First homebuilt system: advice on mobo + cpu

[mattsnow]

Hello there,

I am building my first system that will be mostly for playing FSX. My budget is about £250 for the motherboard and cpu. At the moment I am looking at a Q6600 which is apparently good for overclocking and relatively cheap for a quad core, and an Intel DQ35MP board. Do you think this is a good combo or can you recommend anything else?

Thanks!

 

[aevm]

Q6600 is a good choice for FSX. In fact, you definitely should get a quad.

I don't like Intel boards much, especially for overclocking. Asus and Gigabyte tend to do better.

 

[aevm]

Can you afford 291 pounds? That would buy you a GA-EP45-UD3R and a Q6600.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-176-GI

That board is a really good overclocker.

 

[mattsnow]

Can you afford 291 pounds? That would buy you a GA-EP45-UD3R and a Q6600.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-176-GI

That board is a really good overclocker.

Yeah it looks pretty good, I could probably stretch that far. Just doing a lot of research at the moment, will probably order just before my easter break.

 

[mattsnow]

How far do you think I could oc'd it, and what cooler would you recommend?

I already have a zalman CNPS9000, do you think this would suffice?

 

[RiotSniperX]

Out with the old 6600 >.<


If youh have like an extra £17 or however it is, its $30 in the US

You can get a faster, cooler Q9400, its higher clocked, cooler, and has 6MB L2 Cache instead of the 4MB L2 on the 6600

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131

 

[aevm]

The Q6600 has 8MB of L2 cache. It also has a 10x multiplier (better than the 8x of the Q9400). Still, I agree, the Q9400 is a good idea. It can reach 3.2 GHz easily and at that clock it's about as fast as the Q6600 at 3.3 GHz. It's 26 pounds more than the Q6600.

 

[aevm]

How far do you think I could oc'd it, and what cooler would you recommend?

I already have a zalman CNPS9000, do you think this would suffice?

I found a few posts with that cooler on a Q6600 at 3.2 GHz. I'm sure the same cooler would handle Q9400 at 3.2 GHz even better since the Q9400 runs cooler.