Rebuilding a PC from the ground up

[MrVideo]

I have a 5 year old PC and I need a new and much faster Intel DuoCore motherboard with all PCI Express slots and SATA disk drive support. The motherboard is a ATX sized and I will be replacing the power supply as well.

It has been some time since I have been involved with my PC and I would appreciate any information as to where I can find good solid fact about who's parts work best together inside a PC tower case.

I would like the motherboard to support the latest 64 bit DuoCore Intel processors.(I don't even understand if the Conroe is 64 bit???)

Thank You in advance to anyone who can help out with good information, not mearly opinion.

 

[illinikevin]

Since your building a new computer from the ground up best bet is to list a budget and what you intend on useing the computer for then we can give you specific recomendations.

 

[MrVideo]

Thanks for your reply.

My PC needs are simple. I need the latest and greatest hardware to work with PCIe 16 lane video cards. I already have a copy of Windows XP Professional and basically the case. I suspect the MB and the PS will need to be updated as well as boot drive, memory and CPU chipset as well as any other parts that are necessary as far as cooling, etc.

The systems does not need to be the very fastest CPU clock but I would prefer that it uses the latest Intel 64 bit DuoCore CPU. It will be more of a hardware test mule than a personal computer.

My budget is whatever it takes by ordering the parts from internet sources to make it work. I am working with Nvidia chipset video cards in the 7800 GTX and 7900 GTX series.

I hope this answers the question you might have.

 

[illinikevin]

Are you going to SLI nividia cards or just run single card set ups?

 

[redraider_gamer]

If you want to build now, go Conroe with Intel and ATI. If your willing to wait, go Conroe with ASUS Nforce5 in Sept or Oct. I wasn't willing to wait.

I have the D975XBX and the Conroe X6800. Install was easy. MB seems to work great (had it less than a week now). Got the 304 bias so it was Conroe ready right out of the box. Haven't OC'd yet so don't have real world there. Will say that I would wait on the New ASUS Conroe boards if you have to have SLi. In less than two months, they should have a whole new line up of Conroe boards ready to go.

Do you really need SLI or Crossfire??? If your not running a huge reolution on a huge (21"+) it really doesn't help. You won't see it. Save the money and wait to see what happens with DirectX10.

Hope this helps.


My rig:
Conroe X6800 (stock clock for now)
Intel D975XBXLRK
Thermaltake Big Typhoon HSF
2GB Corsair Pro PC6400 4-4-4-12
ATI X1900XTX
74GB 10K Raptor HD
SB Audigy 2 SZ

 

[smartis]

Are you really going to use your current case?

I'm looking at my 5 year old PC and the cooling required then wasn't too much. The PSU is probably only 300W and the front of the case has very little venting for airflow.
I don't think it has any fans apart from the CPU fan.

I'm just building a new Conroe system and the new case has three fans and plenty of vents.

Might be something to consider since cases aren't that expensive. Some decent cases even come with the PSU so your extra spend wouldn't be that much.

Just a thought.

 

[oldsaw]

May I suggest that you build an entirely new PC from the ground up (for the same price or perhaps even less than upgrading) and then link your existing PC to it with a KVM switch and an ethernet cable. That five-year-old machine is almost surely an extremely capable device even today, so keep it and use it. Keep in mind that if your existing Windows disk is an OEM issue then you will not be able to use it on any new processor anyway, and that even if it is a retail edition then you can only use its code on one processor or the other at any one time. (Linux distributions are free, they aren't resource hogs, and they pack a lot more applications than does XP.)

 

[MrVideo]

Not necessary to use my old case but most of the newer cases are short, squat and I would choose a new "barebones" case, PSU, Motherboard, CPU, if I knew where are the best deals and what motherboards to run Intel Core Duo chips on. The motherboard must be PCI express, SATA disk and No SLI video is required. Don't need an intenal RAID or anything else fancy.

Thanks for all the comments!

BTW- My Widows XP is a retail package never before registered.

 

[xgas]

Ok dude, even if you have the money to get a Intel Chipset 975X, DON'T. Cause it doesn't support the new Memory Latency decreasing feature, now only the Chipset 965 series does, the nForce 5 mobos use the old C51 chip, don't buy, unless nVidia does some changes, you can read it on the news, so the 965 series is the way to go, for mobo chipset for a Conroe now.