I want to build a computer, double check my specs please?

[punky]

I want to build another computer. The last one I did was about 3 years ago, so I am a bit out-of-date on computer hardware. For reference, my old computer is a Athlon XP 2000, with a 9600SE. Its just a midge's tit too slow for COD2 and BF2... 2 games I want to play.

Based around that lovely Pentium 805 mega-overclockable processor, I want to do it as cheap as poss, but I don't mind spending a couple of quid here and there extra if its ultimately worth it.

Can everyone just confirm that:

a) Its all compatible (should be, but you never know, and i'm thick anyway).. especially things like FSBs, connections and RAM...

b) The system is well balanced with no components that will bottleneck the system, or waaaay too good, when something more reasonable would be just as good.

I want to play new games like BF2 and COD2 comfortably, and leave a bit of room for future ones... I do intend to overclock it to about 3.6-3.8ghz depending on temps etc.

Anyways, here are the specs (prices are excluding vat):

Processor: Intel (BX80551PE2666FN) Pentium D 805 Dual Core 64 bit LGA 775 2 x 2.66 GHz 2MB (1 Mb per Core) Cache £69.24 (link...)

Cooling: Arctic Cooling (AC-FRZ-7P) Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775 CPU Cooler £17.80 (link...)

Mobo: Asus P5GDC Deluxe Socket-775 I915P ATX - Sound Gb-Lan IEEE1394 USB2 800FSB DDR2/DDR Retail Box (link...)

RAM: Kingston Value Ram 1GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM £45.41 (link...)

Graphics Card: Asus ATI X1600Pro 512MB PCI-E £63.78 (link...)

HD: Seagate ST3200827AS Barracuda 200GB 7200RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM £45.18 (link...)

DVD: LG GSA-4166BB 16X DVD±RW Dual Layer with Lightscribe Internal IDE (Beige)... £19.99 (link...)

Case: Sansun Silver/Black Full Tower ATX Gaming Case with 500W PSU - With Temp Display/Fan Controller/Windowed Side Panel £36.58 (link...)

Complete.. comes to £427 with VAT and shipping.

Many thanx in advance for any & all help guys.

[Marge]

Me thinks that money could/should perhaps be better spent on lovely presents for your girlfriend ????

[Gareth]

I remember something in the thread about the 805 where the RAM chosen was important. Not saying the one you selected isn't gonna be up to the job, but you might want to check it out. IIRC, in the original article at Tom's Hardware they were using some ÃÃâ€*’¼ber geek-tastic Mushkin memory that was way expensive.

Might be worth just spending a few mins going through what Zing amd a few others were saying about the RAM in that thread.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Gareth

I remember something in the thread about the 805 where the RAM chosen was important. Not saying the one you selected isn't gonna be up to the job, but you might want to check it out. IIRC, in the original article at Tom's Hardware they were using some ÃÃâ€*’¼ber geek-tastic Mushkin memory that was way expensive.

Might be worth just spending a few mins going through what Zing amd a few others were saying about the RAM in that thread.

Cheers for the tip mate...

This issue (RAM speeds, FSB and the arithmatic) is precise what I know least about. From what I can see, THG used DDR2-800, Zingle used DDR2-667 (unless I am reading that wrong)... Both were happy and produced apparently good results.

Looking around for Zingle's equiptment, I find a couple I have missed... This Ocz DDR-667 RAM (similar to THG but 667 not 800) for a couple of quid more. Found this Asus mobo which will support 667 RAM. Theoretically, I should get similar results to Zingle? I think going upto DDR2-800 will jump the price a lot, especially when you include mobo. If there's a marginal speed increase between 667 and 800 that I might not notice, then i'll probably stick with thr 667.

The only thing scaring me away from that board is it only has one IDE slot... so if I need to put an IDE HD in for a while, I can't use the DVD drive as well?

