Advice: E6700 or E6600 and new Monitor?

[guinness74]

I'm about to buy a new PC with a $3000 budget. As of now, I plan on using my current 2.1 Klipsch speakers as well as my existing LCD monitor

Samsung Syncmaster 730B - 17", 1280x1084 reso, 600:1 contrast, 8 ms response time

With the specs I have mapped out (below), would it make more sense to upgrade my processor to E6700 or keep the E6600 and upgrade my monitor to this:

Samsung Syncmaster 204BW - 20", 1680 x 1050 reso, 700:1 contrast, 6ms response time

OR is there another monitor option that I should explore

Lastly, I think my PSU is overkill, thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

here are the specs that I am planning out:

Case: Gigabyte ATX full tower (black)
Cooling: Gigabyte GH-WIU02 3D Galaxy II Liquid Cooling
OS: MS XP Professional (w/ Vista upgrade coupon)
PSU: Thermaltake W0131RU 850W RT (ATX12V/ EPS12V 100 - 240 V CE)
Mobo: NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 1066MHz FSB 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP
Sound Card: SNDCD CREATIVE|70SB073A00000 RT
HD: 2X Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
SONY Black 16X IDE DVD-ROM Drive
SAMSUNG 18 X SuperMulti Dual Layer DVD Burner with LightScribe

 

[BennyV04988]

22" inches are tempting, but the pixel patch is larger because its the same amount of pixels over a larger area.

 

[b1gapl]

Yea your power supply is overkill. Get the OCZ GameXstream 600W. Also keep the e6600 and get a better monitor. The extra $200 for the e6700, that is just .2 faster is not worth it.

 

[darkop16]

All the e6700 offers is a higher multiplier. You should be able to get up to 3.8ghz on the e6600 with your liquid cooling, and 3.8ghz is really fast (wish i could stay stable at it without temps reaching 67*c load ).

If i were to choose, the monitor most differently. Bigger screen to play on is much better then a slightly better overclock (maybe none; depends on how well that cpu block cools your cpu).

Oh and with that 8800gtx, the monitor all the way. That 8800gtx is yawning at that resolution on all games. Go with the bigger monitor.

 

[TriEclipse]

6600 + Monitor, definately.

You're wasting a lot of money on the build though. They may be quality parts, but you're never going to reach the point where they'll prove that they're better than something half their price. =/

And get like a Antec True Power Trio 550W or something.

 

[guinness74]

Trieclipse,

That is actually my biggest concern. I feel like this build, while including a lot of nice components, may be a bit of an overkill when put together. For example:

- I don't plan on ever going SLI, so do I even need liquid cooling, even with the 8800 GTX?
- I doubt that I will overclock my processor, so do I even need a 680i mobo? (a cheaper build uses an ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe mobo, would that be a better option?)
- w/o liquid cooling, I assume I could go down to a 550W PSU, correct?

That said, do I need to consider overclocking or something along those lines or will factory processor speeds suffice?

Basically, I consider myself a dedicated gamer, but I don't play a ton of FPSs, mostly strategy and MMORPGs (if that helps clarify my the graphic intensity of the games I play). I was actually thinking about scaling back this build and upgrading my monitor instead. I could definitely use the expertise on this board to help me maximize my purchase. $3000 is a ton to spend on a PC so I want to dedicate the money to the right areas.

Thoughts?

 

[TriEclipse]

Your comments about Liquid Cooling/SLI/8800GTX are all over the place. Firstly; Watercooling is not that much better than air cooling. It is slightly better, yes, and it is quiet, however I don't believe that it is worth the money that you put into it. Secondly, watercooling and SLI don't have much of a connection. This form of cooling is mostly used to cool CPUs that are to be overclocked as far as conventionally possible. Also, having two videocards has never meant that you need to have advanced cooling in your system. Infact, the coolers on a videocard such as the 8800GTX are more than enough. And ofcourse, with a single 8800GTX, you should completely drop watercooling and save yourself the hassle (and the money).

Not overclocking? That cuts the price of the build drastically. If you aren't overclocking, then even any $100 motherboard will do. After all, if you're never going to access the BIOS features, then all the motherboard has left to do is sit there and look pretty (and run your computer). That is the task of motherboards like those supplied in OEM builds from Dell or HP, so you see how insignificant a motherboard is in a non-overclocking build. If you DO eventually choose to overclock, then check out the ASUS P5B-E ($151).

Without watercooling, you can move down to a Forton 450W ($54) PSU. For more info, read this sticky.

Factory speeds are certainly impressive on an E6600, but overclocking has its own reasons. With overclocking, you can take a 2.4Ghz E6600 to 3.2Ghz or beyond. This kind of potential is unrivaled, and has been unseen for years. For me, not overclocking is not an option. Since it is without significant risk, it's a no-brainer for me to increase the speed of my processor with negligible detrimental effects. I consider not overclocking to be akin to taking a 3.2Ghz+ processor, and underclocking it to 2.4Ghz, for no apparent reason. Even if the 2.4Ghz is enough for you, I do not understand why one would want to run their processor at a slower speed than it can handle. If you do decide to overclock, see the P5B-E motherboard that I linked above.

Since you will still need aftermarket CPU cooling, look at the Zalman 9500 ($54). It is as good as air cooling gets.

 

[darkop16]

^^agreed, and make sure to get some as5 with that zalman. It makes a 5-7 degree difference.

 

[guinness74]

Thanks guys. As you can tell from my post, I am just learning about the interworkings of a PC, so some of my statements definitely reflect that. I understand everything your saying about the overclocking. My problem, however, is that I'm going through a ABS to buy the computer an the only overclocking option they offer (ABS will overclock for me) is the build that requires liquid cooling and NVidia 680i mobo, while the one w/o liquid cooling only offers the Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe NVIDIA nForce™4 SLI™ X16 Intel Core2 Extreme/Core2 Duo mobo as an option.

I definitely don't know enough to overclock myself, but if it is easy enough to learn, would the P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe still be an acceptable mobo?

Thanks for helping out the hopeless!

BTWliquid cooling build is $2823, w/o liquid cooling $2442)

 

[UA_Iron]

lose the liquid cooling and just go with a high quality heat sink. It's unnecessary unless you will be extreme overclocking - but you'll reach the point where diminishing returns will kick in fast.