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB DDR3, PCI-Express
WESTERN DIGITAL - WD Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB
OCZ GameXStream 600W


Any Suggestions ? should i order ?

Yeah, that's wicked. I wish I had that kind of money.

 

[NamelessMC]

/sigh.

Another poor person is gonna waste his money on an 8800 GTS and not one smart person came into this thread to give him any real feedback.

What's with the 8800 fans on this board? Seriously I wish a mod would wake up and ban half of you idiots.

Nadeem97- Listen closely, because I will only say this once.

You have absolutely NO idea whether the 8800GTS will do good for what it was built to do, at all. The latest Crysis bench-mark has TWO 8800GTX's barely breaking 40 average frames per second at 1280x1024 resolution.

You're going to dump 300+ dollars on a video-card when Direct X10 isn't even out? Why? Because Nvidia said it's awesome?

The 8800GTS, for all we know, and it's a good chance too, might run DX10 games so poorly that you'd have to play those games in DX9 code in order to get decent frame-rates. And honestly, if you can't play DX10 games at max settings on a hunky over priced over-heating $300 DX10 card, why buy the card at all?

If you really have that kind of money to just throw at a computer, try using some common sense. The better option is to get a card to pass time until you actually SEE DX10 games out and see how the 8800's actually perform on them.

The processor you picked is nice, sure... But if you even have half a cent worth of reading ability, you could easily use an E6400 or E4300 to hammer the performance of an E6600. Sure the E6600 is nice, but really think about what you're trying to accomplish with this build before you dive into it.

You haven't said whether you plan on over-clocking to high heaven or just a mild over-clock.

The E6600 doesn't really pay off until you get past 3.4 GHZ, where it can comfortably over-clock on air-cooling and not gas out. The E4300 though, is the better choice for any over-clock UP TO 3.2/3.4 GHZ, because it hits it with low temperatures and stabilizes.

All in all, you're making a mistake with the video-card, and try not to listen to the 8800GTS/GTX fanboys. I'm an Nvidia fan and I think it's a mistake.

 

[akhilles]

Memory timings don't matter to non-overclockers.

That's an awesome setup. Go ahead.

Can i still overclock well with these Timings ? or the 4-4-4-12 are more suitable ?

If money is no object, buy the fastest ram.

 

[Habber]

Could you post the benchmark of crysis?

 

[oldgreyhead]

Do you have a link to this

"latest Crysis bench-mark has TWO 8800GTX's barely breaking 40 average frames per second at 1280x1024 resolution".

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nadeem97]

Could you post the benchmark of crysis?

i searched all over the internet....and the Bench. that NamelessMC was talking about was posted on a "Chinese Site" :roll: http://www.hardspell.com/doc/hardware/33923_page15918.html ...personally, I don't think that Crytek would let some shady east asian website look at their game before some reputable website from NA or EU ....on the other hand..here are the comments of some Reputable Sites who saw it on CES...:



in an earlier article, it was reported that Crysis was running at 60+ fps for most of the time at CES 2007. In this new article, Jack Mamais tells techspot that the game is running at a resolution of 2048x1536. Judging by the HUD size in the images below, this seems like it's true. Combine that information with the fact that most of the code is still unoptimized, and you can easily understand how well Crysis will run. Take note that Crysis was running in DX10 at CES 2007, so could Microsoft's claim of 6 to 8 time the performance be true? If you read some of the earlier news items or read the techspot link posted below, you'd also know that Crysis was running an unknown core 2 duo processor and a single 8800GTX.

-Crysis Online

____________________________

Running on a fast (single core) Intel CPU and a single Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX board, the game ran smooth for the most part on an impressive 2048x1536 resolution, with some choppiness noticed when things got really busy on the screen.

-TechSpot

_______________________

The demo of the game we played showed a great potential. The game was running in DirectX 10 mode on 32-bit Vista. The code may still have some infant illnesses but it looks great on a G80, Geforce 8800 GTX, Core 2 duo and it provides 60 FPS+, at almost all times. It certainly works and looks much better than Rainbow [buggy] Six Vegas.

-The Inquirer

_________________________


NamelessMC,...First of all, i chose the 8800GTS cauz its the best performer on the DX9 games + its the only one that its DX10 and i wont upgrade this computer for a long long time....for example...if i take the X1950XTX which is the best in DX9-only Cards...its a bit close to the 8800 considering the price...and of course it wont do good at all in any DX10 games because of the Shader model 4.0 which is not supported in this card...

also, u always have to remember that nVidia Drivers for Vista are actually arent finalized at all ,actually they are too bad as the performance isnt even close to the xp performance in some cases.....so i guess 60+ FPS on 2048x1536 on a too early beta driver and a non-finalized Crysis is interesting .