[Smilie]

what screen resolution and detail settings
are u thinking of running it at??

as COD2 is a very demanding game if u want to run it at high settings
(dont have BF2)

and im not 100% sure
but i think the X1600Pro 512MB is not a very good vid card

u can run both a DVD rom and a HDD from the same IDE cable
but it will be a hard reach
as most cases have the DVD drive slot and HDD slot far apart
and the cable wouldnt be long enough
but if its just temporary for data transfer
u can sit the drive close enough to transfer the data with the case opened

been some time since i really read much about PC components
so i wouldnt try to recommend any components
but if u are building this PC for games
i do think u need to get a better vid card
unless u dont mind lower settings

buy 667 ram and get the x1600xt not the pro as the pro sucks lol the 7600 gt or 6600gt would suit apart from that all is fine
you dont need ddr2 800 my board (gigabyte based on 945 chipset) allows you to change the ram multiplier so the overclock is smooth(might be worth checking the board does this) good luck dude my machine runs best at 3.5 gig although it does run at 3.7

[NitroNutter]

I prefer WD drives to seagate but I hate making any PC recomendations as when things go wrong I allways get the blame.

Little note about overclocking though, if you cant afford the speeds you want you cant afford to replace the components you may fry when overclocking. Overclocking can also do damage which is not immediatly noticable aswell.

Originally Posted by NitroNutter

I prefer WD drives to seagate but I hate making any PC recomendations as when things go wrong I allways get the blame.

Little note about overclocking though, if you cant afford the speeds you want you cant afford to replace the components you may fry when overclocking. Overclocking can also do damage which is not immediatly noticable aswell.

Read about the 805 dude its very unlikely you will damage anything overclocking one of these .These cpus failed at running at a quad bus fsb of 200 mhz (800 fsb) so intel restricted them to 133 mhz so at this bus frequency the ram(if you buy 533) (133x4))and cpu will run at the same speed.The cpu has a multiplier of 20x so for every 5 mhz on the fsb you will gain 100 mhz fsb. Some of these cpus will fail early in an overclock but most will raise quite nicely mine running at a fsb of 175 (3.5 gig) stock voltage and stock cooling I added the freezer 7 pro to quiet things down as the stock cooler sounded like a helicopter at this speed.

A small note on ram choices for punky

533 ddr2 will run the 805 at stock speeds and both will be at an fsb of 133.For each 1 mhz fsb you put on the cpu the ram fsb will raise 4 so buying 667 gives you quite a overhead before you have to limit the ram.(something like a 25mhz raise ish) so without messing with the rams multiplier the system will run with ddr2 667 and the cpu will run at 3.16 gig
My mobo allowed me to set my rams multiplier to 3.3 instead of 4 which gave me the head room needed to push my cpu as high as it could go

[Flobajob]

Originally Posted by punky

</snip>

Scrap the case, get one without a PSU (Sansun are worse than Qtec) and get yourself either a Seasonic, Tagan, OCZ, Antec or Enermax PSU.

[punky]

Righto... found a Sapphire 1600XT for 11-odd quid more than the pro. Looking at THG, it should be good enough I only have a little 15" TFT...

Make sense to buy a decent PSU but adds another 60-100 quid to the total if you include a decent case... hate the way this always mounts up.

Thanx for the RAM explation Zingle... i'll probably just get the same one as you as you can manually adjust the RAM frequency. Wonder if it is best to look for a crossfire edition of it though... save upgrading costs later. Yes, I know... I am a pain in the ****... Probably just go for the same one as Zingle and have done with it. Its fairly cheap-ish anyway which is nice

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Read about the 805 dude its very unlikely you will damage anything overclocking one of these .These cpus failed at running at a quad bus fsb of 200 mhz (800 fsb) so intel restricted them to 133 mhz so at this bus frequency the ram(if you buy 533) (133x4))and cpu will run at the same speed.The cpu has a multiplier of 20x so for every 5 mhz on the fsb you will gain 100 mhz fsb. Some of these cpus will fail early in an overclock but most will raise quite nicely mine running at a fsb of 175 (3.5 gig) stock voltage and stock cooling I added the freezer 7 pro to quiet things down as the stock cooler sounded like a helicopter at this speed. A small note on ram choices for punky 533 ddr2 will run the 805 at stock speeds and both will be at an fsb of 133.For each 1 mhz fsb you put on the cpu the ram fsb will raise 4 so buying 667 gives you quite a overhead before you have to limit the ram.(something like a 25mhz raise ish) so without messing with the rams multiplier the system will run with ddr2 667 and the cpu will run at 3.16 gig My mobo allowed me to set my rams multiplier to 3.3 instead of 4 which gave me the head room needed to push my cpu as high as it could go

