Cheap e6420 build, need advice

A

anvl

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Mar 26, 2007
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Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115016
Memory: G Skill PC6400 2x1GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098
Motherboard: Gigabyte S3 LGA 775 http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813128017
Power Supply: Ultra 600W X-Finity PSU http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4548667
Hard Drive: Western Digital 160GB SATA 3Gb/s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136062
Dvd Burner: Lite-On Dvd Sata http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106057
Video Card BRG 6600GT OC http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814143084
Case http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1215768&Sku=ULT31824

Total: $546.66 (Without case)

Hello once again, I just need a bit of review of what I’m building next. The only thing left to find is the case, the one at TG is great but $40 for shipping threw me off so I’d like something similar.

Main questions I have will all these parts be compatible with each other? I’m a beginner compared to the pros here so I’ll take all advice to heart, money is a issue so don’t go telling me to get a 8800GTX ;)

Thanks a ton guys.
 
Looks fine. I'm going to be assuming no next-gen games.

If money is that tight, there's a $7 AR 650W Ultra PSU in the HotDeals section. They make decent psu's nowadays. I would put that money towards the graphics card.

Also, every now and then, that case you mentioned can be found for 20-30 AR. There's also a Free AR Ultra case that pops up too.
 
UnlimitedMP said:
Looks fine. I'm going to be assuming no next-gen games.

If money is that tight, there's a $7 AR 650W Ultra PSU in the HotDeals section. They make decent psu's nowadays. I would put that money towards the graphics card.

Also, every now and then, that case you mentioned can be found for 20-30 AR. There's also a Free AR Ultra case that pops up too.
Click to expand...

I'm worried about that Ultra PSU because I've read some reviews that it's horribly inefficient and not a reliable PSU in general .. Could you recommend a better video card that would fit?
 
If you're going to use the MIR on the video card, that's probably a pretty good deal. Depending on if you're playing games though, especially some newer ones, you might want to check out the prices on a 7600GT or 7800GS... personally if I was building a new cheapo computer, since I play games, I would get an X1950Pro... but that's ~$100 more than what you're looking at....

I wasn't looking to spend a ton of cash on my new rig either, but this is what I got in my sig. I really like it.... I can max out every game I have ;)

Edit: Here's a 7600GT for $90 AR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

An X1950GT is a really good buy at $130, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102022, you might be able to overclock it to PRO speeds.
 
get that ultra PSU, and then get an eVGA geforce 8500GT...99.99 at the egg
 
Apoxi said:
get that ultra PSU, and then get an eVGA geforce 8500GT...99.99 at the egg
Click to expand...

I'm not a video card techie but ..

8500GT -
Core Clock 450Mhz
Memory Clock 400MHz
Memory Size 256MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR2

6600GT - 525MHz (vs. 500MHz standard)
Memory Clock 1050MHz (vs. 1000MHz standard)
Memory Size 128MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR3

The 6600GT has way higher speeds plus it uses GDDR3 memory .. Not sure what that means but higher numbers usually win right?
 
anvl said:
The 6600GT has way higher speeds plus it uses GDDR3 memory .. Not sure what that means but higher numbers usually win right?
Click to expand...

The 6600GT was the midrange champ about 2 years ago. That title was taken from them almost a year ago with the 7600GT. $40 AR for the 6600GT sounds awesome for someone who just needs a simple card for now. If you're going to spend around $100 though, Keep in mind that the 7600GT will give you better performance than the 8500GT, it just won't support directx 10.

In my opinion though, if you want a card that can play dx10 games, wouldn't you want a really good one rather than the low man on the totem pole? If that rebate goes well for you, it would be a great card to have for the time being. You can play games 2 years and older just fine. Some of the more recent ones will lag.
 
Tzzird said:
The 6600GT was the midrange champ about 2 years ago. That title was taken from them almost a year ago with the 7600GT. $40 AR for the 6600GT sounds awesome for someone who just needs a simple card for now. If you're going to spend around $100 though, Keep in mind that the 7600GT will give you better performance than the 8500GT, it just won't support directx 10.

