Planning my new badass machine.

[Pilotasso]

Ok folks nearly a month passed since last post and I narrowed the choices down to 3 possible configs:

 

1)

-----------------------------------------------------

CPU:QX6700 QUAD.......................................937.6

RAM:TEAM ELITE 2x1GB DDR2 800 (2GB)...........119.4

MOBO:ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i............................118.6

GFX:EVGA 8800 GTS 320 Superclocked............330

HD:WD 400GB SATA II 16MB RAID(x1)...........126.8

DVD:ASUS DVD Dual layer SATA+NEC SATA.....73.4

BOX:COOLERMASTER STACKER 832................239.9

PSU:LC Power Hyperion 700W.......................102.6

PSU:Tuniq Tower 120..................................44.7

Total........................................................2093

------------------------------------------------------

 

2)

----------------------------------------------------------

CPU:E6700 Dual..........................................307.7

RAM:TEAM ELITE 2x1GB DDR2 800(X2)(4GB).....238.8

MOBO:ASUS P5N32-E 680i SLI.......................219.4

GFX:EVGA 8800 GTS 640 Superclocked............439.9

HD:WD 500GB SATA II 16MB RAID(X2).............323.6

DVD:ASUS DVD Dual layer SATA+NEC SATA......73.4

BOX:COOLERMASTER STACKER 832................239.9

PSU:LC Power Hyperion 700W.......................102.6

PSU:Tuniq Tower 120..................................44.7

Total........................................................1990

---------------------------------------------------------

 

3)

---------------------------------------------------------

CPU:Q6600 Quad..........................................508.5

RAM:TEAM ELITE 2x1GB DDR2 800(2GB)............238.8

MOBO:ASUS Commando P695 ..........................217.1

GFX:EVGA 8800 GTS 640 Superclocked............439.9

HD:WD 400GB SATA II 16MB RAID(X2).............263.2

DVD:ASUS DVD Dual layer SATA+NEC SATA......73.4

BOX:COOLERMASTER STACKER 832................239.9

PSU:LC Power Hyperion 700W.......................102.6

PSU:Tuniq Tower 120..................................44.7

Total........................................................1999.1

---------------------------------------------------------

 

 

After carefull deliberation I came to conclusion that 2) and 3) are preferrable to 1) because 2 and 3 are much better equiped to match the CPU and because 3 can be overclocked to QX6700 speeds but the CPU costs half the price. Plus I end up with more money on the pocket after the purchase.

 

Right now the only thing I can change is the MOBO, as the avaiability of the Chipset P35 ASUS P5K Deluxe grows it might be a viable purchase because it officialy suports quad Wolfdale CPU's wich will be launched in Q3 this year. Price is almost identical to the ASUS P5N32-E 680i and the Commando and it looses only SLI capability in favour to crossfire, I dont plan on getting a second card so that it is mostly indifferent to me.

[Pilotasso]

Refresh this thread when the time comes near Pilotasso!

 

Bump...

will start buying parts later this week, but it will only be assembled after 28th may. Thas because I'm buying parts from 2 different shops in my vicinity.

 

Case and GFX are the first to buy. Everything else in one go late next week, the order should take enough time for me to get this months paycheck first (or Ill procastinate :D ) before I pick them up.

[Pilotasso]

Gents I have changed the specs a little. Its been a tremendous work compiling all the info I found on the net this past month and Im finaly bout to lock onto the final specs:

 

---------------------------------------------------------

CPU:Q6600 Quad..........................................508.5

RAM:TEAM ELITE 2x1GB DDR2 800(2GB)............238.8

MOBO:ASUS P5K Deluxe ................................229.9

GFX:EVGA 8800 GTS 640...............................399.9

HD:WD 400GB SATA II 16MB RAID(X2).............263.2

DVD:ASUS DVD Dual layer SATA+NEC SATA......73.4

BOX:COOLERMASTER STACKER 832................239.9

PSU:LC Power Archangel 850W.......................117.7

PSU:Tuniq Tower 120..................................44.7

Total............................................. ...........1987Euros

---------------------------------------------------------

 

I have droped the specs on the GFX because I uped the PSU and MOBO a notch up, The price was inflating everytime I changed my mind :D

[hitman]

The quads are out now? Ill have to look into this. Ill be building me a rig next month when I get my laptop back (hell I might start today if the college keeps parts on hand)...which reminds me...

[Pilotasso]

WHat do you mean "Quads are out now"?! :huh:

[hitman]

Just last month I was looking at an E6400 for a desktop and the e6800 was just a tad bit too pricey for me. Guess Ill look more into it in the future ;)

[christopher m]

E6400

 

You can get E6400 with 2x2Mb cach now.

 

The first models only had 2x1Mb cach.

 

I am looking at an E6600 w/2x2Mb cach for my new machine.

 

I am not going to buy the CPU for another month so I'll prob get an E6700 by

 

that time.

 

Quads are cool but not needed for BS... right ?

 

or for that matter any XP machine will probably not need/use a Quad core ?

