Advice on my Future Rig

[nate55]

AeroCool ExtremEngine 3T - BBA Black SECC 0.6mm ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DQ6
EVGA 768-P2-N881-AR GeForce 8800Ultra
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB
Vigor Gaming Monsoon II CPU Cooler
4gb Corsair Dominator 1066

Ok I believe I have here the ultimate PC. The only thing im debating after lookin at the CPU charts is if the Core 2 Extreme is worth it. In most tests the Core 2 Duo 6850 comes very close if not beats the QX6700, and with a price difference of about $700, I'm wondering what I should do. I do not want to upgrade again for a long time. Also I understand DDR3 is out but if I get DDR3 at the moment it would cost me more money for less memory at about the same speed.

P.S. I do overclock =]

P.P.S. Anyone copies rig, I WILL FIND U

 

[Maziar]

I say get a Q6600 which has the same price as a E6850 , and OC that , QX6700 is very expensive,
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=8

The difference between QX and Q series is that QX has unlocked multiplier , But the Q version has locked multiplier , but its much cheaper .

 

[akahuddy]

I'm getting the same rig... whatcha gon do about it? LOL, j/k man, skip the QX and just get a Q6600. The QX6700 likely won't go much higher than the Q6600 and you'll save lots of money.

 

[little_scrapper]

I understand being able to say your running Dominators when money is no object. But I dont understand why people buy and pay the price for super expensive memory when they can put in some $70 DDR800 and not see any measurable differance.

Are you planning on running a FSB of 533Mhz? If so then yea you want the good stuff. But who the hell runs a FSB of 500+ for day to day use? I wish I did, but....the difference between DDR667 and DDR1200 on "overall system performance" is less than 2%. If you were able to run 1:1 ratio DDR1200 (600fsb) and tight timings you might get that "overall system perf" up to 3% higher, but even if you are rich, why the hell throw money into the burn pit?

Dont get me wrong, Im not trying to poo-poo on anyones dream machine. If I could afford 8800 ultra's Id probably buy then too, Im just saying...I paid a little over $600 for the upgrade you see in my sig. and aside from the vid card not being an 8800 it'll beat the hell out of a stock E6800. Any day of the week. And the only reason I bought the Ballistix is cause they were Just over $100. And I got more then that for selling my old DDR800 on Ebay. Ebayers is stupit! hehe

 

[nate55]

OK I am now revising my system:
AeroCool ExtremEngine 3T - BBA Black SECC 0.6mm ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
*ASUS P5K3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP
EVGA 768-P2-N881-AR GeForce 8800Ultra
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX
*Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB
Vigor Gaming Monsoon II CPU Cooler
*G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)

Decided to go with DDR3 that way when timings go down and it gets cheap. I dont have to get a new board. Plus after taking out the QX6700 I had more money to spend.
My only beef with the Q6600 is that its only FSB1066
Also I've read that the QX6700 can get to 3.4ghz easy with the proper cooling, Will I be bale to get the Q6600 up there?

 

[little_scrapper]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565

jesus dood! why pay $400 on memory thay doesnt work any faster than the $80 stix? hehemust be nice to have an orchard full of money trees I guess you would rather have bragging rights over real performance. I guess untill I hitthe lotery Ill never understand that.

 

[nate55]

Its DDR3, find me 2 gigs of ddr3 for $80 lol.. Like I said I want this system to last a long time with as little upgrading as possible therefore a quad core and DDR3 are basically essential. DDR3 is the future and I'd rather spend the money for it now than get ddr2 and have to upgrade both my mobo and my ram in a year when the ddr2 sticks will be worthless. Even tho these are early DDR3 sticks if I decide to upgrade them in the future I can atleast sell these for something where as by the time DDR3 becomes a standard DDR2 will worthless and the money for the board and sticks will be wasted as no1 will want to buy a DDR2 based board and Memory. Do you get it yet little_scrapper, It's called an investment.

Now that my business lesson is done for the day, lets get back to my rig.
Please see Post b4 little_scrapper.
Thank You

 

[nate55]

Guys I just came across a few new mobos i didn't know about, the GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R and the ASUS P5KC.
They both support DDR2 and DDR3, so I could get myself some cheap ddr2 sticks and upgrade to ddr3 when the price goes down.(2 DDR3 slots (4gbmax) and 4 DDR2 Slots(8gb max) )

Only thing is If I have 4 gb of DDR2 and 4gb of DDR3, the computer will only go as fast as the slowest stick, right? (I read that somewhere a few years ago) So It would be the same as just having 8gb of the DDR2. Another thing is the DDR3 slots max out at 4gb and the DDR2 slots max out at 8gb, but the P35 chipset maxes out at 8gb, so that means I cant run 12gb mixed, right?

Any thoughts guys? Is it worth it?

 

[FlyingDutchman]

Hey, I'm not an expert but from what I read DDR3 won't be faster than high spec DDR2 for some time. For me, it just seems like a waste of money. Go with a good DDR2 board now, and then upgrade to a new board and memory a year or so from now. You'll still save money and get better performance. I'm not an AMD fan at all, but the fact that they don't play to utilize DDR3 until the second half of next year kinda makes you think, doesn't it?

I'm in the same position as you, planning to build a rig in the next 2-3 months, so I've been doing a lot of research. Here's what I learned:

1. You're wasting money buying the 8800Ultra, it's a lot more expensive than a standard 8800GTX and it's exactly the same card, but factory overclocked. Get a good factory overclocked 8800GTX if you don't want to do it yourself. You'll get 99.8% of the performance of the Ultra for $200 less...