In my opinion though, if you want a card that can play dx10 games, wouldn't you want a really good one rather than the low man on the totem pole? If that rebate goes well for you, it would be a great card to have for the time being. You can play games 2 years and older just fine. Some of the more recent ones will lag.
Click to expand...

This computer won't be used for playing games, sorry should have mentioned that. But thanks for the advice, I'll just stick with the 6600GT unless it'll be incapable of playing movies ect. Saving the $50 on the power supply would be great as the less is spent the better, but I'm worried that the Ultra PSU is .. cheap?
 
stick with the 6600gt. it's a great deal for what you'll be doing. As for the ultra psu, it'll serve you just fine. It's just a tad long at 7" and can be a little noisy since it uses 2 80mm fans, although it's not all that bad. As for efficiency, in the world of pre 80+ and pfc, it'll be very close to 80% efficiency for the amount of load you're goign to be putting on it, so it's really not all that bad. There's plenty worse.

For the motherboard, you should also look into the biostar tforce p965. The new revision has better voltage support for vdimm and possibly others. And it's a proven solution. I'd trust it over a ds3 (I've owned a ds3 and played with a biostar for a few hours). It might even save you some money.

Also, if you're cool with open box items, you can get a decent selection of p965 boards in the sub 100 zone. It may or may not come with a backplate though, but the price difference is quite worthy.

If you're willing to spend a little more money, there's good d9gmh ram to be had for real cheap now that ddr2 prices have absolutely crashed.

I take it you're planning on overclocking on the stock heatsink?

Also, depending on what you'll be doing, spending $100 on a much bigger hdd (400-500) may be pretty good.

What are the tasks you'll be using for the pc? If you wanted to save more money, the amd brisbane x2 3600+ is dirt cheap, and you could have a real performer for evene less if you went that route.
 
I do not plan on overclocking at all, this will just be a general use pc. Things that top the list of importance are price, noise levels, performance. I've heard good things about the C2D's and have been eyeing the e6400 for a while but now with the e6420 with 4mb cache its perfect. Whats do special about D9 micron memory? I've heard about it alot on the memory forums here but totally oblivious on what it does. Also the 160gb hard drive should suite me fine for now and I can afford to dump $100 into a bigger drive mostly because it's not essential.
 
How come you're not interested in overclocking? There's just so much headroom in today's cpu's that it's almost silly not to. And from the economical point of view, which it looks like you're trying to save money obviously, it's exactly the thing to do. A lot of us would gladly help you achieve even a moderate overclock. For example, bumping up to 333fsb shouldn't require raising any voltages and would get you to 2.66. That'd be the same as a e6700 iirc. Going to 400 would get you 3.2, but may or may not require more volts / better cooling depending on how good the chip you get is.

If the hard drive is fine for you, then all is good. What are the tasks you are going to be doing? Because like I said earlier, it sounds like you could save quite a bit more money with a brisbane amd, although that'd be asking to be overclocked as well.

The d9gmh are a specific memory ic that's known to overclock extremely well.

Do tell what you plan on using the pc for!
 
Browsing the web
Watching movies
Listening to music

Nothing that would require a beauty like the e6420 but I just want it, you know when you want something you got to have it so I'm not really budging on that haha. About overclocking I'm afraid of many things primarily needing a huge cooling system with loud fans and burning out my mobo/cpu because I've never done anything of the sort and I cant afford to mess up $500 of equipment.
 
top it off...

take the 8500 GT (you never know if your gonna want to play a DX10 game)
Keep your E6420
if all your doing is what you said then dont listen to the guys telling you to overclock.

what are your current computer specs? so i can tell you how much of a difference your gonna notice. therefore proving that there is no need to overclock to the other guys...
 
don't worry, as long as you don't go ramping up voltages without first understanding or being explained about them, you won't have much issues with overclocking destroying hardware. The ds3 is pretty decent about resetting from a failed overclock by breaking power to psu and letting it reset.

And as for minor overclocking, you should be able to easily do 2.66-3.2ghz final speed without much issue at all, even on stock heatsink. That said, heat might become more of an issue at 3.2ghz (I was running about 70'c when I used stock heatsink), but 2.66ghz shouldn't budge much at all, and it'd be like you got a e6700. I'd be glad to help you with that once you got things rolling, so don't rule it out just yet :)

If you're fixated on the e6420, then by all means. I completely understand that and will be purchasing one myself too.