 

Regards,

[VMFA-Blaze]

I've got an e6600 in my gameing system, It has very good performance with Lock On, I haven't seen any micro stutters...

 

Quad's are not really necessary with todays games/sims... Save your money and use it for something else....

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[3Sqn_Fudd]

Gents I have changed the specs a little. Its been a tremendous work compiling all the info I found on the net this past month and Im finaly bout to lock onto the final specs:

 

---------------------------------------------------------

CPU:Q6600 Quad..........................................508.5

RAM:TEAM ELITE 2x1GB DDR2 800(2GB)............238.8

MOBO:ASUS P5K Deluxe ................................229.9

GFX:EVGA 8800 GTS 640...............................399.9

HD:WD 400GB SATA II 16MB RAID(X2).............263.2

DVD:ASUS DVD Dual layer SATA+NEC SATA......73.4

BOX:COOLERMASTER STACKER 832................239.9

PSU:LC Power Archangel 850W.......................117.7

PSU:Tuniq Tower 120..................................44.7

Total............................................. ...........1987Euros

---------------------------------------------------------

 

I have droped the specs on the GFX because I uped the PSU and MOBO a notch up, The price was inflating everytime I changed my mind :D

 

 

Perfection except for two things...lol

 

I would still grab a cheaper CPU and grab a penryn/nehalem when it comes out... Especially now that P35 is available...

 

508 euros for the quad? What's a e6420 cost? 210 Euros? Way less than half... use it as a bridge, sell your old chip, and then buy a Penryn/nehalem for 400 (yes it's a guess but I bet i am right) euros.... On aggregate, you've spent the same amount of money to have blistering speed over a longer period of time.

 

A quad is for.....? Video encoding?

 

Every tech person I have ever talked to is dissapointed with their Quads. The only people that absolutely enjoy them are non overclocker who went there straight from a Pentium 4 or Athlon64, and that's because didn't have first hand experience with Conroe or a high end X2.

 

Yes, it is stupid to play the waiting game, but since you happen to be buying a P5K you should get into the scaling game... pairing a P5k with a Quad that will prevent you from buying penryn/nehalem is silly, because as far as i know they are penryn ready.

 

Also, I still say dump the Tuniq and grab a Thermalright Ultra-120 extreme...

 

Big big choices! lol

[Pilotasso]

Thermalright isnt yet avaiable here and their perfomance difference is not that big anyway. Actualy its the E6600 thats being sold here for 215 Euros.

 

My spending impulses are preventing me from going dual core LOL. But I might. I had already dumped the QX6700 and thats halfway there :D

 

Are your tech guys extreme overclockers? I dont do that anyway. I would settle for 3 GHZ and thats it. Half the reason why Im going for P35 Chipset is because it can overclock the FSB on the Quad higher than the 680i Boards wich cant even manage 300MHz with the quad.

I was planning to get mine with 333 FSB for bringing the clock to 3 GHz and pretend I got a new gen QUAD already. :D

 

The other half of the reason for P35 is the fact that I MIGHT (or not) go for penryn too, though not too soon after their launch. This MOBO is there in case i consider such upgrade but i also might as well skip it all together, all other good quality MOBOS are the same price anyway.

 

Edit:

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989&p=8

 

Woohoo aparently Chipset P35 allows what I have been searching for. WOOT! :yay:

[Pilotasso]

I bought the EVGA 8800GTS 640MB Superclocked today, the case and MOBO are on order and due to arrive monday . late next week Ill order the rest.

[hitman]

Bastid...>:P

[3Sqn_Fudd]

I bought the EVGA 8800GTS 640MB Superclocked today, the case and MOBO are on order and due to arrive monday . late next week Ill order the rest.

 

Evga rocks... I just got a 640 back from RMA after doing something to my original one that was super dumb... I didn't think it would pass RMa lol

 

And yes... they are OCers that try to go as high as possible but it has more to do with core usage vs price

[Pilotasso]

Evga rocks... I just got a 640 back from RMA after doing something to my original one that was super dumb... I didn't think it would pass RMa lol

 

And yes... they are OCers that try to go as high as possible but it has more to do with core usage vs price

 

Ill keep mine at stock settings. I will overclock the CPU though, but only as far as I can go with default voltages. I realy hate to mess arround with them.

 

What hapened to your card?

[brewber19]

A quad is useful for other things besides LOMAC and video encoding....Supreme Commander to name (an important) one (to me).

 

Perfection except for two things...lol

A quad is for.....? Video encoding?

 

Having said that I'm upgrading from an X2 4400 to a C2D 6600 with the plan to o/clock it...am hoping to see an improvement in SupComm and it can't hurt lomac either ;)

 

Nice choices Pilotasso...I was toying with getting the Q6600 but decided on a E6600 until the next price drop in August-ish....where the Q6600 should come down again in price (they dropped in April from £580 to £335 but...still a little pricey compared to the E6600 at £145 or whatever it was).

