How's this hardware?

[Xaccers]

Thinking about getting my PC working again, so any comments on the following would be appreciated:

4x 1GB Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC2-5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £46.95

1GB XFX 9800 GX2, XT, PCI-E 2.0, Mem 2040MHz, GDDR3, GPU 640MHz, Stream 256, 2x DL DVI/HDMI+ £364.25

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 SLACR, Kentsfield Core, Socket 775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, Retail bundle with Abit IP-35 Pro, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £217.38

500 GB Maxtor STM3500320AS DiamondMax 22, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ £48.16

£667


Will be dual booting XP (games and photoshop)/2003 (with a few virtual servers running)

[webcrawler2050]

Its a good not bad at all.

I would try to upgrade the ram to 800 - thats the only "worry" if you like other than that, its all good to go!

[The Hitman]

Get 2x2gb of geil black dragon memory and buy a seperate heatsink and fan for the q6600

[DocDutch]

yeah am with Hitman here.... the ram you got is too slow for the rig you are building.

I got 4x 1gb Geil memory in my rig and its flying and 4gb and XP is a waste tbh just go for Vista or you need to go for XP 64bit...

---------- Post added at 13:53 ---------- Previous post was at 13:52 ----------

ow and what Mobo have you got?

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by DocDutch

yeah am with Hitman here.... the ram you got is too slow for the rig you are building.

I got 4x 1gb Geil memory in my rig and its flying and 4gb and XP is a waste tbh just go for Vista or you need to go for XP 64bit...

---------- Post added at 13:53 ---------- Previous post was at 13:52 ----------

ow and what Mobo have you got?

Abit IP-35 Pro, bundled with the quadcore.

Vista ultimate 64 it will be then, and 4GB of PC2-6400

[zinglebarb]

I would go for the Q9300 over the Q6600 tbh

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...catid=8&subcat= wih this ram perhaps

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

I would go for the Q9300 over the Q6600 tbh

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...catid=8&subcat= wih this ram perhaps

How much real terms difference would the Q9300 give over the Q6600?

[zinglebarb]

The main difference is the 45 nm process and SSE4

In real world computing I do not know as I have not seen one "YET" but ill have one soon and the specs of it do read as quite an upgrade from the Kentfield's prob not enough to upgrade mine (but I want to) but good enough to pay the extra and buy one instead imo

[Delta Whiskey]

I was in a quandry over Dual v Quad core, in the end I went for the Core 2 Duo E8400. Would I have been better off getting the Q9300?

The Whole system was:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz (Retail 775)
500GB Maxtor - 32MB - SATA2 - 7200RPM
500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 32MB ST3500320AS 7200RPM
Asus P5E-VM HDMI iG35 Socket 775 Motherboard
Corsair 2GB PC2-6400 XMS2 (2x1GB)

[zinglebarb]

depends on use.I use my machine intensively multi tasking etc so the cores do get used . However I did test my E6600 and it did pretty much do what im doing now. As ive said before if you are going to run intensive apps a few at a time you need more than 1 hard drive

[damien c]

question zing what is the sse4 when its at home?

also wouldn't the q6600 be a better choice as it has 8mb l2 cache compared to the 6mb l2 cache on the 9300?

i mean you would pay £30 more for an extra 100mhz on the 9300 and it also only has a multiplier of 7.5x whereas the 6600 has 9x multiplier?

i mean i know the 9300 has a native 1333mhz fsb and the 6600 is 1066mhz but as most people are aware the 6600 is very oc'able.

i only say this because all the reviews i have read some say the 9300 is good but it lacks any sort of real overclockabilty, one recommended either choosing the 6600 or the 9450 but is abit pricey at the moment, some people have got the 9450 running at 4ghz on air cooling i have my, 6600 at 3.0ghz on air and some people have the 6600 at 3.6+ but mostly those people have watercooling.

just a question like but i know personnaly if it was me i'd save the £30 and spend it on some nice fast ram but then, again it depends on what your using the pc for

[Xaccers]

This is going on hold for a week or so (unless I get paid enough tomorrow).
Went to Tescos last night and spent some money on a 32" LCD, which is making a lovely monitor for my laptop
COD4 at 1920x1080 is lush!
Anyway, unless there are different specials on Monday (or when I get the spare cash in a couple of weeks), I've dropped 2 cores for the E8400.

[trevortt]

Get DDR2 800Mhz Performance RAM, ie Corsair, OCZ, GEIL there's no point having a good system where the RAM will be the bottle neck.

This is good, fast & reliable ram

Also, that harddrive, Maxtor, hmm bit of a poor performer. If you have the money get a raptor if not get a western digital.


Wetern Digital 500GB

Raptor

If you go for the Raptor use that hdd as the primary drive and then for other things get 2 500GB or 250GB hdd's.

I have also seen various reviews that the GX2 is not worth the money and space, why not get an 8800GTX. As you can see, the 9800GX2 is only marginly faster than the 8800GTX therefore, is not worth the extra money.

I also hope you will getting yourself a very powerful PSU for that setup, there;s nothing like getting a cheap PSU then find out you have just blown you're system. Here's a list of performance PSU's over 800W. Only get over 800W if you're getting the GX2, 600-700W will do fine for a GTX

[Paddy1]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Went to Tescos last night and spent some money on a 32" LCD, which is making a lovely monitor for my laptop
COD4 at 1920x1080 is lush!

Would you not be better going for 2 8800GT or GTS in SLI mode if you're going for this kind of resolution? Should work out a bit cheaper as well.

[zinglebarb]

Originally Posted by damien c

question zing what is the sse4 when its at home?

also wouldn't the q6600 be a better choice as it has 8mb l2 cache compared to the 6mb l2 cache on the 9300?

i mean you would pay £30 more for an extra 100mhz on the 9300 and it also only has a multiplier of 7.5x whereas the 6600 has 9x multiplier?

i mean i know the 9300 has a native 1333mhz fsb and the 6600 is 1066mhz but as most people are aware the 6600 is very oc'able.

i only say this because all the reviews i have read some say the 9300 is good but it lacks any sort of real overclockabilty, one recommended either choosing the 6600 or the 9450 but is abit pricey at the moment, some people have got the 9450 running at 4ghz on air cooling i have my, 6600 at 3.0ghz on air and some people have the 6600 at 3.6+ but mostly those people have watercooling.

just a question like but i know personnaly if it was me i'd save the £30 and spend it on some nice fast ram but then, again it depends on what your using the pc for

sse3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE3

sse4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE4

for multi media applications this will make a difference. The 45 NM core of the Penryns/Yorkfields will also make a difference. As I said its not really worth upgrading but for me it is as I want one. But for a new build id opt for one. Overclocking is also the luck of the draw not all Q6600's will clock well and running extra voltage through your system can take its toll. Also getting stable overclocks takes practice and machines will crash at some point over the practice which can cause problems with hard drives.

Ive had my play with overclocking im quite happy leaving my machine at stock 100% stable and set up well . My machines are workhorses and I need them to work every day

When I build ill be using a X38 motherboard a Q9300 4 gig OCZ Reaper or possibly Corsair Dominator if im feeling flush and either a 3870 x2 or a 9800 GTX