As for the 8500, from the looks of things, it won't be able to handle dx10 games in high settings well at all anyway, and games in the forseeable future should offer support for older systems as well. For the price of the 6600gt and what you'll be doing, I'd say absolutely give that a shot first. And if the day comes that you need something more, there'll be better options, and if the 8500 is still what's suiting your fancy, it should be cheaper.

while it's true that for what you'll be doing, overclocking wouldn't make all too much of a difference, but when it's that easy to do and has no ill effects really, I'd encourage you to not rule it out completely.
 
ziddey said:
don't worry, as long as you don't go ramping up voltages without first understanding or being explained about them, you won't have much issues with overclocking destroying hardware. The ds3 is pretty decent about resetting from a failed overclock by breaking power to psu and letting it reset.

And as for minor overclocking, you should be able to easily do 2.66-3.2ghz final speed without much issue at all, even on stock heatsink. That said, heat might become more of an issue at 3.2ghz (I was running about 70'c when I used stock heatsink), but 2.66ghz shouldn't budge much at all, and it'd be like you got a e6700. I'd be glad to help you with that once you got things rolling, so don't rule it out just yet :)

If you're fixated on the e6420, then by all means. I completely understand that and will be purchasing one myself too.

As for the 8500, from the looks of things, it won't be able to handle dx10 games in high settings well at all anyway, and games in the forseeable future should offer support for older systems as well. For the price of the 6600gt and what you'll be doing, I'd say absolutely give that a shot first. And if the day comes that you need something more, there'll be better options, and if the 8500 is still what's suiting your fancy, it should be cheaper.

while it's true that for what you'll be doing, overclocking wouldn't make all too much of a difference, but when it's that easy to do and has no ill effects really, I'd encourage you to not rule it out completely.
Click to expand...

I've started reading a few threads here on overclocking, but I made a mistake, I'm getting the S3 not DS3 as I dont see any difference to suffice the $20 price jump. Would I still be able to overclock? Is my memory the D9 chips?
 
anvl said:
I've started reading a few threads here on overclocking, but I made a mistake, I'm getting the S3 not DS3 as I dont see any difference to suffice the $20 price jump. Would I still be able to overclock? Is my memory the D9 chips?
Click to expand...

The S3 will still let you overclock, althought just not as high as the DS3 can. But even so, the S3 can overclock pretty well. Here's a thread about overclocking the S3:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1146164

No, the G.Skill RAM you chose does not have D9 chips. However, they are capable of a minor overclock. They max out at around 425 to 450Mhz.

Oh you can save $5 if you go with this hard drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s - $55

It has a five year warranty compared to the Western Digital's 3 year warranty.
 
the s3 should overclock similarly to the ds3. no worries there.

as for d9's, if you look i nthe hot deals section, I believe there's a gskill kit with d9gmh for about 20 bucks more. not sure if it's still available though, but d9gmh deals have been showing around that price recently
 
Danny Bui said:
The S3 will still let you overclock, althought just not as high as the DS3 can. But even so, the S3 can overclock pretty well. Here's a thread about overclocking the S3:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1146164

No, the G.Skill RAM you chose does not have D9 chips. However, they are capable of a minor overclock. They max out at around 425 to 450Mhz.

Oh you can save $5 if you go with this hard drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s - $55

It has a five year warranty compared to the Western Digital's 3 year warranty.
Click to expand...

Thanks a ton for the hard drive. I think I'll stick with the G.Skills I have currently, I wont be doing much overclocking until I get more experienced at it.

EDIT: That HDD is 8mb cache while the others 16mb. Thanks anyways.
 
anvl said:
Thanks a ton for the hard drive. I think I'll stick with the G.Skills I have currently, I wont be doing much overclocking until I get more experienced at it.

EDIT: That HDD is 8mb cache while the others 16mb. Thanks anyways.
Click to expand...

For what you'll be doing, you don't need to OC... nor do you need a C2D, but thats besides the point. OC it later, when it starts to feel like a slow computer, lol.