 

Enjoy your new rig, whatever you end up getting, and I hope you feel the benefits from your investment like the rest of us always hope to ;)

 

(P.S. Nice to see another SupComm player ;) shame they dropped DX10 development...guess its just Crysis that'll encourage me to go to Vista <sigh>)

[Pilotasso]

Actualy I do alot of encoding. FLV from patricks is a pain to work through. SlooooOOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOOOoooooooOOw (havent ordered the CPU yet Im still in time to change my mind) :D

 

Sup com is still in the case where it came from. Will try it on my new PC, it would hurt me to do so in this one. Infact my gaming almost came to a screetching halt altogether in anticipation.

 

Cheers and enjoy yours as well. ;)

[VMFA-Blaze]

So Ok ... I've installed the P5N32-E SLI ... And I'm now installing all the software :yay: This is a real bear to do.. And its like that every time...

 

But it's well worth the effort.. As I posted earlier the nvraid is very complicated and it seems to change every time that I install it..

This time when F6 arrived I use a floppy with the raid drivers and also used a CD that came with the hard drives, (I really never had to do this before) but it worked..... LOL

 

But anyway its back up, and better then ever.. I think that they must have changed the bios for better performance... at least that it appears to be..

 

I'm going to cross reference this just to be sure later on... Although It seems to be rock solid on this install.. Tomorrow I'll begin to start installing Lock On and run it at load to see if its still stable... :smilewink:

 

Oh I forgot to mention that today is my birthday...This is without a doubt a cool birthday present, I also got a very nice Sony 750 watt surround sound system with very cool Infinity speakers for when I watch DVD's on the Samsung 32" LCD... Today life is good :megalol:

 

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Kuky]

Well Happy Birthday to you Blaze! :D wish you all the best... and that's some nice birthday present you got there ;)

[VMFA-Blaze]

Pioltasso: Is there any new ideas or recent developments happening with your your planned rig ???

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Pilotasso]

Pioltasso: Is there any new ideas or recent developments happening with your your planned rig ???

 

~S~

 

Blaze

 

The same except the 8800GTS 640MB vanilla I was going to buy but I ended up with the Superclocked version after a spontaneous decision at the store... :D Im aiming at the Quad Q6600 because Im facing the possibility that Penryn might not yeld 40% improvement they are claiming specialy if I overclock mine to 3 GHz without voltage tweaks, in wich case Ill skip dual core and keep the config I posted earlier for the next 3 years safe memory amount a few months from now. Will do the same management as I did for my current system.

 

I might have to change the case as well though. The suplier has ran into a stock shortage. I have one on order but who knows.

 

Ill order the rest of the parts this coming week, whatever they will be :)

[Pilotasso]

Nice choices Pilotasso...I was toying with getting the Q6600 but decided on a E6600 until the next price drop in August-ish....where the Q6600 should come down again in price (they dropped in April from £580 to £335 but...still a little pricey compared to the E6600 at £145 or whatever it was).

 

I was helping my brother out doing him a config for his own new PC and I just reminded of your post... wont buying an E6600 now + Q6600 later spend as much money as buying a single Q6600 now?

 

Here the E6600 is about 200 Euros, believing for what i see on the net about jully 22 prices it will be arround 280ish Euros then. Sum both CPU prices and you end up at the current price of Q6600, i.e. same amount you would spend anyway. SO either you skip it and buy another 1 one year from now or get the Q6600 right away.

 

 

BTW, MOBO and case have arrived. What a monster of a case. I will post pics when I start building it next week.

[VMFA-Blaze]

What was the case that you ordered ??

 

Oh and by the way, I'm going to add the BFG 8800 GTS 640 in SLI, very soon.. I'm selling some stuff on e-bay and things are going well so far.. I might even have enough cash to get the XJS Jag.. :megalol:

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[thereminqblank]

Oh and by the way, I'm going to add the BFG 8800 GTS 640 in SLI, very soon..

 

 

Just my opinion: I think you might be better off getting just one 8800 GTX, instead of the GTS in SLI. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a game within the next year or so that will the GTX won't be able handle and it would cost less than buying two GTS's.

 

Save the extra money you would spend on two GTS and upgrade from the GTX in a year or so...

[Pilotasso]

Plus you can easly buy a new card for that money that smokes your current SLI setup without the need for such power in the mean time anyway.

 

 

OK gents, last parts have been ordered and due to arrive monday. I took the plunge and went with this:

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------

CPU:Q6600 Quad..........................................508. 5

RAM:TEAM ELITE 2x1GB DDR2 800(2GB)............238.8

MOBO:ASUS P5K Deluxe ................................229.9

GFX:EVGA 8800 GTS 640 Superclocked.............439.9

HD:WD 400GB SATA II 16MB RAID(X2).............263.2

DVD:ASUS DVD Dual layer SATA+NEC SATA......73.4

BOX:COOLERMASTER STACKER 832................239.9

PSU:LC Power Archangel 850W.......................117.7

PSU:Tuniq Tower 120..................................44.7

---------------------------------------------------------

 

A guy can only live once, right? :D what the heck (hides face with hand while looking between the fingers at the screen)

[RvETito]

Nice rig :thumbup:

 

What about the monitor? I'll recommend VeiwSonic.