New Set-Up Question

[leestaunton]

I've finally decided to ditch my old pentium 4 and to build a new pc and have come up with the following.

Akasa AK-960E Heatpipe Cooler
Arianet High Perf. 1GB DDR2 533
Hiper 530W TRUE POWER PSU
XFX GeForce 7300GT 512MB PCI-E
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer
Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi Socket 775
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail

I already have an OS, hard drives and DVD drives from my old PC that I can add to the new set-up. Can anyone tell me if the above list will all be compatible?

[mac124]

I can't see any issues with that, should be a nice little setup for some mid range gaming. Might be worth dropping to a 6300 or even a 4000 series C2D and spending the savings on a better graphics card if your after some gaming oompf.

One thing i will say don't think just because the graphics card has 512mb its necessarily a powerful card, the 7300gt can be a reasonable card BUT it must have DDR3 memory on board if it hasn't got ddr3 memory DO NOT waste your money on it. Personally i would go for 256mb of ddr3 over 512 of ddr2.

[leestaunton]

Okay thanks. I assumed that the higher the MB of the card the quicker the result. Obviously that isn't the case! I'll have a look at DDR3 graphics card. Cheers.

[mac124]

Any time 8) and its a common assumption to make your not the first and i doubt you will be the last to be misled like that.

[leestaunton]

I've decided to go for the

Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO 512MB DDR3

Plus an extra gig of ram. This will put me around about 40GBP below my budget (which is 600GBP).

I have Windows XP and was considering upgrading to VISTA. Is Vista worth the 70GBP for the OEM pack or is it worth waiting till it comes down in cost even more?

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[leestaunton]

thanks, i'll use the money elsewhere!

[leestaunton]

have finally ordered the set-up. decided to spend the money i was gonna spend on vista on extra memory instead (4 gig now so i should be set for a while).

final set-up is

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer
Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi Socket 775
Arianet High Perf. 1GB DDR2 533
Hiper 530W TRUE POWER PSU
Akasa AK-960E Heatpipe Cooler
Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO 512MB DDR3


next up is what to do with my old pentium 4, not sure whether to strip it and sell the parts or to keep as a back up. decisions decisions!

[mac124]

Well unless you are running xp64 then you will find that xp only sees around 3gb, might have been better spending it on better gfx.

[leestaunton]

bugger :cry:

[mac124]

Unfortunately the same applies to vista im afraid, 32 bit can't physically address more than 3.something gb or something like that. go 64bit and your laughing as you will be prepared.

as to the old pc well unless you need the parts or cash i say keep it for a net pc and keep the new one strictly for games, tis what i have done and now i wouldn't have it any other way.

[leestaunton]

Okay, have cancelled the extra memory module (thanks for that).

What is the difference between 32 and 64bit and how can you tell what your PC is capable of running?

[Anonymous]

64 Bit does become faster after 3 gb, but for quite a few years it wont be refined. many companies havent worked on doing 64bit drivers so its not always the best option unless your hardware is all new. All new pcs will run 64 bit, since the latter P4 and of course the AMD 64's.

[leestaunton]

So with the set-up above if I was going to upgrade to Vista I'd be best of sticking with 32?

[mac124]

For compatibility reasons yes, though it perfectly capable of running 64 bit. It just that 99.9% of all software (that you are probably likely to use) is still 32bit at the mo and as such may or may not work under a 64 bit operating system

[Grimmjow1982]

[quote:6674463f44=\"leestaunton\"]I've finally decided to ditch my old pentium 4 and to build a new pc and have come up with the following.

Akasa AK-960E Heatpipe Cooler
Arianet High Perf. 1GB DDR2 533
Hiper 530W TRUE POWER PSU
XFX GeForce 7300GT 512MB PCI-E
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer
Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi Socket 775
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail

I already have an OS, hard drives and DVD drives from my old PC that I can add to the new set-up. Can anyone tell me if the above list will all be compatible?[/quote:6674463f44]

Man you got a good set-up there.

[leestaunton]

Finished putting everything together this morning. Pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too difficult to do (knew my GCSE in electronics would come in handy one day).

Installing the hard drives was a bit fiddly and I had the normal reregistering XP rubbish but all in all a decent experience. Suprised at how big the Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO 512MB DDR3 GFX card was too.

Cannot recommend the Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi Socket 775 enough. It's such any easy board to use and the built in Wifi is a definite bonus.

Thanks for your help guys, a decent bit of kit for 600GBP.





