Hello,

I need to setup a new machine and I believe a quad machine will serve my purpose. I need as much processing power as possible from the machine.

I have seen few Quad processors at a reasonable price at ebuyer.co.uk. Can I ask for your opinion? Also I don’t know much about the surrounding hardware. I.e. motherboard and memory. Can anyone suggest me some good combinations. I am looking to spend around GBP 500-700.

Also please point me to any other trusted sites similar to ebuyer.

Thank you in advance.

Right now the best quad for the money is the Intel Q6600 but if you're on a tight budget, there is the AMD Phenom. For the Q6600 the P35 mobo would be could either something like the Gigabyte P35 DS3L or ASUS P5K or P5K E depending on the features you need and your budget. Can't help with vendors in GB but if you'd like to fly me over be glad to help you find some

Yep. The best value is a Q6600 which will perform the best, OC the best and just be awesome. I personally like my little sticker that came with it.

Go on ebay and find yourself a good deal, many seller probably ship worldwide too.

Another vote for the Q6600. If you want to try to save a little bit more, you can also consider the Xeon X3210, which would be the equivalent of a Q6400 (2.13GHz quad-core), if that existed, and goes for about £10-15 less than the Q6600.

Thanks for you post's.

I have decided that a good option is the following:


Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131950


ASUS P5KC AiLifestyle Series iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132275


Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124927


2 x Kingston 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Non-ecc CL5 Unbuffered 1.8V
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129954


Asus 7300GT Silent 256MB DDR2 DVI HDTV PCI-E Graphics Card
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127710


Seagate ST3160815A 160GB Hard Drive 7200rpm 8MB Cache - OEM
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/122459


Can you please advice if all these are compatible with each other. My main concern is the CPU - RAM - Motherboard compination.

Is the power supply enought?

Thanks in advance.

A decent 300W PS is more than enough for that.

Thanks for that... I wanted to be save but as you are saying i can save on that component.

That's a very odd setup.
The Video Card is very weak and the HDD is small.

Curious what the purpose of this system will be.

The purpose of the system is for high processing and calculations. Its not for games or anything like that... Its going to be performining calculations and data analysis.

Anyone to suggest if Memory-Motherboard and CPU are all perfectly compatible?

What are you smoking?

Do not skimp on the psu. Take a look at this list of psu's and pick one from the top 3 tiers. Something from here in the 500W range should handle your setup fine. I don't know much about the psu you have listed and I couldn't find much info on it. I'd go for a better brand.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088

OK, That makes sense then.

#1) Your PSU is definitely overkill. As another posted noted, 300w likely is more than enough.
Any quality PSU such as an Antec EarthWatts 380w or higher should work.
(Antec Eartch Watts, Corsair, Seasonic, and PC Power and Cooling) all have nice PSUs ranging from
380w-500w that are not too expensive and good quality.

#2) No need for a Mobo that supports DDR2 & DDR3. DDR2 is more than enough for current CPUs.
DDR3 will be nice when Nehalm comes out, but you will need a new Mobo then anyway. You can likely save a little cache.

Unless you are going to do heavy OCing, then something a simple as a DS3L would be fine.

300W really IS more than enough, even for a much powerfull setup. If he wants a little headroom for future upgrades, Corsair VX450 is an excellent option. It will handle quad core + high-end graphics + multiple drives without a problem.

That setup is not going to stress any PSU, in fact I would stick one of these http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/product_ [...] de0600f516 into it and be done.