# New Build, Gathering Parts.



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

added more items today.


ok my new build is getting underway and thought id keep people informed of my progress. as of yet im only buying parts as and when i can so this maybe a sluggish process but the sale of my pc should be happening soon to give me the rest of the funds i need.

been on ebay and got myself some things already

item 1 : http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=7223 thermaltake mambo case (£42.90 inc delivery)

item 2 : http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/512MB-ADATA-D...8QQihZ011QQcategoryZ44938QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem 2x adata 512mb ddr2 800mhz (£67.94 inc delivery)

item 3: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....rch.dll?from=R40&satitle=260067074187++&fvi=1 420w ocz powerstream psu 1x12v rail @ 30a  (£20.49 inc delivery bargain  )

item 4: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....earch.dll?from=R40&satitle=180069158550&fvi=1  WD40gb sata hdd 2mb cache, backup drive but i may just keep it to start with for a week or 2 and with the xtra money i was going to spend on a hdd can go to the mobo or gfx (£14.00 inc delivery)

item 5: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119203 sapphire x1950pro 256mb ddr3 dual-dvi £116.99 (inc VAT)

item 6: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=112704 core2duo E6300 retail boxed, needs no xplaining £119.98 (inc VAT)

item 7: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=346062 decided to opt for this foxconn Foxconn 975X7AA crossfire board over the asus p5b £104.56 (Inc VAT)

(EDIT: seen reviews of the ram, looks good to me v nice price might i add )

as DOM_ATI....  states below, here are the reviews of the ram on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16820211064


looking to build 

e6300, mobo (unsure of yet), x1950pro, 1gb ddr2, 120-250gb (dependant on funds ) hdd, optical etc.


----------



## DOM (Dec 29, 2006)

are you going to buy your x1950pro new? are you going to use CF? or just one card cuz how much more would it be to get a 1950XT?

heres some  Customer Reviews from newegg bout your ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16820211064


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

x1950 is my max spend i cant stretch any further and i wont be going cf but its gonna be a hell of a step up from my x1600pro

p.s what did you think of that ram ? look any good, bad ? theres hardly any info on the net about it at all, im presuming its quite new. EDIT: nm just read ur WHOLE post this time lol


----------



## xvi (Dec 29, 2006)

I'd move to an e6400 and look at a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB. The rest is up to you.

Here is a good tool to compare video cards. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

xvi said:


> I'd move to an e6400 and look at a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB. The rest is up to you.
> 
> Here is a good tool to compare video cards. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html



as stated above im on a very tight budget, if i could afford anymore i would consider a different spec, but as i cant im quite happy with what is set out above.


----------



## xvi (Dec 29, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> as stated above im on a very tight budget, if i could afford anymore i would consider a different spec, but as i cant im quite happy with what is set out above.



The reason why I mentioned the E6400 is that it has a 4MB shared L2 compared to the E6300's 2MB shared. You can always overclock later on, but you can't add L2.
The reason why I mentioned the Seagate is because of perpendicular recording. My two drives in RAID report being roughly 20MB/s faster than two WD 10K Raptors in RAID. The Raptors were on SATA II compared to the Seagates on SATA.
WD Raptor? ~$200
Seagate Barracuda? $75


----------



## DOM (Dec 29, 2006)

xvi said:


> The reason why I mentioned the E6400 is that it has a 4MB shared L2 compared to the E6300's 2MB shared. You can always overclock later on, but you can't add L2.
> The reason why I mentioned the Seagate is because of perpendicular recording. My two drives in RAID report being roughly 20MB/s faster than two WD 10K Raptors in RAID. The Raptors were on SATA II compared to the Seagates on SATA.
> WD Raptor? ~$200
> Seagate Barracuda? $75



 E6400 has 2MB like the E6300   and I have one so dont tell that im wrong  

well on the HD's I dont know about them


----------



## xvi (Dec 29, 2006)

DOM_ATI_X800XL_PCI-E said:


> E6400 has 2MB like the E6300   and I have one so dont tell that im wrong



Really? Huh.. I could of sworn the 6400 had 4MB L2. That's what I get for being an AMD guy, I suppose.

My advice overall? If you're making a budget build, buy a good motherboard and a good processor. Buy half of the RAM you want (but make sure you buy matched pairs if you're doing dual channel. For example, buy 2x512 or 2x256 of something good. It's hard to find the exact same stick of memory if you only buy one.

