Building a new system. Opinions Please!

Opinions on the following components would be grateful:

CPU - Core 2 Duo E6600 2.40GHz
Motherboard - Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi/AP
RAM - Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - CL4-4-4-12 or OCZ 2GB DDR2 800 Platinum XTC Revision 2 CL 4-4-4-15
HDD - Seagate 320GB, 7200.10, SATA2, 16MB Cache
CPU cooler - Zalman CNPS9500 LED
Graphics - XFX GeForce 8800 GTS XXX 640MB or XFX GeForce 8800 GTX XXX 768MB

I already have a 250GB SATA2 Western Digital HDD to use for the OS drive, a Liteon Dual Layer DVD RW and a Seasonic M12 600w PSU.

Queries

1. Which of the above is the better RAM, the OCZ or Corsair? Any other suggestions for DDR2 800?

2. I intend to overclock the CPU to around 3GHz. What CPU/RAM settings in the BIOS are best to use to achieve this? I'd like to achieve a 1:1 ratio.

3. If I don't intend to use resolutions in games higher than 1600x1200 is it worth getting the 8800 GTX 768MB or should I save some money and get the 8800 GTS 640MB? I'm worried that the GTX would be too fast for the rest of the system. Would the overclocking help eliminate this?

 

OCZ and Corsair are both really great, i'd say it really comes down to which one your prefer. No the GTX won't be to fast, its probably a really good investment, and should last a good amount of time. Also, not sure if your really big into Nvidia, but ATI's cards are suppose to rock, so it might be worse waiting until they comes out. But your system looks pretty good, except the only thing i would change would be your motherboard. how much do you want to spend on a mainboard, and i wouldn't really over overlook it especially if you want to overclock your processor.

 

Thanks for the reply Swansen.

With regards to the RAM, I don't really have a preference. The Corsair looks a bit faster at 4-4-4-12 and I see a lot of reviewers use it in their test systems but on the other hand I've seen a few people have faults with them and they say they use Promos chips which aren't that good.

On the other hand the OCZ RAM appears almost the same at 4-4-4-15 (is there much difference in speed betweet 12 & 15?), the reviews are good and I haven't seen anyone have issues with them. They might be the safer bet?

With regards to the GTX, you don't think it would cause a CPU bottleneck if the CPU is at 3GHz? I'm sure I read somewhere it could be an issue.
I've already had 2 ATi cards and they've been great, it's just that there aren't any ATi DX10 cards out yet and they aren't due till May I've heard. Will they be that much better? NVidia also have 8900s coming out!

As for the motherboard, I'm looking for something close to the £120 mark. The reviews have been good for the Asus WiFi/AP, it apparently overclocks well and has 8 phase power. Which boards can you suggest I look at?

 

I ordered my Gainward Bliss 8800GTS 640mb last night, I think it will last plenty long enough, if you dont want to spend money on the GTS, get GTS, I think you will be happy . Apprently even the latest CPU's will bottleneck an 8800GTX but I dont think it will .

 

Money would not be the issue, I'm looking for best performance in relation to the rest of the setup and the settings I would be using.

 

Well then, if you got money to throw around , go for the GTX .

I think your CPU will also overclock allot higher than 3Ghz too, but people report overclocking the E6300 so far and it been stable it beats the top of the line C2D, I think there was an article on it on Toms Hardware.

Also, I think if you got the GTX, your gonna have allot of headroom too which is good since the GTX is good all the way up to 1900x1*00, possible even higher when the GTS is also good up to 1900x1*00 but with no AA or AF.

 

lol...yeah I know the GTX is the better card, just want to know if I'm overdoing it getting that as I wont be pushing it to it's limit and that might cause a bottleneck. I used to have a Radeon 9000 on a P4 2.4 533FSB and felt the card was maybe too slow and caused games to slow down at times. Don't want something similar again.

I'm new to overclocking so any advice would be cool. I'm getting a decent CPU cooler to help and I have 3x 80mm fans in my case and a Seasonic M12 600 PSU with 120mm fan. I want the E6600 for the 4MB cache. I've seen 3GHz to be a simple and stable overclock.

