Noob's New Build: Any Bottlenecks?

[benihana_chef]

Going to be purchasing this one soon, and was wondering how it looked:

I will be bringing the Mouse, Monitor, Keyboard, Surround Sound and both DVD burners from a current system, so those are already taken care of.

Case: NZXT Lexa

Mobo: Abit AN9 32X SLI Fata1ity board. (I'm not a big fan of paying for somebody's name on something, but 10 bucks extra for active cooling on the Mobo seems worth it.)

RAM: 2gb (2 x1) Corsair XMS2 PC2 6400

Proc: AMD 64 X2 5200+ Windsor

Video: EVGA GeForce 8800GTX

HD: Seagate Barracuda 320gb 7200 RPM

Power Supply: Thermaltake 700W SLI PS

License of Win XP Pro

I might OC it, but probably not for a few months. It will be used for gaming primarily, media center and software development being a distant second.

Thanks

 

[deusex]

It seems like everyone new here has not heard of Core 2 Duo :lol:

 

[benihana_chef]

It seems like everyone new here has not heard of Core 2 Duo :lol:

I considered it, but I'm replacing a P4 3.2ghz single core that I've had nothing but trouble with.

Runs hot, even with the helicopter that I installed over the CPU, I'm not happy with it's performance. I also have an Intel Dual Core Lappy that's so hot I have to lug around a cooling pad for it.

I was wanting to give AMD a go. I'm open to suggestions, though.

 

[Lazarus7]

With the 8800gtx your cpu will definately be the botttleneck. THG ran a test a little while back that showed that even with an e6800 the cpu was still the bottleneck as when they overclocked it the got higher fps. I think for around the same money you can get an e6600 which will be faster than the 5200+ stock, then you can overclock it to the speeds of the e6800 on stock cooling....much quicker than the 5200+ and will make a huge difference to your system.

 

[benihana_chef]

With the 8800gtx your cpu will definately be the botttleneck. THG ran a test a little while back that showed that even with an e6800 the cpu was still the bottleneck as when they overclocked it the got higher fps. I think for around the same money you can get an e6600 which will be faster than the 5200+ stock, then you can overclock it to the speeds of the e6800 on stock cooling....much quicker than the 5200+ and will make a huge difference to your system.

Ok, reading some reviews on this chip, it seems pretty awesome, I'll agree.

What Mobo would be recommended? I'd prefer integrated sound, as the extra ~70 bucks going the E6600 route is gonna chip into my budget a bit.

 

[fueled_by_ramen]

I was wanting to give AMD a go. I'm open to suggestions, though.

Well, you really can't compare the C2D Conroe cores to any of the older P4 (netburst) chips. Intel finally did something right. The performance of C2D is really good, and they actually trumped AMD after years of lagging behind.

So for the price range that you are looking at, it just makes more sense to go C2D. A C2D Conroe E6300 1.87GHz CPU is going for $187 on newegg.

But if you wanna go AMD, more power to you. Despite the raves over C2D, I'm still building my AMD system...they are still great chips. I've always had Intel systems, so I finally wanted to go over to the AMD side of life and see how things are. Plus, I'm on a very tight budget to build the system.

Check Tom's benchmarks and charts for more info on Core 2 Duo.

 

[Lazarus7]

I'm not sure about mobo's with regards to onboard sound, I've always had a soundcard. I'm sure if you have a look in the mobo forum there will be plenty of info. But as a general rule I always go Asus, bear in mind that is just personal preference though.