I have read the larger thread on this CPU certainly makes for interesting reading, and nice to hear intel is still up to the challenge even on these D's which were begining to look like amd owned, but even so, be prepared for your £200 to be an experiment which is fine if you have it for that and even better if its succesful with no side effects.

Flobajob is likely right about the case and psu, I had a couple of Qtec's one died at about a year the other is still going, the one that died was in my system so probably just couldnt handle all my devices, I went for a cooler master PSU 400 watt and has the 3.5 wattage indicator, it has been fine and had it ages now touching the proverbial wood while saying it. Just a tip if you go for a lian-li case you will probably never want any other case ever again, the 6070's are great looking and very quiet, well built, and very nicely modular designed, you can slide your entire hardware out the back (once unhooked from the front drives).

[AndrewJ]

I think give Zingle your money and go take the girl out for a meal.

[keithwalton]

Go for a I965 or I975X based motherboard in order to future proof yourself with the new core chips coming out this weekend!
Also its abit more money but the Pentium D 945 has just come in at ocuk for £130 (i paid that much for a 930 from them on monday!) thats a 3.4GHz chip by default and will be a newer stepping so will overclock more.
My 930 is a C1 stepping and oc's to 4GHz easily with no voltage increase, can hit 4.2GHz with abit of a voltage bump and will post at 4.5GHz but go no further.

You could wait a few days and go straight to core 2 duo, the chips are worth it, and pentium d prices will crash further than they have as well.

Oh just found out the 945 is a 1066 fsb chip which will make it fast at stock but ultimately limit your overclock as im using a 1066 fsb to hit 4GHz

Originally Posted by punky

Righto... found a Sapphire 1600XT for 11-odd quid more than the pro. Looking at THG, it should be good enough I only have a little 15" TFT...

Make sense to buy a decent PSU but adds another 60-100 quid to the total if you include a decent case... hate the way this always mounts up.

Thanx for the RAM explation Zingle... i'll probably just get the same one as you as you can manually adjust the RAM frequency. Wonder if it is best to look for a crossfire edition of it though... save upgrading costs later. Yes, I know... I am a pain in the ****... Probably just go for the same one as Zingle and have done with it. Its fairly cheap-ish anyway which is nice

if you can find the gigabyte board I used it was only 60 quid and very good indeed 3 ide channels and 4 sata II

[punky]

Right, i'm going to do it... As they say, coffins don't have pockets....

Hasn't changed too much from last time... But finialised list:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB U100 - £65.01
Gigabyte Socket 775 Intel 945P PCIEx16 SATA RAID AUDIO LAN - £70.44
Intel Pentium D 805 Socket 775 2.66GHz 2MB Cache Retail - £69.53
Sapphire Technology Radeon X1600XT 256MB PCIE DVI - £85.71
Arctic Cooling Freezer7 Pro Socket775 Cooler - £10.95
OCZ Value 1024Mb PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory - £54.95

I'm going to reuse my current 400w PSU and case...

Please, please if anyone has any thoughts come to mind, speak now. Many thanx in advance

As this is the first system i'm building on my own (built this one before, but with a mate) any tips? Do I need themal paste on a brand new CPU for instance?

---------- Post added at 03:25 ---------- Previous post was at 02:03 ----------

Right... I've done it, but I am going to go for Crucial 2x512MB 240Pin DIMM PC2-5300 NonECC Unbuffered CL5 instead for an extra 15 quid. Crucial's pretty decent, so is probably worth the extra over value RAM

Buying things is such a palava for me.. I am not a good shopper... Feel nervous, sick but excited too.

Just braying the build goes well...