CPU, RAM and M/B for €400

youcancallmeal

Ok I have done a little research and read a few reviews and have come with a new CPU, RAM and M/B for my upgrade to Vista. My budget is €400 and the 3 items come to €410 delivered from hardwareversand which is close enough for me My main requirement from this system would be to be able to get the CPU to a stable 3Ghz at reasonable temps.

Spec

Anyway I'm hoping to go down to the bank and pay for this today and was hoping somebody could throw their eye over and recommend any changes if needs be? They only thing I wouldnt be too sure about is the RAM, I could cheaper Corsair RAM with the same spec as the G-Skill but I've used G-Skill before and found it to be very good for overclocking?

Anyway the rest of system is an xfx 7900gt, Zalman 9500 cpu cooler and over 1tb of storage spread over 4 drives.

Offalycool

I helped Tusky put together a system a while ago, and he seems happy with it. http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055094102

I think u should go with the E4400 as the high multiplier and 200 MHz front side bus will let you get good over clock out of it. The Board is SLI compatible and is a great over clocker, but it can be a little fussy about which RAM you use. I have heard G-Skill Ram isn’t the over clocking bargain it used to be, while the Corsair TwinX is solid and costs about the same. I think its early days for P35, and after the next revision of the Duo’s Intel will be changing the socket anyway.

2048MB DDR2 Corsair TwinX XMS2 CL 5, PC6400/800

Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 Box 2048Kb, LGA775, 64bit

ASUS P5N-E SLI, Sockel 775 nForce 650SLI, ATX

nibble

youcancallme>al wrote:

Ok I have done a little research and read a few reviews and have come with a new CPU, RAM and M/B for my upgrade to Vista. My budget is €400 and the 3 items come to €410 delivered from hardwareversand which is close enough for me My main requirement from this system would be to be able to get the CPU to a stable 3Ghz at reasonable temps.

Spec

Anyway I'm hoping to go down to the bank and pay for this today and was hoping somebody could throw their eye over and recommend any changes if needs be? They only thing I wouldnt be too sure about is the RAM, I could cheaper Corsair RAM with the same spec as the G-Skill but I've used G-Skill before and found it to be very good for overclocking?

Anyway the rest of system is an xfx 7900gt, Zalman 9500 cpu cooler and over 1tb of storage spread over 4 drives.

Change the RAM to something like this http://www1.hardwareversand.de/6VpRM863pZxv8m/2/articledetail.jsp?aid=10280&agid=599, otherwise looks great.

youcancallmeal

Offalycool wrote:

I helped Tusky put together a system a while ago, and he seems happy with it. http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055094102

I think u should go with the E4400 as the high multiplier and 200 MHz front side bus will let you get good over clock out of it. The Board is SLI compatible and is a great over clocker, but it can be a little fussy about which RAM you use. I have heard G-Skill Ram isn’t the over clocking bargain it used to be, while the Corsair TwinX is solid and costs about the same. I think its early days for P35, and after the next revision of the Duo’s Intel will be changing the socket anyway.

2048MB DDR2 Corsair TwinX XMS2 CL 5, PC6400/800

Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 Box 2048Kb, LGA775, 64bit

ASUS P5N-E SLI, Sockel 775 nForce 650SLI, ATX

Cheers for the advice, reckon I'm going to stick with the p35 board though. I have no interest and will never use SLI (I'm running a dual monitor setup). As regards the CPU its very tempting to go for the E4400 but again I'd reckon for around €40 more its best to go with the E6420 for the simple reason of resale value. I figure not everyone is interested in the overclocking potential of processors?

nibble wrote:

Change the RAM to something like this http://www1.hardwareversand.de/6VpRM...10280&agid=599, otherwise looks great.

Any particular reason for this RAM?

Offalycool

Good man, stand by your convictions.

I think upping the FSB is not really overclocking at all TBA. I can’t say for sure if either chip would resell at all, for much anyway. Things just seem to be accelerating on the manufacturing side of things, and prices have fallen to the extent that low end processors are kind of disposable. On the otherhand the higher catch on that chip may stand up well in 18 months. Go with your gut.

awhir

youcancallme>al wrote:

Cheers for the advice, reckon I'm going to stick with the p35 board though. I have no interest and will never use SLI (I'm running a dual monitor setup). As regards the CPU its very tempting to go for the E4400 but again I'd reckon for around €40 more its best to go with the E6420 for the simple reason of resale value. I figure not everyone is interested in the overclocking potential of processors?



Any particular reason for this RAM?

the timings are tighter then the g.skill and it probly has better chips as the cl5 g.skills are mena be muck for overlcoking.

nibble

youcancallme>al wrote:

Cheers for the advice, reckon I'm going to stick with the p35 board though. I have no interest and will never use SLI (I'm running a dual monitor setup). As regards the CPU its very tempting to go for the E4400 but again I'd reckon for around €40 more its best to go with the E6420 for the simple reason of resale value. I figure not everyone is interested in the overclocking potential of processors?



Any particular reason for this RAM?

Because they're filled with tasty micron D9GMH goodness, of course. The IC's are pretty much the best you can get; high clocks, tight timings and they scale very well with voltage, that enough for ya? And you're right to stick with the P35/E6420 combo.

youcancallmeal

Actually what about this corsair ram. Same price and same timings except its rated at 1.9v. I read somewhere that the Gigabyte DS3R has problems booting if the voltage needed for RAM is over 2v, this may have been fixed in more recent bios updates though?

nibble

youcancallme>al wrote:

Actually what about this corsair ram. Same price and same timings except its rated at 1.9v. I read somewhere that the Gigabyte DS3R has problems booting if the voltage needed for RAM is over 2v, this may have been fixed in more recent bios updates though?

No better than the first kit, but the Patriot's should work fine in the board anyway.

awhir

nibble wrote:

No better than the first kit, but the Patriot's should work fine in the board anyway.

go for the patriots the d9s are flippin unreal chips you can get drr800 to sometimes drr1000 and above.....