Finally, I'm not a hardcore overclocking fan , and i will never go to an Additional-cooling overclock. thats why i went for e6600.

 

[Azzdude]

/sigh.

Another poor person is gonna waste his money on an 8800 GTS and not one smart person came into this thread to give him any real feedback.

FINALLY! Someone with the guts to say it! I've been around a LONG time but rarely post and just read. I'm damn tired of seeing people saying this is good or THAT is good and not explaining WHY! C'mon, just because you HAVE it or LUST for it, doesn't make it good! And telling someone to just buy the most expensive memory they can afford is just plain asinine!! Posting recommendations without knowing your azz from a hole in the ground should be stopped! And the worst part about it? The people doing this are increasing their post count daily and making it appear to a poor newbie that they're an "old hand" at this!

 

[Habber]

Nadeem i just heard today that the new driver from nvidia performs better than the catalyst on Vista. Not knowing if this is true as i got it from a coworker im still hoping that it is

anyways i would be stunned if my 8800GTX wouldnt perform well with crysis. This card has so much power its unbelieveable. im running 3-400 fps when i play fear at 1600x1200 with all settings at max.

anyways conclusion would be that the benchmark of crysis and 8800gtx probably isnt as true as it could be... same with the "fake" level 505 report of r600. seems like everyone are trying to scare people away from buying the 8800 series, and with good reason, cause this card is a serious performer that might end up taking a big share of the market before ATi, amd or whatever they are named at this point gets the R600 on the market

Edit: btw i just tried to read the chinese bench and i really have no clue what is going on. so i would be very happy if nameless would post the info he got on 8800 crysis bench.

 

[Nadeem97]

Nadeem i just heard today that the new driver from nvidia performs better than the catalyst on Vista. Not knowing if this is true as i got it from a coworker im still hoping that it is

anyways i would be stunned if my 8800GTX wouldnt perform well with crysis. This card has so much power its unbelieveable. im running 3-400 fps when i play fear at 1600x1200 with all settings at max.

anyways conclusion would be that the benchmark of crysis and 8800gtx probably isnt as true as it could be... same with the "fake" level 505 report of r600. seems like everyone are trying to scare people away from buying the 8800 series, and with good reason, cause this card is a serious performer that might end up taking a big share of the market before ATi, amd or whatever they are named at this point gets the R600 on the market

Edit: btw i just tried to read the chinese bench and i really have no clue what is going on. so i would be very happy if nameless would post the info he got on 8800 crysis bench.

i also do not believe this bench..

Habbler .. how the hell did u manage to get ur e6600 to 3.6GHZ?!
please explain how...and whether u needed any additional Cooling .

thanks

 

[Habber]

erhm i just turned it to 3.2 at first. worked fine for like 10 mins of stresstest then i turned it to 3.6 and its stable. so didnt really put much more than 2 mins of effort into getting here. I know i sounds weird but thats the facts.

For starters this board somehow requlates the vcore and all the other settings automaticly, which means i dont even have to take notice of the vcore besides it not getting over 1.4 the rest i leave to the board.

With concerns of cooling.... yes the stock cooler plain sucks, i actually thought it was way better. But its surely not meant for OC of any kind cause it runs into low 70 at 3.6 mhz so i shifted to the Noctua cooler which at around 600 rpm keeps my cpu at around 55 degrees stable.

As borat would say "VERY NICE"

 

[Nadeem97]

erhm i just turned it to 3.2 at first. worked fine for like 10 mins of stresstest then i turned it to 3.6 and its stable. so didnt really put much more than 2 mins of effort into getting here. I know i sounds weird but thats the facts.

For starters this board somehow requlates the vcore and all the other settings automaticly, which means i dont even have to take notice of the vcore besides it not getting over 1.4 the rest i leave to the board.

With concerns of cooling.... yes the stock cooler plain sucks, i actually thought it was way better. But its surely not meant for OC of any kind cause it runs into low 70 at 3.6 mhz so i shifted to the Noctua cooler which at around 600 rpm keeps my cpu at around 55 degrees stable.

