CPU and components advice

[bunford]

Hi all,

I just grabbed a ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 for £15 ($30) to allow me to do a slow-ish upgrade to the Core 2 Duo/Quad environment.

Anyway, I'm looking at buying a CPU, DDR2 RAM, a heatsink/fan as well as some other bits n bobs.

I'm considering the Core 2 Duo E4600 but have read the E4500 is better at OCing. I've never Overclocked in my life but would consider it.

Grateful if I could get advice on what CPU, RAM etc to get. I was intending to buy the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 to cool the CPU as I've heard and read nothing but positive things.

Cheers again,

Bunford.

 

[MrCommunistGen]

The two processors should OC about the same and I would presume that the E4500 is cheaper. For memory, look for something that is PC6400 (800MHz), preferably with CAS5 or lower, at relatively low voltages. Other than that, it's up to you. I wouldn't suggest getting less than 2GB.

-mcg

 

[aevm]

Is this a PC for playing games?

Which of these parts do you still need - CPU, video card, HSF, HDD, DVD, case, PSU?

How much can you afford to pay in total for the parts you still need?

 

[bunford]

The PC will be for playing games, but non demanding games. Will be for games like Pro Evolution Soccer, FIFA, Football Manager etc so not intensive. It will also be used quite a lot for audio editing and perhaps for watching (not editing though) movies etc.

I have the motherboard as stated above, I have got a Casecom LG-7770 Case in black and a 500 Watt Casecom OEM PSU. The case comes pre fitted with a 120mm fron intake and a 80mm rear exhaust fan. It also has a side window. I'm considering putting a 80mm intake on the side window and a further 80mm exhaust on the rear to balance out the instake/exhaust. I want to do this to get the computer as low a temperature as possible.

I'm planning on buying the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 heatsink/fan as it's cheap and effective. A friend has it cooling his Q6600 Quad Core OC'd at 3GHz and keeps it at about 28 degrees idle.

At the moment I have an ATi 9600 Pro Ultra AGP GPU card. I'm considering replacing this with a 7600GT PCI-E as it's cheap and an upgrade (i believe!?).

I already have 2 IDE hard drives, 2 IDE DVDRW drives. Therefore, the CPU, hard disk, RAM and possibly GPU card is all i'm looking to upgrade at the moment.

I've seen 1GB DDR 800MHz on sale for £9.99 ($20) which I am planning on buying two of so I can have a matching pair giving me Dual Channel Memory access.

 

[aevm]

The E4500 and 2 GB of DDR2-800 sound good.

For the HDD, try getting something with perpendicular magnetic recording. It will help with editing large WAV files for example. Seagate 7200.11 or WD6400AAKS or WD7500AAKS are good.

Video card:
At newegg right now there's a 7600GT (the slow version, with DDR2, not even the good one with DDR3) for $100. There's also a HD 3850 512MB for $130. The HD 3850 is about twice as fast as the good 7600GT, and a lot faster than the DDR2 version. There are also several types of 9600GT, for about $120, which are even faster. I strongly suggest staying away from the 7600GT, it's totally not worth it. Your PSU can support a HD 3850 or a 9600GT, at 500W.

 

[bunford]

The reason I was considering the 7600GT is because there's one at www.aria.co.uk at the moment selling for £29 ($58) with 512MB DDR3 which seems a bargain price and I'm trying to upgrade cheaply.

I'm considering going with the E4600 as I've seen an OEM verion being sold in the UK (where I live) for £58 ($116). I would then stick the Freezer Pro 7 on this to cool it.

What kind of overclocking would I get from a setup consisting of:

* ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Motherboard
* Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
* Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz, 2MB Cache, 800MHz CPU
* 2GB DDR2 800MHz Matched Pair
* Jetway 7600GT 512MB DDR3

I've never overclocked before so would just want to do a basic, safe overclock without frying my parts. I've read that a simple setting change in BIOS to change something from 200MHz to 280MHz can up the core to as much as 3GHz??

How easy is this? Is it possible with the above seteup?

Cheers again.