[quote:0be6ae95fc=\"leestaunton\"]have finally ordered the set-up. decided to spend the money i was gonna spend on vista on extra memory instead (4 gig now so i should be set for a while).

final set-up is

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer
Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi Socket 775
Arianet High Perf. 1GB DDR2 533
Hiper 530W TRUE POWER PSU
Akasa AK-960E Heatpipe Cooler
Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO 512MB DDR3


next up is what to do with my old pentium 4, not sure whether to strip it and sell the parts or to keep as a back up. decisions decisions![/quote:0be6ae95fc]

[mac124]

nice one lee and you should have nice rig to see you through the nxet couple or so years, could always upgrade to quad core should you feel the need and DX10 graphics easily as and when you need to aswell.

So when you gonna overclock it? :twisted:

[leestaunton]

I'll need to read up about overclocking, looking at the utilities bundled with the motherboard it seems fairly easy to set-up from the gui provided.

I'm gonna get one of the newer games next week (looking at c&c3 or the russian fps can't remember the name now).

I'm trying to sort out the fan speed at the moment, i have them all set to low but with the cpu fan set to automatic. Any ideas what the ideal temp for the CPU should be?

[mac124]

As long as it doesn't exceed much above 60 on full load you will be ok.

personally i use coretemp to check the temps as that uses the cpus temperature prob rather than the motherboards so tends to be more accurate.

http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/

[leestaunton]

okay, cheers for the link.

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[leestaunton]

that's the baby. i'll have a look around tomorow and see how much i can get it for. someone purchased \"a company of heroes\" for xmas so will give that a go this afternoon and see what it looks like. does having two gfx cards make a significant difference?

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[leestaunton]

[quote:b384946a7c=\"mac124\"]As long as it doesn't exceed much above 60 on full load you will be ok.

personally i use coretemp to check the temps as that uses the cpus temperature prob rather than the motherboards so tends to be more accurate.

http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/[/quote:b384946a7c]

Using coretemp the processor temperature is around about 48-52C whilst downloading etc, the motheboard is 32c. does this sound right?

the cooler was a bit of an bugger to fit but is connected properly as far as i can tell.

the case has 5 x 120mm fans and 1 x 200mm exhaust fan so internal temperature isn't a problem (all fans are set at minimum speed level).

any ideas?

[mac124]

Sounds a bit warm to me for what is basically idle, my 6400 c2d on load hits 45-50 my 4300, again under load, is a tad warmer (55-60) under a different cooler.

[leestaunton]

what do you recommend doing? reinstalling the heat sync?

[mac124]

Are you using the 6600 as per the thread? it might be they run a bit warmer than the 6400 / 4300 i have but even so my 6600 (overclocked and overvolted) only hits mid 40's idling but that is under water cooling.

Try reseating the heatsink making sure the locking mechanism is fully home. Also reapply the thermal paste if you do remove the heatsink. No more than the equivalent to a couple of grains of rice in the center of the cpu before reapplying the heatsink.

[leestaunton]

its the 6600. ive been running more or less idle (except for internet) for ten or so minutes and coretemp is showing 44/43 per core (at 2200 when the house is fairly cool). the problem is that the \"silent\" setting seems to low, the \"peformance\" settting is too noisy. i'll try to reset the cooler tomorrow and see what happens. the fan seems to have four pin power connectors is the a four pin fan controller available?

[mac124]

the 4 pin connector, is it not the same as the motherboards? It sounds like it is so you can plug it directly into the motherboards cpu fan header, and if so it is to allow the motherboard to alter the speed of the fan when under load.

Or is it a 4 pin power connector that plugs into a molex or floppy power connector direct from the psu?

[leestaunton]

I'm going by memory so will need to check for some reason I remember the connectors having 4 pins (but not being a molex connector).

The cpu fan is powered directly by the motherboard. The problem is that the settings available are either too noisy or not powerful enough to cool the CPU (assuming cooler is fitted correctly).

I'll try reinstalling the cooler tonight and see if that makes a difference. Cheers for your help.

ps apologies for the spelling mistakes last night, had a cheeky beer or two.

[leestaunton]

Okay, tried reseting the fan but that made no difference. I tried updating the bios and the temp is running at a consistant 32/31. weird huh? thanks for everyones help.

[mac124]

sounds more like it, i assume thats from core temp again?

[leestaunton]

yep, thats the temp being given by core temp.