As borat would say "VERY NICE"

i'm a noob at overclocking ....i didnt understand well, but what i got from ya is that u just changed the clock speed directly without any other settings..... is this right ?

this is making me thinking of switching to the EVGA 680i SLI !

 

[Habber]

yeah thats kinda what i did. ofcourse i have read like crazy for 2 weeks in a row before i bought my hardware. I read something like 250 reviews and a lot of forums on different hardware sites. Anyways i was going for the Asus p5n-e sli which is a very cheap motherboard. but offers the same or better overclocking than the Evga 680i board. I couldnt get it here in Denmark so i didnt want to wait and godt the Evga.

Timings on the ram are best at T2. T1 makes the board go crazy, well it does with my ram, and alot of other ppl have the same problem.

im running 1:1 on cpu and ram, cause i feel that this gives the best performance and stability. so im running 9x400 and 400mhz on the ram. which gives 3.6mhz. the vcore is set to 1.4 the rest is on auto.

I myself was very surprised of how little work i had to do to get this board to function as i wanted it to. i have no clue what revision this is but im sure this isnt the first revision cause there are several bugs that are fixed and the auto voltage works like a charm.

What im trying to say here is that EVGA board is very easy to work with and there are plenty of guides and forums offering tips on how to tweak it. just google it.

What kinda board do you have now ?

im sry this post is a mess but im tired and its 2 AM here.

 

[Nadeem97]

thanks for ur reply///

its also 3:30 am here... and i'm really tired of reading and reading and reading....

i didnt buy my hardware yet...but i was planning to buy a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 (rev. 2.0) ...but now i'm thinking of the EVGA n680i SLi.

so my new hardware should look like this now :

EVGA nForce 680i SLI
TWIN2X2048-6400C4 800MHZ
XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB DDR3, PCI-Express
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
WD Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB
OCZ GameXStream 600W

but i'm missing the cooler...do u recommend any ?

 

[Habber]

Looks like a decent build and should work nicely for you. I would recommend the GTX instead of GTS the last money you spend are really worth it when you look at the more demanding games. or you could go for a high end 79xx series card instead and then upgrade later when dx10 will be useable. I think evga has a tradeup program that lets you trade forinstance 8800gts to 8800gtx and you just pay the difference of the 2 cards, so you might wanna go for the 8800gts and see how it performs and then later trade it to and Gtx instead. i think you have about 3 months to do the tradeup.

anyways my cooler is fantastic, its a bit expensive here in denmark so i have no clue what the costs are elsewhere. Its very very very lownoise infact i cant even hear it at 100% speed. my load temps at 55 degrees are at 50% speed. And i should say that the rest of my case is very lownoise with only 4 x 600rpm noctua fans installed. the cpu cooler itself is an Noctua NH-U12F. but see this topic for cooler advice http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1488674#1488674

 

[Nadeem97]

Looks like a decent build and should work nicely for you. I would recommend the GTX instead of GTS the last money you spend are really worth it when you look at the more demanding games. or you could go for a high end 79xx series card instead and then upgrade later when dx10 will be useable. I think evga has a tradeup program that lets you trade forinstance 8800gts to 8800gtx and you just pay the difference of the 2 cards, so you might wanna go for the 8800gts and see how it performs and then later trade it to and Gtx instead. i think you have about 3 months to do the tradeup.

anyways my cooler is fantastic, its a bit expensive here in denmark so i have no clue what the costs are elsewhere. Its very very very lownoise infact i cant even hear it at 100% speed. my load temps at 55 degrees are at 50% speed. And i should say that the rest of my case is very lownoise with only 4 x 600rpm noctua fans installed. the cpu cooler itself is an Noctua NH-U12F. but see this topic for cooler advice http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1488674#1488674

really thanks for ur reply!...
i will see if i can pay the extra 250 Eu for the crazy Geforce 8800GTX
about the cooler i think i'd go with this : Noctua NH-U12F

again thanks !

 

[Habber]

Well i hope im not pushing you into buying stuff you dont need. but i can say that i have never been so happy with a build like the one i have right now.

Btw here is the guide for the thermal compound for the cooler.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_dual_wcap.pdf

you dont need to use arctic silver, but just follow the pictures and you can see where the cores are below the heatspreader, and it all makes sense.

and the Nvidia guide for overclocking. it explains it all in details so you dont get lost.

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/45121/nforce_680i_sli_overclocking.pdf

good luck with your build