Help on buying a new system

Remove all ads!

Well my old 2.8 GHz P4 and GeForce 5600 just ain't cutting it anymore so I'm getting a new system. I'm currently looking at this system:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz
256MB Gigabyte GeForce 7900GS
Gigabyte 945P-S3 mobo
Kingston 1 GB 667 MHzDDR2

These are the only parts that I think matter. I read you could overclock the E6400 up to 2.88 GHz without any extra cooling system. Also, is the 7900GS any good? It's about the most expensive card I can afford right now.

Looking forward to playing NWN 2 on my new system . Comments welcome.

Edit: Did a little research on overclocking and got confused with the RAM timings. Will I run into any problems if overclock the CPU with a 667MHz Kingston RAM?

[ January 13, 2007, 20:02: Message edited by: Rhythm ]

 

From what I'm able to gather, if you look around a bit, you can get 800 MHz RAM for about as much as 667. Check out the price difference between GS and GT with several vendors and maybe auctions. Here, when I load the "national" auction portal, I can find a GT or for the normal price of a GS, although, of course, I can also find a cheap GS. However, the difference in performance between GS and GT is not that much in case of 7900 - barely noticeable in most games, I guess (lookie: http://www.gph.benchmark.pl/, ask me to translate if you can't figure something out). Radeons x1950pro are quite cheap and powerful also, within the same price division.

Damn, I really ought to switch to PCI-E one day. AGP 7600Gt costs the same as 7900GS and only with luck.

 

I would go for a slightly higher spec system, the next step. Like E6600 as the processor. But you should at least get 2 GB of RAM, it is not that expensive either.

 

Well, being a student I don't really have that big a budget. I'm living in Malaysia so I can't really take advantage of online deals. My budget's RM 3500, which is about 1000 USD. I have pretty much decided on the processor since the E6400 is pretty easy to overclock beyond a stock E6600. I'm thinking of getting another gig of RAM in the future so I'm only buying one stick now to keep the system under budget. Also, the mobo can only support 667MHz sticks. I've decided to get a cheaper VGA card so I can afford a 19" widescreen LCD. I can always upgrade to a DirectX 10 card later. So the new system will look like this...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz ($238)
256MB Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT ($185)
Gigabyte 945P-S3 mobo ($102)
Kingston 1GB 667MHz DDR2 ($110)
Western Digital 250GB 16MB SATA2 ($81)
LG 19" L194W W/screen LCD ($236)

...which amounts to 952 US dollars. That leaves me 48 bucks to get myself a casing with 450W power supply, a decent keyboard and a mouse. If there really is a big difference between a 7600GT and a 7900GS I might consider stretching my budget a little bit (a price difference of about 43 dollars). What do you guys think?

Or I could just scrap this and get myself a PS3 for much less than a grand.

 

Out of the box a 7900GS and a 7600GT perform fairly similarly, the main advantage of the 7900GS is in its ability to overclock. Considering they are very similarly priced (often a 7600GT will set you back more than a 7900GS) and you seem to have no qualms about overclocking I would suggest the 7900GS.
Also to consider is a X1800GTO (if you can get one for around the price of 7600GT, they overclock better). An X1900 GT could also be an option.

You could look at a Core2Duo 6300, after overclocking there shouldn't be too huge a margin between it and the 6400.

PCs offer so much more though - better performance, flexibility, multiplayer, mods etc.

 

Thanks for the input guys. Finally settled on this system:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz
Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT 256MB DDR3
Gigabyte 965P-S3
Corsair XMS2 667MHz DDR2 (512MB x 2)
Western Digital 250GB 16MB SATA2
LG 19" L194W widescreen LCD

The whole set-up, including casing, cost me about 1065 USD. Kinda went a little overbudget, as I wanted a newer motherboard and higher performance RAM than a Kingston. Should've gotten the system by now but my motherboard got stuck at customs (had to order from Taiwan). Meh.

 

Sounds exactly the same as the PC I got last month. Good choice.

 

I is ok for a $1000. Good luck.

 

Yeesh. After the motherboard finally got through customs, the shop I bought the system from 'accidently' sold the casing I reserved so I had to wait another day while they ordered it. I've got the whole thing now though, finally, and I must say that I suck at applying thermal paste. Anyhoo, thanks all for the help. Now all I need to figure out is how to overclock the system. Harbourboy, did you overclock yours?

 

Thermal paste? Get Arctic Silver 5. Don't let the big price of a small tub actually discourage you. In fact, you only need as much as a grain of rice amount of that thermal compound for a processor or whatever it is you want to put a heatsink on (e.g. Northbridge). If you apply it lavishly, it's indeed enough for about 3 doses, but the secret is to use the thin grain of rice amount for Intel and 1.5 times that for AMD - and this is how the Arctic Silver site tells you to do it, no matter what heatsink instructions say. I can verify that because my temps are lower after applying that minuscule amount than they were when I painted up the CPU and heatsink base as it was suggested in the heatsink instructions.

Okay, so as we have thermal compound covered (that alone should reduce your temps by a couple of degrees and with properly applied Arctic Silver 5, that can be even 10 degrees Celsius improvement - which is what I believe I get with my Northbridge), you need to get an appropriate heatsink and fan. On the stock cooler with Arctic Silver 5 and good case cooling (i.e. proper placement of fans), you should be able to overclock a good bit if you have a good flow of air inside the case (e.g. I got 39-40 idle and max 54 load on my Celeron 2.4 with a stock cooler, which isn't (much) worse than what I'm getting on a PIV 2.6c with a Thermalright SLK-947u and an 80mm fan), but you'd better have an aftermarket cooler for more aggressive overclocking. Scythe Infinity, Tuniq Tower etc are reputed to be good coolers. Big Typhoon from Thermaltake is a great one as well. Make sure it's socket 775 compatible. As a rule, you want copper, you want heatpipes, you want a powerful fan that won't kill your ears. However, individual designs do of course differ and some are better in some situations or circumstances (e.g. the kind of airflow in your case) than others are. For example, for a tower cooler, you need a good flow through the case, in the right direction - one of the solutions used is having an intake and an expulsion fan (two total) on the opposing sides of the tower heatsink. For something like a Zalman or a box cooler or a similarly traditional device, you don't depend on it so much, I believe, but it can actually obstruct your airflow direction(s) because of the way it blows. You may or may not want to use an air duct (a whole in your case with a duct to your CPU and an optional fan) to help the fan suck air onto the processor or expel it out of the case - depending how you direct the fan on the traditional cooler. In some cases, the duct can make up to 10 degrees Celsius difference, but for some people it doesn't work - in some situations, it can even make things hotter (it does obstruct airflow). The choice is up to you and you may want to use more competent help than mine. Google for it or PM me for a link if you prefer. Or both.

 

For now I'm sticking with stock cooling and see how much I can get out of the system. I'm waiting for the mid-range DX10 cards to come out before I start overclocking aggressively. I read an article on Anandtech that they managed to boost an E6400 to 2.8GHz on stock cooling so I'm aiming for around that number. Let's see how that turns out. Thanks Chev, Arctic Silver 5 it is.