WD2500KS: 52MB/s (250GB 16MB Cache SATA300)
WD1600JS: 52MB/s (160GB 8MB Cache SATA300)

The cache size doesnt matter as much as you think. Also, go with an AAKS drive instead of a YS drive, since the YS drives are optimized for RAID array usage. The enterprise drives have error correction turned off (done by the raid controller), so you may or may not run into some issues using the drive as a standalone desktop drive. The AAKS (Caviar SE16) drives are supposedly the same drives with error correction turned on.
 
enginurd said:
For what you'll be doing, you don't need to OC... nor do you need a C2D, but thats besides the point. OC it later, when it starts to feel like a slow computer, lol.

WD2500KS: 52MB/s (250GB 16MB Cache SATA300)
WD1600JS: 52MB/s (160GB 8MB Cache SATA300)

The cache size doesnt matter as much as you think. Also, go with an AAKS drive instead of a YS drive, since the YS drives are optimized for RAID array usage. The enterprise drives have error correction turned off (done by the raid controller), so you may or may not run into some issues using the drive as a standalone desktop drive. The AAKS (Caviar SE16) drives are supposedly the same drives with error correction turned on.
Click to expand...

Since the WD1600YS is a RAID drive it won't work for me?
So I'd be better off going with the WD1600JS or WD2500KS?
 
anvl said:
Since the WD1600YS is a RAID drive it won't work for me?
So I'd be better off going with the WD1600JS or WD2500KS?
Click to expand...

It'll work but you may or may not experience some problems since error correcting is turned off. So go with either the Seagate 7200.10 hard drive I recommended earlier or another Western Digital 160GB drive.
 
Danny Bui said:
It'll work but you may or may not experience some problems since error correcting is turned off. So go with either the Seagate 7200.10 hard drive I recommended earlier or another Western Digital 160GB drive.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks, I'll probably switch to that seagate.
 
Citizen86 said:
If you're going to use the MIR on the video card, that's probably a pretty good deal. Depending on if you're playing games though, especially some newer ones, you might want to check out the prices on a 7600GT or 7800GS... personally if I was building a new cheapo computer, since I play games, I would get an X1950Pro... but that's ~$100 more than what you're looking at....

I wasn't looking to spend a ton of cash on my new rig either, but this is what I got in my sig. I really like it.... I can max out every game I have ;)

Edit: Here's a 7600GT for $90 AR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

An X1950GT is a really good buy at $130, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102022, you might be able to overclock it to PRO speeds.
Click to expand...

these are better deals
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161060
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130056

anvl said:
I'm not a video card techie but ..

8500GT -
Core Clock 450Mhz
Memory Clock 400MHz
Memory Size 256MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR2

6600GT - 525MHz (vs. 500MHz standard)
Memory Clock 1050MHz (vs. 1000MHz standard)
Memory Size 128MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR3

The 6600GT has way higher speeds plus it uses GDDR3 memory .. Not sure what that means but higher numbers usually win right?
Click to expand...

remember that the 8500gt has more shader processors

Tzzird said:
The 6600GT was the midrange champ about 2 years ago. That title was taken from them almost a year ago with the 7600GT. $40 AR for the 6600GT sounds awesome for someone who just needs a simple card for now. If you're going to spend around $100 though, Keep in mind that the 7600GT will give you better performance than the 8500GT, it just won't support directx 10.

In my opinion though, if you want a card that can play dx10 games, wouldn't you want a really good one rather than the low man on the totem pole? If that rebate goes well for you, it would be a great card to have for the time being. You can play games 2 years and older just fine. Some of the more recent ones will lag.
Click to expand...
buying a 8500gt just for dx10 games is not a good idea IMO, since it cant even run dx9 games properly

anvl said:
So its worth getting the 8500GT just for watching movies?
Click to expand...

u will be fine with 6600gt+e6420. the 8500gt will, however offload your processor when watching HDTV content
anvl said:
Browsing the web
Watching movies
Listening to music

Nothing that would require a beauty like the e6420 but I just want it, you know when you want something you got to have it so I'm not really budging on that haha. About overclocking I'm afraid of many things primarily needing a huge cooling system with loud fans and burning out my mobo/cpu because I've never done anything of the sort and I cant afford to mess up $500 of equipment.
Click to expand...

