Please pick faults in my build

[mildiner86]

trying to get best bang for buk gaming system cant afford a core i7 rig, will be OC and playing a lot of first person shooters

Processor = core 2 duo E8400 3Ghz http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139971
Ram = 4GB OCZ (2 x 2GB) 800 Mhz http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146049
Graphics card = EVGA GTX 295 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155947
Hard drive = 2 x Western Digital 500GB 16mb cache http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124228
PSU = Corsair 650 W http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135514
Case = Antec 300 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143854

can anyone find a better mother board for the price, needs a good FSB 1600 to OC the e8400 i have chosen this so far its a:
motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L iP45 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150880/show_product_specifications#specifications

the machine will also have a TV card but havent chosen on that yet

suggestions welcome, criticise as much as u like

in addition wats so good with a p45 chipset i found a p35 with wat a wanted whats so good bout the p45

 

[average joe]

P45 has PCI EXPRESS 2.0 and ICH 10. P35 is a great price right now. There isn't a huge advantage to PCI Express 2.0 for many people.

Here's a review. It might be old.
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/p45_launch/14.html

 

[Proximon]

P45 is a much newer chipset and overclocks better. You will also find more modern designs with P45 boards, such as solid capacitors and such.

The Gigabyte UD3R or UD3P are the most up to date offerings.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152609


Your build seems a bit top heavy to me. That's a whole lot of GPU. You might want to bring that down a bit and put a bit more into the CPU.

The RAM you picked has very high voltage. I'm having a hard time finding any decent RAM at a good price on ebuyer:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS
That kit should run at 1.8V - 1.9V

 

[mildiner86]

cheers for those, its a build for my bro i did tell him bout the GPU but he wants that one.

would have gone for a core i7 but its outa budget

i went for the e8400 cause i heard it can clock to 4 ghz on air if lucky i cant imagining that bottleneckng most non multi threading games

as for the MB u suggested would it really increase preofrmance ? im defo gonna go witht the P45 though

 

[Proximon]

Increase performance? perhaps slightly.

It will clearly IMPROVE performance though, because it will be more stable. It's also more likely to get an E8400 to 4Ghz than any other board. Not that other boards can't do it, but a second gen P45 board such as that will be the best at it.

While I'm thinking about it, someone just recently had a link to another UK site with some G.Skill memory at a great price.... let me see...

 

[Proximon]

Here we go, the good stuff. You should snap these up though as I suspect the price will rise... price just rose on these in the US:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1743570/art/g-skill/ddr2-800-pc2-6400-cl4-2-x.html

 

[mildiner86]

hmmm well my bros not great with computers hes ok i was considering having the e800 at 3.6ghz cause i think that will make the fsb 400 giving 1:1 with the 800 mhz ram

im not sure if id clock super high as he may not be able to care for it as he should,

im using similar ram and i just cahnged the voltage to 2.1v seems fine after that, dont know why u think its such a porblem

 

[Proximon]

Ooops sorry too many threads, thought this was the 4Ghz one

The problem with high voltage RAM is that it tends to not boot on a new board. The default voltage is 1.8V, and if the board can't make the adjustments required for the RAM to run it will just default.

You can get around this by booting up with a different stick, then changing the settings in the BIOS.

We have stickies in all the forums here for some of this. There's a good one on memory:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/55024-30-memory-please-read-posting

The overclocking sticky:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

 

[mildiner86]

yeah i know but normally u can put just one stick in and it will boot then u can change the voltage thats what i did. i have spare low voltage ddr2 ram lying around cheers though