2. In my opinion, any Extreme processor from Intel isn't worth the money. It's made for people who have more money than they know what to do with. If you insist on Quad core go with the Q6600, but in every benchmark I've seen the E6750/E6850 beat it every time. There simply isn't any software that uses more than 2 cores yet. Even Supreme Commander, touted as the first game to be multithreaded sees almost no increase in performance when having more than 2 cores....

My plan is to go with an E6850, 8800GTX for now and upgrade to a native quadcore (Phenom??) end of next year. Maybe I'll keep my 8800GTX, maybe I'll go SLI, or do away with it altogether and go Crossfire....

 

[Maziar]

I dont think u can have 4GB DDR2 and 4GB DDR3 @ the same time , but as u said if u get P5KC , u can get DDR2 now and then get DDR3

 

[nate55]

OK, I'm revising my build a little:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad-Core Processor 2.4GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 8MB cache

Corsair Dominator Series TWIN2X2048-8500C5D 2GB Kit DDR2-1066 PC2-8500 Memory

Corsair HX Series CMPSU-620HX 620W Power Supply Retail

SAMSUNG HD501LJ 500GB SATA 7200 RPM 16MB Hard Drive

Aerocool Extremengine 3T BBA Mid Tower Case (Black)

ASUS P5KC Core 2 Quad Socket 775 1333MHz DDR3 1333MHz ATX Motherboard

EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express Video Card w/Dual-DVI, HDTV-Out

Vigor Gaming Moonsoon II

Only 2 things im still between the mobo: Asus P5KC vs. GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R, and the Graphics Card: 8800GTX vs. 8800Ultra

The mobos are both DDR2 & DDR3 compatible. The ASUS has firewire and support for higher Frequency memory, The Gigabyte has a better south bridge, and is supposed to be a better overclocker, also better reviews.

The graphics cards only have a $100 difference, so im wondering if I should just suck it up and go for the ultra.

 

[chikit]

Hi nate!

First of all, let me tell you my rig.
I have a GA-P35C-DS3R coupled with a Q6600 on a Tuniq Tower 120, and a XFX Geforce 8800GTS 320MB.

1. Main reason why I chose this particular motherboard is its overall goodness. Its relatively cheap and came with everything I needed plus more. a P35 mobo, known to oc well, even comes with DDR3 support! I figured yea hell why not get the P35C version instead of the regular P35. Its not that big fo a price difference plus, i get the added benefit of future proofing to an extent.

2. Agree on the Q6600. Much much cheaper, plus you can use that money you saved elsewhere. I'm currently ocing my Q6600 to 3.2GHz at 8x400 to sync with my DDR2-800 ram. Let me tell you this, I'm using a B3 stepping and this is the MAXIMUM OC I can get on my Q6600 with air cooling. This sucker runs hot. I could prolly squeeze lil mroe out of it but i need it for everyday oc.
Now, I've seen what the new Q6600 on G0 stepping can do.. I've seen it hit 3.78GHz on AIRCOOLING!! Can you believe that! If I were you, get a G0 stepping and WATERCOOL THAT SUCKER until you hit 4GHz and beyond. I'm not sure how your current cooler holds up but make sure its good! You won't regret. I love my Q6600 even tho is B3.

PEACE!

EDIT: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1031325151 Okay maybe 3.78 was exaggerating? 3.7 more like.

 

[nate55]

Should I stick with the Corsair Dominator or should I just get a couple of Crucial Ballistix 8500s instead. The dominators are supposedly really top end, but I've read that the ballistix overclock really nice. The price difference is like $10 so thats not the issue. Do you think the dominators will keep up in terms of overclocking?

 

[chikit]

If you're experienced with overclocking, you should have a core speed in mind as well as fsb. With this and the cpu multiplier you can determine which speed ram you need. Unless you don't really care about 1:1 sync. From the link above, it seem that most people are getting better overclocks with cpu multiplier 9x.

If you want to hit 4050MHz with 9x multiplier it gives you a nice fsb of 450 which shouldn't be too hard for P35 mobos. 450FSB means 1:1 sync with DDR2-900MHz. For me I'd get DDR2-800 and overclock to 900.

Anyone else have opinions? btw i'm not that experienced with overclocking.

 

[nate55]

Yea 1:1 sync is the goal here. Anyone else care to comment is DDR2-800 the way to go?

 

[akahuddy]

Beat me to the punch... Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 is probably the way to go memory wise... it's going to clock way higher than 1066 anyway.

If you buy all of your components, wait two weeks for the videocard. I don't know how good R650 is, but it is should provide a bit of a shakeup...

 

[akahuddy]

Oh yeah... I bought 4GB of the Crucial DDR2-800... get some and enjoy it.

 

[nate55]

Ok I'm going with 4gb of Crucial Ballistix DDR2-8800. Last thing I need is a case. I got a couple in mind, but I find flaws with each of them. I need something that has show stopping looks, a left side window, and really good cooling.

Heres what I'm considering as of now:

XCLIO A380BK: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811103010
Problem: I have read in one review that it will not fit the Vigor Gaming Monsoon II.

AeroCool AeroEngineII
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811196019
P roblem: Not well built, problems with "turbine" being loose.

AeroCool ExtremEngine 3T
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811196021
Problem: NO WINDOW ='[

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133021
Prob lem: Not really feeling how the front of the case looks (I am so dam picky =X)

Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133132
Prob lem: Again its no show stopper

Thats basically what I've found so far thats come close to pleasing me. Feel free to suggest others, and remember I gotta fit a Monsoon II and a 8800Ultra in my case so please dont suggest anything that wont house it.

 

[nate55]

YAY RIG IS ON ITS WAY!!!!
Final Specs:
Monsoon II
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB
EVGA 768-P2-N881-AR GeForce 8800Ultra (Price went up $200 the day after I ordered =])
ASUS P5KC
Antec Nine Hundred
2x G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX

BOOOOYA