u might want an x-fi soundcard? it will still fit in your budget
and yes, the e6420 is overkill for your budget and uses

anvl said:
Ok thanks, I'll probably switch to that seagate.
Click to expand...
yep. and since u are watching movies/music, u might want even more space (320gb version for $80)



edit: ziddey has already mentioned most of my comments, even in more detail than i did. i was, however skimming through the thread so i didnt notice wut he said (he writes too much so i just move on, lol)
 
Abu Som3a said:
these are better deals
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161060
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130056



remember that the 8500gt has more shader processors


buying a 8500gt just for dx10 games is not a good idea IMO, since it cant even run dx9 games properly



u will be fine with 6600gt+e6420. the 8500gt will, however offload your processor when watching HDTV content


u might want an x-fi soundcard? it will still fit in your budget
and yes, the e6420 is overkill for your budget and uses


yep. and since u are watching movies/music, u might want even more space (320gb version for $80)



edit: ziddey has already mentioned most of my comments, even in more detail than i did. i was, however skimming through the thread so i didnt notice wut he said (he writes too much so i just move on, lol)
Click to expand...

Could you link me to the soundcard? Will it make a noticeable difference in sound? I have movies on dvds so I wont need anymore hard drive space.
 
If you're an audiophile, then yes it will make a slight difference. However, since you have a limited budget, I say don't get a sound card. The onboard audio on the S3 is a pretty good audio solution.
 
I agree, if you don't have nice speakers to take advantage of a nice soundcard, then don't bother... the onboard HD audio should be fine.
 
Yeah my speakers are bottom of the barrel things, I'm still looking for a case though, anyone know a good cheap one?

Black and decent looking
 
Danny Bui said:
If you're an audiophile, then yes it will make a slight difference. However, since you have a limited budget, I say don't get a sound card. The onboard audio on the S3 is a pretty good audio solution.
Click to expand...

enginurd said:
I agree, if you don't have nice speakers to take advantage of a nice soundcard, then don't bother... the onboard HD audio should be fine.
Click to expand...

anvl said:
Yeah my speakers are bottom of the barrel things, I'm still looking for a case though, anyone know a good cheap one?

Black and decent looking
Click to expand...

he put 'listening to music' on top of his activities so i thought it was a priority <<<< stupid and lame excuse lol
yes i believe on-board audio isnt bad at all, and i personally wouldnt buy a soundcard except for eax support. but since he is mostly into movies.music, he will appreciate it
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-341-9.htm

simply stated: i dunno why he wants such high end hardware for such simple tasks. my 2.4c northwood setup can do wut he wants quite comfortably
actually the sound card (or better speakers) will give better value than the e6420, which forms a third of his budget. at the least he could save his money and get a better monitor, or just keep the money in his pocket
 
Abu Som3a said:
he put 'listening to music' on top of his activities so i thought it was a priority <<<< stupid and lame excuse lol
yes i believe on-board audio isnt bad at all, and i personally wouldnt buy a soundcard except for eax support. but since he is mostly into movies.music, he will appreciate it
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-341-9.htm

simply stated: i dunno why he wants such high end hardware for such simple tasks. my 2.4c northwood setup can do wut he wants quite comfortably
actually the sound card (or better speakers) will give better value than the e6420, which forms a third of his budget. at the least he could save his money and get a better monitor, or just keep the money in his pocket
Click to expand...

Wow thanks for the awesome review, I'll skip the soundcard then. This build as we call it would be more of a upgrade, I want a good solid cpu that will last well into the next 10 years (I upgrade every 5-6 years so my current machine is crying to be sent away) and the speeds and cache of the e6420 seem to fit my needs perfectly. Besides for what I'll be using the computer for the cpu and memory will be the biggest part of the computer as far as preformance is concerned.

As for those cases I was wondering if theres anything similar to the aluminius I posed. I've looked through the entire newegg inventory that fit my needs and none of them appeal to what I need. I won't mind spending ~$60 for a quality case.
 
That Ultra Aluminus case is your standard Antec Full Tower Server case knockoff. Apevia and Thermaltake have their own flavors of that knockoff as well as Chenming (and a whole bunch of others).
 
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