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Haven't been able to get online often nowadays, busy with studies, have been in labs and library for most of the time ... and when I get home, I'm usually too tired, and went ahead to bed ...

Talk about right on time.
I was just getting ready to drop some $ with velocity...or.....
But I too have been busy with school. Looks like it might pay off.

THANKS.

Any tips on black friday sales for a noob builder on a school budget?

Thanks for the heads up on the Rev 2 version. They are only a few bucks more than the G.Skill ones that I mentioned at first.

There will be lots of instant and mail in rebates ...
Check your local Fry's Outpost ...
They usually have great motherboard and CPU combo deals ...

Another buddy of mine, from Mississauga, Ontario, bought the same module as mine, and found a wall of 509MHz at 2.2V ... my wall was at 514MHz at 2.1V ...

I think the Corsairs are worth the price for hitting such high clock ratings, for a DDR2-675 rating.

500 Mhz for something rated 337 is pretty good alright.

Who else do you know from Mississauga Wiz??

My OCZ Platinum is 800 and I haven't hit the ceiling even close. I may have to hit you up Wiz and see how much more I can push this baby......after your labs and midterms of course

I told you I got an Uncle at Mississauga? My brother's stepbrother ...
This time, it's his colleague's son. He just bought the same module I recommended him, and I told him how to overclock that fella, and he did it ...

I just got done with my mid-terms and lab stuffs ...

Let me know when you're free, I'll get online

I'm helping pctan build a similar setup today, he's coming all the way down from Singapore to look for me in Malaysia, since I just got back to Malaysia for Thanks Giving Break ... will let you guys know of the results ...

Please tell me what the brand of your case was? I cant find a generic that has the three spots for fans on the side. Unless you modded that one to have the extra two on the bottom?

Yes, I modded the case to add the extra 2 fans to the bottom, I didn't screw it on, I tied it on with some nylon cable ties, with some 3M double sided tape around it as padding to reduce the vibration effects. And in fact, it's generic, so the brand doesn't matter. That casing is available on www.avf.com.my , that's the manufacturer's website.

Just to keep you guys updated, these are the parts me and pctan bought together today. What he got was way more expensive than what I had.

He could only go for a horizontal casing, because he doesn't have much space for a vertical casing. He went with the SilverStone LC17 casing which was really nice, which is in fact better than the generic casing I bought. He has a 32" Phillips LCD monitor which he places on top of his casing.

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz) Retail
MOBO: Gigabyte 965P-S3 (he didn't want the DS3 for some reasons)
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper KHC-L91-U2 (we can't go with the typhoons or other better heatpipe coolers coz it wouldn't fit on his horizontal casing)
CASING: SilverStone LC17
PSU: Cooler Master eXtreme Power 650W (can't get a better one because the others are way more expensive, and didn't have as good a 12V rail, and since I didn't have much other choices too, and I had good experience with CM, we went ahead and bought this one)
RAM: Corsair Dominator PC2-6400 (4-4-4-12) supports the airflow fan
HDD: Raptor X 150GB

Now, he's gonna come over to my place tomorrow, and I'll try to help him crank up his system. So far, it has been tested and booting up perfectly, and idling at 26C. Will keep you guys updated, hopefully by tomorrow, and will definitely post pictures of his lovely system. His RAM, HSF, Casing, PSU, basically everything is better than my setup, except for the motherboard and CPU, which is exactly the same as what I got. All he wants is to crank the fella up above 3GHz, hopefully around 3.2GHz. But I might not have the time to help him achieve all those, as he's leaving for Singapore tomorrow in the evening.

Anyway, I'll be staying in Kuala Lumpur till next Saturday, whoever wants to come visit me, before I leave and go back to USA for my classes which resumes after Thanks Giving break.

Wish my luck anyway.

I've been wondering when you were going to your next rig. But I take it that this for your friend and not yourself.

It's a little different from your original model. For example:

HSF - You are only trying to hit 3.2 GHz. Why not go with stock HSF?

PSU - Upgraded from 430W to 650W. Why? higher end graphics card?

RAM - You had pretty good success with your last ram, wondering why you are upgrading if you aren't trying to get a better OC?

Actually the choices here in Malaysia is different than when I compare it to USA. Some parts I could get there, but not here, and vice versa.

pctan didn't have a budget, in fact he spent quite a lot on his system. But he just wanted to make sure he achieve good results from it.

His major issue is to get this processor to encode and compress video, he wants it to encode and compress them as fast as possible, as close to real time as possible. In fact, I actually benched DVD to DiVX conversion on my ex-rig, and it was below real time, which is very fast. The problem is I don't have much time to help him overclock, I will see what I'm able to achieve within 3-4 hours time, since he need to return to Singapore late tomorrow.

We chose the 650W instead, because the shop he bought the casing from, offered him a good deal, with just an extra USD$5 equivalent, he could get the 650W. And he's worried that the 430W isn't sufficient for his graphic card. Anyway, $5 extra for 220W extra is definitely worth it I think.

In Malaysia, there aren't much choices around here, unlike in the USA. They do not carry brands like Patriots, G.Skills, and others. Under the criteria pctan is looking for, we were left with Kingston and Corsair modules that were available to us. Apparently, I remembered reading reviews that Kingston aren't as good quality, but the price here are both the same, so I opted to go Corsair. But then, the problem with pctan is, he wanted 2GB instead of 1GB, and the 2GB XMS2 CL4 modules were out of stock throughout Kuala Lumpur, so we had to choose other alternatives, and came to a decision to get this Corsair Dominator series module, which supports 800MHz instead of 675MHz, CL4, instead of CL5 on other XMS2 800MHz module, and of course, 2GB ...

Again, I will try to hit as high clock speed as possible for him tomorrow when he brings his rig over to my place, but we don't have much time to do all kinds of stress test. What I'd have to do is, install Windows XP onto the new HDD, then I'll get all the latest drivers, firmwares has already been flashed to latest version (F6) at the store, and get Prime95, CoreTemp, CPU-Z, etc running ... I will need him to do further testings when he gets back to Singapore ... I will expect his system to go higher than what I had last time, but he told me one major issue is that, his room temperature is running at 30-35C, instead of the 25C I have back in the states. And I don't know how well his SilverStone LC17 is gonna perform, compared to my generic casing with all those additional fans ... but his HSF is better than what I got ...

And oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I won't be building my rig anytime soon, at least not within the next few months, coz my car's alternator broke down last week, and costs me $400+ to fix it. I told Dario about it, and he had a laugh on me ... I will get my new rig by January or February latest.

At the mean time, I'm gonna focus on pctan's rig

Oh yeah, he gave me his Cooler Master R80 water cooling set, coz it won't fit on his case ... I will try to mess around with it if I have the chance ...

Then why not go with the E6600 instead of the E6300? Seriously, one of the few places the 4GB cache might make a noticeable difference is with video encoding/transcoding .... (or am I just wrong about that? :?)

-john, the noticeably envious redundant legacy dinosaur

Very good post. Will help us newbies a lot. Thanks.

Apparently, I'm not quite sure, that I'll need to have him answer to this thread himself. I did told him about it, he actually wanted to get the E6600 initially, but he told me, after reading this thread, which he found at google (can't remember what words he used to trigger, will need to ask him again), it changed his mind, and he wanted to get E6300 instead.

Youre running what I like to call 'first gen, single core, Conroe'

Well ...??

How did the OC go on your buddies rig?

also, you forgot windows xp (unless you already have a disk, then it could work)