A new Intel system for xmas

[lordsaytor]

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6300
MSI 975X Platinum V.2
Nvidia 8800GTS
OCZ2P8002GK 2x1G DDR2-800 Platinum
Antec Performance P180 Aluminum Mid-Tower
Enermax Liberty 500W ATX Power Supply
Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Music 24BIT Sound Card
Seagate 250G SATA II Hard Drive
Zalman 9500/9700

I want to try a little bit of overclocking, which is why I will purchase the Zalman fan and the OCZ platinum ram.

Does anyone have any comments about any of the components?

 

[Accord99]

A P965 based motherboard that has the ability to hit higher FSBs would probably be better for a low-multiplier chip like the E6300. The big tower heatsinks like the Scythe Infinity and Thermalright Ultra-120 are probably better than the 9700 in terms of cooling, noise and cost.

 

[tshen83]

i also think the P965 is a better deal. Gigabyte DS3 might be a good fit.
NVidia 7900GS might be a better price/performance choice.
X-FI sucks.. get this one: CMI8788 based X-Meridian from Auzentech or the bluegears equivalent. Realtime DTS encoding!!! yeah baby

 

[dBTelos]

Good pick on the PSU

 

[Blain]

Spens a fraction more and get the E6400.
Remember that Gigabyte MBs like lower voltage DIMMs. :roll:

 

[lordsaytor]

Lower voltage DIMMS?? I am somewhat retarded when it comes to technical terms like that.
Are you suggesting I get a different type of memory?

 

[lordsaytor]

As for the mobo, I think Anandtech or Tom's hardware recommends the MSI, and it's fairly cheap at 185dollars at my local retailer.

 

[Duvie]

I know that is in canadian money but in the states we can get the S3 mobo (a better options then the DS3 cause you coudl get an older revision mobo with issues) for 116.00.....I am not familiar with the exchange rates but I am sure this wouldn't equal more then 140 canadian money.....

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Duvie
I know that is in canadian money but in the states we can get the S3 mobo (a better options then the DS3 cause you coudl get an older revision mobo with issues) for 116.00.....I am not familiar with the exchange rates but I am sure this wouldn't equal more then 140 canadian money.....

I'd be sure of the same thing, except we get ****** up the ass here in Canada when it comes to pricing :frown:

$157.55 CND
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?...70&vpn=GA-965P-S3&manufacture=Gigabyte

I do agree with going with a P965 chipset over 975X though for sure, especially when coupled with an E6300.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: lordsaytor
Lower voltage DIMMS?? I am somewhat retarded when it comes to technical terms like that.
Are you suggesting I get a different type of memory?

Lower voltage DIMMs default at 1.8v. Some of the "high performance" modules, like the OCZ PC2-6400 EL Platinum kit use a default voltage of 2.1v.

 

[lordsaytor]

Okay. I'm going to do a little reading on the Gigabyte motherboards first. And if you guys recommend getting lower voltage DIMMS, then perhaps I will get the OCZ DDR2-667 Gold 2gb kit which is rated at 1.9V

Now help me out because I'm somewhat confused. There are five Gigabyte 965 MBs. GA-965P-DS4 GA-965P-DQ6 GA-965P-DS3
GA-965P-S3 GA-965G-DS3

Now which one are you exactly recommending?

And it seems they will provide support for quad-cores, which is kind of cool even if I don't plan on buying a quadcore cpu.

 

[Juno]

can i have your old amd rig for christmas?

 

[lordsaytor]

It's actually going to be my cousin's xmas present since he still runs a P3 and can't play anything except CS 1.6 and Warcraft 3 or older.

One more question. I want the MSI mobo because if I get the X1950 XTX, I can possibly in the near future get another one and run it in crossfire. Or do you guys think that SLI and Crossfire is a waste of money?
That is a concern because the Gigabyte mobos I believe have only one PCI express x16 slot.

 

[Baked]

Don't listen to that guy. OCZ Platinum boots fine on the Gigabyte DS3. DS3's default RAM voltage is 1.9V, and that's enough to boot up the OCZ Platinum RAM.

 

[lordsaytor]

Okay. Well at my local retailer, the OCZ Platinum and the Gold are only ten dollars apart. Thats why I opted to get the platinum in the first place.

And in a sudden change, I have decided not to get the Sapphire X1950XTX, but rather the new Nvidia 8800GTS vidcard!
Now given this situation, do you guys still recommend getting the Gigabyte DS3 or S3 mobos?
I still want to get the e6300 since it's cheap and anandtech has said it can be OCed to be as fast as AMD's FX cpus.

 

[Baked]

Get the DS3 mobo. Lots of people have this mobo and you'll get better support. DS3 also has more and faster BIOS updates. Don't believe everything you read in Anandtech's reviews. I was made to believe the E6600 can get to 4GHz w/o breaking a sweat. Turns out that's not the case at all when people started buying it. The thing is review sites, especially huge ones like Anandtech has a lot of influence on what consumers buy, and lets just say companies tend to ship out the best of the best samples to these review sites. The E6400 is a lot easier to OC because it has a 8x multiplier. With the DDR2 800 RAM, you can easily OC to 3.2GHz right outta the box. If you want to jack up the RAM to higher speeds, just lower the multiplier to 7x and go from there. You're limited to 7x and lower multiplier w/ the E6300. The E6400 is just more flexible.