Have a look at my planned build please?

[Joeyboy]

Ok so my budget is around £750, can't go over £800, rather it was a couple of tenners below.

The thing is my Mums friends son is in the computer business( can't remember what he does, it's a wide field) and he is confident he can save me a good deal of cash compared to me going to say Ebuyer - Cheap Computers, Laptops, Digital Cameras, TVs & more! or something. I'm guessing he can get in touch with the factories that supply these online stores or that he knows of spare stock somewhere. I don't care about the specifics really but I'm keeping the build a little general in case he can't find specific items i want, although he's looked at my build and thinks he can get the stuff fine.

Ok on to the build...

PROCESSOR

Q6600, nothing to say here

MOTHERBOARD

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard. I have been told this supports DDR2 as well as DDR3, if not PLEASE TELL ME

Gigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R Intel P35: This one is £4 more, it does say DDR2 and 3, the other doesn't say... does the above support DDR2 or just this one?

RAM

not being way brand specific but 2x2gb sticks of DDR2 800mhz, get a name brand, 4-4-4-12 timings hopefully.

GPU

ATI radeon HD4870, if he can't get it for under £170, probably a 4850 although in the end i'll probably spend more to get the 4870.

HARD DRIVE

seagate 500mb SATA2 hard drive, 32mb cache

OPTICAL DRIVE

Pioneer DVR-215DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

POWER SUPPLY

Corsair 520w HX modular power supply

CPU COOLER

Artic Freezer pro 7. I know there's better but i'll only OC to like 3ghz, no extreme for me.:happy:

SOUND CARD

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (PCI)

CASE

NZXT tempest case, looks like it has tons of huge fans!

OS

Vista home premium 64bit



Ok so that's it. Just tell me if i'm on the right track basically. If you recommend something else please explain why it's a better choice.:happy:

 

[Kjølen]

First off, if you can spare a few extra quid, go for the Q9300 or the Q9450 (Check Aria.co.uk) instead of the Q6600. They're cooler and will overclock more stably.

If you cannot find the HD 4870 for the price you want, try looking for 9800GTX cards around that price, I believe there were a few near that price, shipped, awhile back. The 9800GTX will perform just as well and sometimes better in most applications. Of course, nevermind if you're set on AMD/ATi.

520W for a power supply is probably enough, but it's straddling the line. I'd go for at least 550-600W to be safe. It also will future-proof your system in case you want to upgrade something.

The Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio cards have been notorious for not working correctly in any operating system, Vista 64 first among them, and have been heavily criticised for having extremely poor performance for an X-Fi (Truthfully, they say it's not even a real X-Fi, just a revamped Audigy). If you don't mind the price jump, go for an Xtreme Gamer edition at the very least. Or, even an Audigy 2 ZS or Audigy 4 will probably be fine unless you really, really want the X-Fi features. Hence my problem.

I know my thoughts are extremely picky, but I always like to be on the safe side.

 

[Redmo0n]

Ok sorry to bring you down here Kjølen but.

1. The 4870 is a better card than the 9800GTX, i think you mean that the 9800GTX is better in some cases against the 4850, but the 4870, no .

2. The Corsair 520w is a modular power supply with ample 12v rail (the correct way to measure a power supply) so it will do fine.

3. The q6600 is a good chip, i suppose if you want to spend more look at the other two. Q6600 can push 3.6ghz, which is more than enough for anything.



Edit: Just remembered that the q9450 has a FSB hole, so you shouldn't get that, it wouldn't be the best to OC.

 

[Joeyboy]

lol two conflicting reviews there.

I'm tempted to go with redmoons only cost his post counts is huge and to me post count= knowledge

Maybe if someone else could post their opinion to say whether or Redmoon is correct? I am pretty sure the 4870 beats the 9800GTX though because on this site it is like second or third on the best card list and the 9800GTX is a few down.

I only really wanna OC my Q6600 to 3ghz, i mean most games don't even use quads right now, i'm sure even at stock level it would be future proof for a 2 years or so.

 

[wafflehammer]

Yea, redmoon is correct. If you want to wait a month or two the Q9550 will be the price of the Q9450. Personally I think it'll be worth $300ish because it's multy is only .5x less than the Q6600 and I'm sure it's faster clock per clock anyway.

 

[bkolk]

the 4870 is better than the 9800gtx. The 4850 is comparable to the 9800gtx. Performance Recap - Tom's Hardware : Radeon HD 4870: Better Than GTX 260!

From what every1 else has been able to do when OCing the Q6600 you should be able to get 3ghz. Get an aftermarket cooler tho.

 

[thirdshiftdj]

First off, if you can spare a few extra quid, go for the Q9300 or the Q9450 (Check Aria.co.uk) instead of the Q6600. They're cooler and will overclock more stably.

Cooler... yes. More stable, No. The q6600 will oc higher

 

[Kjølen]

you don't know what your talking about my friend

Dashing remark, there. You sure showed me with your army of reasons and sources. Your slight upon my ignorance has left me devastated, mutilated, and perforated! I could summarize the next few paragraphs by simply replying "no u" but if you're so inclined, read on.

I suppose I could go the "specifications" route to compare the processors.

Q6600 vs Q9450
Kentsfield vs Yorkfield
2.4GHz vs 2.66GHz (Which means nothing if you overclock, right?)
1066MHz FSB vs 1333MHz FSB
8MB L2 vs 12MB L2
65nm process vs 45nm process (Implies less heat)
SSSE3 vs SSE4
1.5V max needed voltage vs 1.3v max needed voltage (Implies less heat and energy)
105W TDP vs 95W TDP (Heavily implies less power usage. Sarcasm is positively dripping from this statement)

Source: Hardware.info

Of course specs mean nothing to actual usage, right?

Q9450 - Power and Temperature
Overclocked to 3.6GHz, needing 1.1375V
Using an average current of 60A.
Around 50-51 degrees Celsius

Q6600 - Power and Temperature
Overclocked to 3.6GHz, needing 1.2000V
Using an average current of 109A.
Around 60-62 degrees Celsius.

Whoops! The Q6600 is pulling nearly twice as much current as the Q9450 at that speed, while being about 10 degrees Celsius hotter. And look, this table suggests that even the Q9300 is comparable to the Q6600, having a very slight advantage in every case. Now, don't get me wrong, the Q6600 is a good quad core CPU for relatively inexpensive. Hence my clause: if you can spare a few extra quid, go for the Q9300 or the Q9450. My line of thinking goes "Cooler, therefore more stable," but you're welcome to debate it.

Edit: Nice save with the edit there, my friend. Unfortunately, I caught your original post before it was changed, so the damage was still done!

 

[ThirdLeft152]

i got my q9450 running at stock voltage at 3.4ghz (425fsb). i don't really want to go any further it will take anything i throw at it already. although from what i hear though i somehow got a lucky chip or a good board... lol.

personally i love my new q9450.

 

[veg1992]

lol two conflicting reviews there.

I'm tempted to go with redmoons only cost his post counts is huge and to me post count= knowledge

Maybe if someone else could post their opinion to say whether or Redmoon is correct? I am pretty sure the 4870 beats the 9800GTX though because on this site it is like second or third on the best card list and the 9800GTX is a few down.

I only really wanna OC my Q6600 to 3ghz, i mean most games don't even use quads right now, i'm sure even at stock level it would be future proof for a 2 years or so.

Thats the dumbest thing I've ever heard

But Redm00n's right