 

If the CPU is a bottleneck for the graphics card, it basically means that the CPU cant tell the Graphics card what to do fast enough.

Overclocking is easy, make sure you take it easy though, go up in small increments and dont just wack the speed right up to 3ghz, I know my AMD cpu can do 2.8ghz so when I ever reset the Bios, then I wack it up to 2.8ghz, but doing it like that when you dont know what its capable of can be bad, every chip aint exatly the same so all wont overclock as good as others.

 

That's why I'm thinking overclocking will help with the GTX. Am I right?

Do you have some sort of procedure for overclocking? What BIOS settings should be changed and by how much? What tests should be run and for how long? How long would you test for before then raising the settings to overclock higher?

 

I dont think an E6600 C2D will be a Bottleneck tbh even at stock, C2D are awsome cpu's, even the E6300 at stock will beat my overclocked AMD 3700+.

Overclocking with my AMD 3700+ wont be the same for you, there are variables like type of motherboard, bios, and what options there are.

But basically what I did was lowered the HT Multiplyer down to 3x when I noticed it was going over 2ghz, then I slowely upped the FSB Clock, and changed the Memory : CPU ratio (cant remember what it was exatly), but once the memory was at about 420mhz, all was ok, but this almost deffenitly wont be the way you overclock you Intel C2D.

 

Would you know any good sites that have advice on overclocking and the settings to try?

 

Overclockers UK Forums - Overclocking & Cooling < Check on the forums over here, they have some stickys for overclock that could be usefull

http://www.hardwareforums.com/overclock-cooling-sticky-11485/ Check this sticky too.

 

Many thanks!

Any thoughts/suggestions on the rest of the listed hardware?

I see the Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi/AP has a serial port but doesn't have parallel port. What's the best way to connect a parallel device in this case?

 

yeah, sorry i haven't got back, thanks for the help Willz Yeah honestly i would think about getting the sweetest board you can, seriously. Go with whatever manufacturer you can, but get the Nvidia 600 series chipset, they are sweet and are crazy built for overclocking.
for example

 

Good stuff.
Was that link meant to go to a specific item? Because it didn't.

 

Crap, it was suppose to be a link to 600i series boards but it didn't work for some reason??? wow, ok newegg is being really dumb or HWF ether or, but anyways, copy at paste this into your browser minus the forward slash at the beginning and end of the URL and those are what you want to look at

/www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200280%20107171927&name=nVidia%20nForce%20600%20series/

 

Ok that didn't work either but my hotmail notification contained a link and that worked! wierd.

Boards would appear to be more expensive here in the UK. I think those are a bit too pricey.

e.g. the BFG 680i SLI nForce is $280, but here is the equivalent of about $330

Way over what I expect to pay as I don't need SLI capability.
The equivalent of about $220 gets me a decent enough ASUS board with good overclocking capabilities.

I think I need to move to the US! lol

 

if you wanna go cheaper, get an ATI radeon X1300 Pro. its pretty good, but not as crazily strong as some of the others. that and if you have a good RAM and CPU, it all equals out nicely

 

We're talking in a completely different league here. The X1300 is for one, not even directX10 and is not going to be futureproof at all.

Darkstranger I wouldn't worry about a bottleneck at the moment, it's unlikely that you will be pushing the GTX to its limits (at this time). The C2Ds are the best processors around, matched with the best GPUs around you can't go wrong.

 

Depending on how high the res is and AA/AF and other things like that, a GTX can be brought to it's knees, but obviously not very often .

Yea, an X1300 would be the worst move every, hardly any games can be played at max with that, I started to struggle with an X800XTPE which is miles better than any X1300,1600 series of cards, the lowest possible I would go to is an X1900XT 256mb, there very very cheap now.

I have found that when buying an 8800 series card, its mainly for DX9, I really dont think there going to work well with DX10 and there will be something new out by the time DX10 hits, god help people with lower end DX10 cards than a 8800series.