Skimp on anything that can be added later or cheaply replaced. Examples would be a video card, sound card (use onboard until you buy something better), CD/DVD, etc. I suppose you could skimp on memory, but it might be hard to find somewhere to use it (or someone who will buy it) when you're done.


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

see your point but still havent got the money to go for the e6400 lol


----------



## tkpenalty (Dec 29, 2006)

A cheap Crossfire motherboard that supports conroe would be the DFI 975X/G Infinity (behold teh eps)


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

cheap where is £105 cheap lol


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

just thinking i know i have bought that ddr800 ram, but could i run that in a 945/955 board that supports 1066 fsb and ddr2 667? 

reason one: 945/955 board cheaper, (i know people keep telling me to spend more on the motherboard but this build is gonna be very tight on funds and i can upgrade the mobo later)

reason 2: run ram at lower speed, get possible higher oc on cpu without pushing the ram too high.


----------



## Wile E (Dec 29, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> reason 2: run ram at lower speed, get possible higher oc on cpu without pushing the ram too high.


You can do that with the 965/975 chipsets as well. You just have to change the ram divider. I really like the Asus P5B Deluxe personally. It's a great clocker. 

If that's out of your range, and dual video cards doesn't concern you the P5B-E may be a good choice. You'll want to try to get a later revision, however, as the Vdimm only goes to 2.1V on the earlier ones. The MSI P965 Platinum might be another good choice, tho I'm not sure it clocks.

If overclocking is a major concern, there are quite of few 965P based boards that will clock well. A lot at budget prices, too. Asus is just a personal favorite for me. I say stick with the 965P chipset. Just research the board before you purchase it. Good voltage and ram latency adjustments are a high priority for an overclocking board. I would also suggest sticking with one with the ICH8*R* or ICH8*DH* southbridge. They have RAID functions built in, the other ICH8 southbridges don't.


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

Wile E said:


> You can do that with the 965/975 chipsets as well. You just have to change the ram divider. I really like the Asus P5B Deluxe personally. It's a great clocker.
> .



read reason 1


----------



## Wile E (Dec 29, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> read reason 1


MSI P965 still out of your range? Maybe ECS makes a nice P965 budget board? I wouldn't expect the ECS to clock very high, however. But it could get you in the door, so to speak. Give me a budget (preferably in $US, but i'll convert it if I have to. lol) and I'll try to find something.


----------



## francis511 (Dec 29, 2006)

had a look at the biostar tforce p965t ?(mobo)


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

all the uk stores ive looked at the 965* chipsets seem to be £75+ which is a tad too high than what ive budgeted for, just for now anyway, i can make do with a cheap board and upgrade that soon but i cant afford a decent one as of yet (dam 800mhz ram lol should have bought mobo first and the ram based on that but i was blinded by the nice price for ddr800  ) 

so im probably going to go for a 945/955 board although it will only run the ram at 667 it should be fine when i oc as i wont be running the ram higher than the rated cause it will start out as 667 and i should in theory get a good stable oc

P.S items updated above.


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 29, 2006)

ok think ive found a cheap motherboard its the asus p5v-vm not great for now but supports 1066fsb and should run my ram at 667mhz giving me lots of room for oc, although i probably wont be able to get much past 2.4 with this board but thats fine compared to my x2 3800+ 

(  3800+ ahhh the good times we had together, do you remember when we encoded our first dvd ? the surprise in our eyes at the time it took  they were good days, but now alas i feel its time to move on  )


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 31, 2006)

updated items above, nearly there people


----------



## xvi (Dec 31, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> just thinking i know i have bought that ddr800 ram, but could i run that in a 945/955 board that supports 1066 fsb and ddr2 667?
> 
> reason 2: run ram at lower speed, get possible higher oc on cpu without pushing the ram too high.



Slower memory operates at lower latencies than faster memory. The lower latencies (even at the slower DDR2 speed) put just as much stress on the chips as the higher latency, faster memory. The CAS latency on that chip is 5. In the same price range, you can find chips such as..

PNY VERTO 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200)
CAS latency of 4.

Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 400 (PC2 3200)
CAS latency of 3.

