My new Hardware good enough?

[bitmonx]

I am about to make an order for a new Mobo, CPU, HDD and Graphic Card (GC?).
I prviously had a P4 3.0 GHZ, 1GB RAM (don't know which kind...), Asus P4C800E Delux, ATI Radeon X850Pro, Enermax 485W power supply.
I am thinking about getting: BFG GeForce 8800GT OC2, Asus P5N-E SLI Mobo, Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 2.40GHz and OCZ Platinum Revision-2 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Dual Channel Memory.
Will these hardware work together? Where will the bottleneck be?
I have a Coolermaster Case CAC-T05. Will this case hold my new Mobo or do I need a new case?
I use my PC exclusively for playing games (EA F1Challenge, Flight Sim10 and Ghost Recon2 and Call of Duty4 etc.) and copying of DVD's and of course browsing the net and I am using XP Pro.
With the above choices I am at Canadian$ 720.00. (Already above budget..... )

 

[akhilles]

What are the uses of the pc? Will it be overclocked? How long will be it kept?

The bottleneck is your wallet. no pun. Always has been. Always will be.

The parts you picked out will work together.

ncix.com is having a sale. Check it out.

 

[litlrabi]

If you aren't going to use SLI, you can get a cheaper motherboard. The parts you have chosen will work together just fine.

What is your budget, and where are you shopping? Also, what akhilles asked.

 

[evongugg]

If you are not going to do SLI, get:

GA-P35-DS3L.

Saves about US$ 30.00.

 

[bitmonx]

Thanks for reply. The reason I chose this Mobo is because it comes in a bundle. I will search for one that does not have SLI, but I think it might be worth it. Overclocking? Only if it is safe and easy to do. I hope to keep this system for a while, perhaps 5 years or longer. It may be wiser to get a Mobo that has PCI Express 2.0? Kinda investing for the Future? My budget is tops C$750 and I am shopping at tigerdirect.ca

 

[hutt]

Do you plan to overclock, if so get the E4500 and save a few bucks or even if you want to save even more grab the E2180 and overclock the hell out of it they seem to clock very well and are pretty cheap.

 

[litlrabi]

Hmm..interesting challenge. Small budget, not all parts available, and longevity.

Are you open to upgrading some components over time (e.g. video card, ram, etc..)?

For additional selection I've used NCIX rather than Tiger Direct. Both are reputable dealers in Canada. The fact is, TigerDirect.ca doesn't have the options NCIX does, or at least I didn't find it.

HDD: Seagate 500GB 7200.11 - $104
Mother Board: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L - $101
CPU: E6750 - $204
RAM: Corsair XMS2 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $45
Graphics Card: EVGA 8800GT 512MB - $170
Total: $624

If you think you would like to overclock (easy to do with this board, and pretty safe to do in general these days), go with this build:

HDD: Seagate 500GB 7200.11 - $104
Mother Board: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L - $101
CPU: E2180 - $97
HSF (CPU Cooler): Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - $26
RAM: Corsair XMS2 Low Latency (better for overclocking) 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $55
Graphics Card: XFX 8800GTS 512MB - $330
Total: $713

Both builds have mail in rebates, but because they take so long to arrive, I did not include them in the prices.
The overclock build will beat the stock build in performance, pretty much across the board. I have the DS3L and an E2160 running at 3.2Ghz. Clocking your E2180 up will be no trouble.

Once again, if you don't use NCIX, these won't do you alot of good, unless you can find somewhere else with the selection.

 

[bitmonx]

Thanks litlerabi for advice,

I decided to up my budget......

I went with these:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro $26
EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GT 600MHZ 512MB $199
Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 $60
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 $87
Asus P5N-E SLI & Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz $462

With shipping and taxes thats almost $900......my wife is going to kill me!

I can't wait to get my order shipped.

By the way, thanks for telling me about NCIX, they have better prices than TigerDirect and some items like the 8800GT Video Card is not even available at Tiger, only the more expensive PCI Express 2.0 version of the 8800GT.

Would any of you give me some advice to properely OC my new system when it's all assembled?

Cheers,

bitmonx

 

[akhilles]

TD.ca is selling the Ballistix for $20 after $30 rebate. Regular $50 still cheaper than ncix's price. Yep, the ram is a great overclocker.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1558870&Sku=C19-4332

For the mobo & cpu combo, drop the 650i which is older than 680i which is alright, but not future-proof. You can't talk about future-proofing considering your budget. This combo has the same quad and a better mobo for LESS. XFX bios is more stable than Evga's. Only drawback is it can't run 45nm Yorkfields (quads). If you want that, you must look at 750i/780i for $250-ish.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3403908&CatId=2406

If you buy gpu from ncix, I highly recommend the Galaxy & Palit, both of which is $50 less than the rest after rebate. ncix WILL help you get the rebate check. They helped me.

Get the Freezer 7 Pro, but if you look around, you can get a much better coola for even less at ebay.ca. I saw a Tuniq (retail $60+) sold for $15- yesterday.

The point is to have the option to overclock when or if you feel the need. You can save money by overclocking the cpu & gpu to keep up with the new ones.

Don't o/c right away. Ask if you want. It's very easy. There's a risk involved. The parts can be damaged forever.

 

[bitmonx]

Alright, I ordered all hardware.

I did change the Mobo as suggested and went with the XFX 680i & Q6600 CPU. It did safe me some money. Thanks.

How is this Mobo and CPU for OC? I was considering the Asus because it is supposed to be great for OC. One review mentions that the Quad CPU's are causing a lot of trouble when OCing. Is that true or is it just a matter of knowing what to do?

Would you guys recommend getting a better mobo, one that has PCI Express 2.0 and a 750i Chipset and buying a cheaper Core 2 Duo and overclock the hell out of it? My choices tere would be the XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI or the Asus P5N-D SLI 750i. The XFX is a $100 more but it has the 790i chipset and supports DDR3. Would it be worth spending the extre $100? Which DDR3 would you recommend from NCIX.com?

One more thing, I have Windows Vista Basic on my Acer Aspire 5570Z Laptop. It is way too poor in performance partly because it only has 512MB of RAM to run Vista. It has the Intel Pentium Dual Core T2060 1.6GHz which is I believe a pain in the a.. to even just browse the net. Is it mostly that this laptop has not enough RAM or is it because of the CPU? I was thinking about using Vista in my upgraded Desktop and running XP on my Laptop. Would this be wise? As far I understand Vista uses more of the systems than XP does. Are there any advantages to Vista if your PC is mostly used to play games? If I decide to go with Vista on my desktop I know I need another set of RAM since 2GB won't enough.

What should I do?

 

[akhilles]

To be honest, overclocking depends on your skills & luck. There are a few elite overclockers over at evga forom that overclocked their Q6600 on 680i/780i to near 4Ghz. A few of them are on air. If you know what you're doing, you can do that. Or you can ask. However, you can't expect to use identical settings for identical results. There will be slight variations.

But you might be over budget if you get a 750i/780i + a quad. DDR3 is def. not worth the price tag for about 5% improvement over DDR2.

I'm not sure why you had to ask cuz you can just look at our signatures to determine the consensus of the best bang parts. Take a look at what these SLI users use:

http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/defaultmb.asp

Vista runs fine with 1GB+ ram. 512mb is good for XP. Also, Vista uses the hard disk even if you leave it idle. There's a hack to disable it. Yes, your plan to use Vista on PC & XP on laptop is wise, considering the configs. 2GB is fine for Vista. Up to 3.5GB in 32-bit or more in 64-bit.