First build in 5+ years; advice much appreciated.

JadeMonkeyStang

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 7, 2001
Messages
497
Wow. It hurts admitting that I haven't built a machine in more than half a decade. I'm finally getting back into the system building game and am looking forward to getting my new rig setup but would still appreciate some advice. I've done a good bit of research lately and think this should be pretty solid but would like to have some other eyes take a look and see if there is anything I have overlooked. Deciding which memory to get is what I could use the most help with. I'll be going for stable overclock on the Q6600, nothing to aggresive but I do want to see what she can do. I would also like the machine to run as quietly as possible but still not have to worry about heat issues during extended gaming/folding sessions. I have two 24" LG L246WP(BN) LCDs running at 1920x1200 and will be gaming a bit. I don't need all the eye candy but would like to be able to run most games smoothly for the foreseeable future. For now the X360 keeps me happy but who knows what the case will be once I have a decent gaming PC again.

Thanks in advance everyone.


Rocketfish™ - Aluminum Full-Tower Case - Black
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8428604&type=product&id=1183160363476
$47.99 (Purchased - Best Buy B&M)

Corsair 620w SLI Certified Modular ATX Power Supply - CMPSU-620HX
http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-620w-sli-certified-modular-atx-power-supply/q/loc/101/203270718.html
$114.99 (Purchased - Buy.com)

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
$199.99 (Purchased - Microcenter)

EVGA 512-P3-N841-A3 GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130312
$249.99 - 5% = 237.49 - $30MIR = $207.49 (Purchased - Buy.com)

MSI P7N Diamond LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard with SoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Audio - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16813130158
$259.99 - $30MIR = $229.99 (Purchased - Newegg)

XIGMATEK HDT-D1264 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233004
$34.99 - $15MIR - $19.99 (Purchased - Newegg)

OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227269
$96.99 - $30MIR = $66.99 (Purchased - Newegg)


Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
$129.99 - OOS @ Newegg


Thanks again all.

-Jade
 
Dual 1920x1200 for day to day work? Any games at all?

You can step it down to a 9600GT or 8800GT for that, 8800GTS 512 is fine, and is much cheaper than it use to be ($300-350 lol). If you want something more extreme for graphics the 8800GTX and 9800GX2 come to mind.

Also, if you are only running a single card, you do not need a 780i board, stick with P35 or X38.

EDIT: I'd pick the Patriot memory personally. Looks good, good cas, cheap. The Giel is on auto-notify right now too.
 
Heh, Crysis and an 8800GTS 512MB for $230AR? No wonder its OOS. Go for the one without Crysis, the N841-AR.

I'd go with some A-Data RAM instead, and avoid rebates all together. It's low voltage and can OC quite well, or so I've heard.
$78 - A-DATA 4GB(2x2GB) DDR2-800 ADQVE1B16K

You won't notice the difference between CL4 and CL5, unless you're running benchmarks (and even then, its negligible), so don't pay a huge price premium for lower latency.
 
TBH, I would just go for the cheapest memory kit available, they all will overclock fine. THe A-DATA stuff is decent, and quite a few people have recommend their kits in the past. Latency is really overrated, I don't really know why the manufacturers even bother making identical memory kits and changing the timings. They are the exact same kits.

Not really much that can be said for the parts that you have selected, you seem to have chosen all the right stuff, not much can really be improved.
 
Dual 1920x1200 for day to day work? Any games at all?

You can step it down to a 9600GT or 8800GT for that, 8800GTS 512 is fine, and is much cheaper than it use to be ($300-350 lol). If you want something more extreme for graphics the 8800GTX and 9800GX2 come to mind.

Also, if you are only running a single card, you do not need a 780i board, stick with P35 or X38.

EDIT: I'd pick the Patriot memory personally. Looks good, good cas, cheap. The Giel is on auto-notify right now too.

For now most of my gaming is done on the X360. That may change once I have a gaming capable machine again, which is why I am going with the EVGA 8800GTS (for the step-up option in case I want to make the jump to the 9800GX2) and the MSI P7N (for SLI down the road if/when I want more).

I guess the memory decision isn't that Crucial (ha ha) then? Latency used to be a big deal but I guess it no longer matters. I have heard a few places that going past DDR2 800 was a waste for a Q6600 but not too much addressing latency.

Any advice on the CPU cooler? Does anyone know of mounting issues with this mobo? Any other coolers that might be a better deal. I'm hoping to run this machine as quietly as possible while still getting good temps.

What about a hard drive?

-Jade
 
Go with the 120mm Xigmatek if you want a high OC. 120mm fans also typically run quieter than 92mm fans. I don't know for a fact that it will fit on that board, but someone else can chime in on that.

For the HDD, look for the WD6400AAKS... it uses the new 320GB platters, which make them pretty damn fast. Cache size impacts performance less than platter density.
 
I have edited my original post to reflect what I decided to purchase last night. Thankfully the 8800GTS deal at Buy.com was still good after a little server issue so I picked one of those up as well. Now I have everything I need for the new build aside from the hard drive (anyone know a good place to order a WD WD6400AAKS from? Newegg is OOS.) and optical drive (which I will be getting from a friend).

Thanks to everyone for your help, advice, and mostly for reassurance that I wasn't completely off base with the components I had selected for my build. I'll be sure to throw up some pics and impressions of the new system once everything shows up and I get it all together.

Thanks again.

-Jade
 
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