All of them can be overclocked to about the same speed simply because the only difference in those chips are the trade-off between FSB and Latency. All in all, the only thing that really matters is that you have some decent memory that matches the FSB of your CPU. You can take any ol' stick of memory and overclock it, but only the good memory will overclock while still holding reasonable latencies.


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 31, 2006)

xvi said:


> Slower memory operates at lower latencies than faster memory. The lower latencies (even at the slower DDR2 speed) put just as much stress on the chips as the higher latency, faster memory. The CAS latency on that chip is 5. In the same price range, you can find chips such as..
> 
> PNY VERTO 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200)
> CAS latency of 4.
> ...



just to update im not gonna bother with a 945 chipset ill be getting a 965 to run my ram at the rated fsb

i really wouldnt like to try pushing value ram at 533 let alone 400 to 800fsb even if i did change the latencie, the way i see it i might even get away with 4.4.4.12 800 with the ram ive bought


----------



## xvi (Dec 31, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> just to update im not gonna bother with a 945 chipset ill be getting a 965 to run my ram at the rated fsb
> 
> i really wouldnt like to try pushing value ram at 533 let alone 400 to 800fsb even if i did change the latencie, the way i see it i might even get away with 4.4.4.12 800 with the ram ive bought



The specs look alright, but I wouldn't expect much from AData. Doesn't that Core 2 Duo run at 266 FSB? 233 FSB? Hopefully, it's 266. That'll give you 1:1, but it's hard to say if you'll be able to push it down to 4-4-4-12. Not without voltage, anyways.


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 31, 2006)

xvi said:


> The specs look alright, but I wouldn't expect much from AData. Doesn't that Core 2 Duo run at 266 FSB? 233 FSB? Hopefully, it's 266. That'll give you 1:1, but it's hard to say if you'll be able to push it down to 4-4-4-12. Not without voltage, anyways.



read the reviews on the ram at least 20 and only gave it less than 5 stars, a lot of people running at 4.4.4.12 stock voltage or maybe 1.9

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16820211064


----------



## xvi (Dec 31, 2006)

Huh.. Maybe I'm just too used to original DDR. *shakes fist at PC3200*


----------



## Wile E (Dec 31, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> just to update im not gonna bother with a 945 chipset ill be getting a 965 to run my ram at the rated fsb
> 
> i really wouldnt like to try pushing value ram at 533 let alone 400 to 800fsb even if i did change the latencie, the way i see it i might even get away with 4.4.4.12 800 with the ram ive bought


Glad you decided to go with a 965 board, the 945 wouldn't have done your combo any justice. What boards you looking at?


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 31, 2006)

Wile E said:


> Glad you decided to go with a 965 board, the 945 wouldn't have done your combo any justice. What boards you looking at?



looking at the asus p5b although depending on how well my pc sells on ebay i might be able to stretch to the p5b-deluxe (though not counting on it )


----------



## Wile E (Dec 31, 2006)

Deluxe is an excellent choice, if not I recommend the p5b-e. Just make sure it's a later revision that supports more than the 2.1V Vdimm of the earlier revisions.


----------



## xman2007 (Dec 31, 2006)

do i need it to support 2.1v if my rams 1.8 or do you mean for oc'n cause 1.8 to 2.1 seems a tad high 3v mem oc


----------



## Wile E (Dec 31, 2006)

xman2007 said:


> do i need it to support 2.1v if my rams 1.8 or do you mean for oc'n cause 1.8 to 2.1 seems a tad high 3v mem oc


More than 2.1 is for overclocking. My board is only good for 2.15V, and my sticks are rated 4-4-4-12 800MHz at 2.1V. I can only reach 5-5-5-15 947MHz @ 2.15V. I've seen others hit 1050-1080 with these with 5-5-5-15 2.3V. Most DDR2 ram can handle 2.3V with relative ease. In fact, most of the CAS4 800MHz DDR2 is nothing more than over-volted CAS5 800MHz sticks. If you plan on reaching 450 - 500 FSB, more than 2.1V Vdimm may be necessary to run your ram at decent timings. At stock ram speeds, 2.0 - 2.1V will probably allow you to reach 4-4-4-12 timings. The 2.3V the later revisions of the P5B-E offer, would probably let you achieve more than 1000MHz on the ram. Just be sure to get a fan on them, to be on the safe side. Even if you don't want to overclock your ram that much, if you ever want to buy ram that's certified for more than 1000MHz, most of them require more than 2.1V


----------

