Upcoming rig: suggestions needed

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djiddish98

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May 7, 2006
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Hey everyone, I'm building a new rig and would love to hear some input on the initial build choices I've made. I'm pretty much open to suggestion for cost improvement on everything, as well as performance improvement within a reasonable cost limit of the current item. My plan is to do a moderate but not severe overclock of the CPU. The unit will be used for just about everything, photo, video editing, gaming, etc. and will run on a 24" Dell 2407.

Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler

COOLER MASTER CM Stacker STC-T01-UWK Black/ Silver Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

EVGA 640-P2-N825-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SUPERCLOCKED HDCP Video Card - Retail

CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 520W Power Supply - Retail

(Placeholder for 6420 on April 22ish) Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6400 - Retail

BUFFALO Firestix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model FSX800D2C-K2G - Retail

2X Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with 12X DVD-RAM write and LightScribe Technology Black E-IDE/ATAPI Model LH-20A1H-185 - OEM

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM

Total Cost - 1562.90 at the egg.

My main concerns are the Motherboard (not too familiar with rev 1.3 vs. the others), Video Card (EVGA seems pretty highly rated, what are opinions on the Superclock version), but I'm certainly open to suggestions for anything on there.

Thanks for your input.
 
Rev1.3 boards are old, and don't officially support the 1333Mhz FSB or other newer CPUs. I'm not sure if it'll detect your E6420 out of the box. I'd go for the rev3.3 from ClubIT instead. You don't shop around much, do you? hehe... The ACF7Pro is $20 at eWiz.com. The Corsair 520W is $106 (before $10MIR; free shipping) from zipzoomfly.com. The Buffalo Firestix are only $120 at directron.com. And the stacker is $140 at svc.com. Thats over $100 in savings over newegg's prices. If you want to build now, the E6420 is $208 at shopblt.com. You can save money and get the non-superclocked version and just OC it yourself.
 
Awesome, thanks for the input, are there any other boards that are suggested over the DS3? I typically build my list on newegg then look out for huge savings at the typical places I.E. ZZF, but thanks for pointing out some great savings.
 
How about suggestions for other motherboards?

Benefits of 680i vs. the chipset on the DS3?
How about CPU? Overclockability of the 6700 vs. 6600 after the price drop, compared to 6420, etc.? Any particular steppings i should be looking out for?
 
djiddish98 said:
How about suggestions for other motherboards?

Benefits of 680i vs. the chipset on the DS3?
How about CPU? Overclockability of the 6700 vs. 6600 after the price drop, compared to 6420, etc.? Any particular steppings i should be looking out for?
Click to expand...

680i SLI boards can't reach 500Mhz FSB.
P965 Express boards can't officially do SLI.
I think 680i SLI supports 2x IDE ports natively.
P965 Express boards use a 3rd party controller for IDE.
680i SLI has some issues (IDE/SATA/RAM/etc) which cause instability.
P965 Express is pretty stable, since its Intel.

All Conroes seem to have about the same headroom, regardless of stepping. The E6700 doesnt seem to have more headroom than the E6600, but it does have a higher multiplier, making it easier to overclock. But the $200 price premium for it over the E6600 isn't too appealing. Even when the prices drop to $315, I'd still suggest the $244 E6600 over it.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6420.html
 
if you don't need sli and the added features of 680i, save your money and get a ds3.

one thing to add is, for $50 i wouldn't get that artic cooling heatsink. if you wanna spend that much get yourself a tuniq or an ultra-120. if you wanna spend less, an ultra-90 and panaflo can be had for less than $30.
 
So here are the edits I've come up with so far

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

(stacker is OOS & this has really great reviews.

EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail

(i'll just OC the video card myself if at all necessary)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail

(should be able to easily hit 3.2ghz with 8x400 and potentially 3.6ghz with 9x400 - price has already dropped to 230ish on the egg)

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ - Retail

(buffalo firestix are out of stock, and I shouldn't need much headroom ahead of 800mhz given the proc i'm getting)

Tuniq Tower 120 P4 & K8 CPU Cooler - Retail

(upgrade from HSF above, should provide better cooling for the OC)

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 3.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - From ClubIT

(fixed to rev 3.3 - hopefully no issues with this board)

Total Cost with these changes applied to rig in first post, $1579

What do you all think of these changes?
 
Nice changes. $235 for the E6600 already? Nice! Again, the stacker is in stock at svc.com for a bit cheaper than the egg's price. It is a great case -- solid, nice and spacious; it even comes with wheels! If you want the window for it, the egg finally dropped its price on it to $15 (used to be $30, those bastids).
 
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