q6600 quad core build

muckerphnck

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Jan 14, 2008
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Hey everyone well i'm looking to upgrade from my 8 yr old p4, its done its job.
been looking at all the new tech and its enough to boil your brain for stew in your skull... so i've narrowed down the items I find most important to me and ask some opinions on parts i’m not quite sure of.

I’m a multi-taker / gamer. tend to game while debugging and running visual c++ while surfing the web, dual screen of course. and I don’t plan to over clock right away but I want to. plan on something between $1500 and $2000 i’m kinda about 1500 now so maybe i can upgrade some peripherals, if there is nothing I want to change.

processor; core 2 quad q6600 Kentsfield go stepping; I multi task so I think its my best bet.

Processor Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700LEDw; can never be to cool!

mother board; asus P5E (x38,ddr2); its ready for a cheap 45nm perrilyn in a year when their cheap

memory; ddr2 pc1200, new egg states standard? so I have Kingston Hyper 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1200 (PC2 9600) , I’m really not sure if that’s my best memory choice. might do 4gb and vista 64.

hard drive; segate barracuda 7200.11 500gb; its hard to decipher all the charts on hard drive speed but i’m looking for a fast hard drive also. all the sata hard drives are cheap to me I just want a speedy one.

video; asus8800GT or gts; I cant see ever doing crossfire, when the time comes ill get one better card.

DVD burn; cheap whatever

os; vista 32 or 64 depending on mem choice

power supply; ABS Tagan BZ Series BZ700 ATX12V / EPS12V 700W Patent Piperock Modular Power Supply; haven’t looked up the rating on this yet but modular and looks nice,

case; this is gonna be a while yet. want something that look kick az might build it myself never know....



so I guess I would like confirmation on my hard drive choice for speed, for gaming. my power supply. and maybe the memory(speed), vista 32 w/t 2gb or vista 64 w/t 4 gb.. anything I miss.... rate my build.. thanks for listing to wkrp
 

eck

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It's pretty similar to my build. Good choice on the motherboard, I absolutely love mine. As for as the CPU cooler, you might look into the Tuniq Tower 120 as well. It's on par with the 9700LEDw if not a little better from what I've read. However it's HUGE, so it doesn't exactly fit in all cases, especially if there's a fan on the side panel above the CPU.

As far as memory goes, I don't think the price increase (at least it was pretty pricey compared to 1066) is worth it. I'd just get some nice 1066 DDR2 and save a few $. You honestly won't notice a performance increase.

I have the same HD. Just be careful and make sure the firmware isn't jacked; check out the reviews on Newegg. Some users have had to flash the firmware to get the HD to use its cache.

As for your case, check out the Antec P182. This is by far the best case I've seen. I absolutely love mine. Check out http://3ck.us/quad for a few pics. Since I took the pics, I have added 2 120mm fans that blow on the video card. It also keeps the motherboard about 5C cooler on average.
 

muckerphnck

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Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1200 (PC2 9600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KHX9600D2K2/2G - Retail
Item #: N82E16820134430
$169.99
i didnt think this was expensive at all i thought cheap... but i suppose if i use the 1066 i ll def get 4gb.. will the 1200 ram help when i over clock? if it does its worth it to me then?

also should i be looking for 4 4 4 12 memory timing?

so many cases so little time....
i like this powermax case it has 120mm fan in front and 8mm fan on the side, but i really like the way it looks..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010090007+50011403&name=Powertek


and ill have a look at that cooler, any parts recommendations welcome.

i took a look at a couple pcu's and kinda liked the thermal right 120, since i could stick whatever fan i want on it.. i could put a super hight cfm on it untill i gets to loud for me .... lol
 

bob8701

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Feb 22, 2006
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if you do not plan on OC, Q6600 use ddr2 533.
if you plan OC to 3.2GHZ, which is 355*9 or 400*8, then ddr2 800 will be enough, ddr 1200 is not worth.
p182 is a nice case, just make sure you PSU cable is long enough to reach the motherboard socket.
 

muckerphnck

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cool thanks for the info,,, im still tryin to lock in what i need and dont.. still kinda wonder on the mem timing i should be looking for?


im also not sure what brand 8800 im leanin asus or evga . not sure but ive been reading about the gains of the 8800gts g92 compared to the gt and may go that route... with the
EVGA 512-P3-N841-A3 GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI
 

muckerphnck

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order getting a lil mor finalized any tips? or mistakes or things i forgot?


1 mother board asus (p5e)
2 p Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700LEDw
3 power ABS Tagan BZ Series BZ700
4 case powertek evil tek 100
5 processor core 2 quad q6600 kenstfeild go stepping
6 video EVGA 512-P3-N841-A3 GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
7 dvd burn asus 20x dvd+-r
8 windows vista 64
9 hardrive segate barracuda 7200.11 500gb sata
10 mem OCZ ReaperX HPC 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
11 fan1 sSILVERSTONE FM121 120mm
 

PlasticSashimi

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Jan 11, 2008
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Looks good, that cooler is awesome by the way... me and a friend built at around the same time. He has it and it keeps his quad nice and cool @ 3.4

Why not OC? you're going to want to trust me...that cooler is way overkill for stock speeds, and the performance difference with my OC was quite major.
 

muckerphnck

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plan to oc, just probably not right away just want that option......

i wanted to over clock my p4 machine 5 years ago, then i found out i had an intel peice of .... a motherboard.
 

PlasticSashimi

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Just FYI, my friend was running his q6600 in an Asus Maximus Extreme (not the watercooled version) with an 8x multiplier at some ridiculous fsb like 1733 or 1800 or something....So if you like Asus boards and really want that OC potential check it out..

the newer quads are rumored to have 8x cpu multi as max so you'll need alot of FSB headroom if you want to OC those.
 

muckerphnck

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well the only mother board that takes ddr2 is the maximus formula, so im not sure if i like the p5e or the formula better its close....
 

muckerphnck

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thats way to far away for me to worry about. i will have used my new computer for 2688 hours buy 2009 .... or 122 days . 161280 min. im on my comp 8 hours a day at least.... lol

and i think im changing the mother board to the maximus formula!


am i gonna have a problem with the ocz's ram heat pipes hitting on the zalman pcu?
 

muckerphnck

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well here it is final i think gonna sleep on it....


.1 mother board asus maximus formula
.2 case powertek evil tek 100
.2 processor core 2 quad q6600 kenstfeild go stepping
.4 video EVGA 512-P3-N841-A3 GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
.5 dvd burn asus 20x dvd+-r
.6 windows vista 64
.7 hardrive segate barracuda 7200.11 500gb sata
.8 mem OCZ ReaperX HPC 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
.9 p Cooler: Zalman CNPS9700LEDw
.10 power ABS Tagan BZ Series BZ700
 

kcrush

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probably hoping to future proof the machine. Vista isn't really ready for games just yet. Maybe with SP1, there are still too many issues.

But vista 64 w/4gb ram, is definitely the way to go since once vista learns your user habits and starts preloading stuff, available memory drops quickly.

On starting up my Vista 64 setup immediately gobbles nearly 2GB of RAM by the time I an move the mouse.
 

maltaguy

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cant stand the incompatibility with drivers(rarity for 64bit mostly)/annoying issues with various programs myself, xp 4life ;p
 

uguv

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I've been running 64-bit Vista for several months and haven't had any issues. In fact, driver availability has been much better for Vista64 than I ever found for XP64 when I tried running that about a year ago.

Now, if I were running 3gb of RAM or less I'd stick with XP32, but for 64-bit there's not a whole lot of XP support out there.