PC Upgrading Discussion

[Oliver Amos]

I think the Q6600 still is a very good CPU, mine outperforms almost all default clocked "modern" cpu's. It runs like charm on 3.6 GHZ or higher if i need it. Just be sure you get a SLACR and not a B3 stepping.

For video i still should go for NVIDIA, i have had bad experiences with ATI in combination with RACE. Enough FPS but stutters in the corners. I know many people have issues with NVIDIA too but after my switch i never had the stutters again and it performs very solid.

For video i should wait for the DX11 versions, they will be here very soon.

OCZ is good RAM, i use it too and it's kinda cheap these days.

I don't have experiences with DFI, but reading the reviews it must be a great board, my choice is still Gigabyte or ASUS, i use Gigabyte and this is the board i trust most of all boards i owned. They use very expensive voltage regulators, it looks like overkill but better have overkill than underkill (what word, underkill ).

Which powersupply you get? This is very important, take 600 real watts or more. Look for Corsair, they are amazing good.

Directx11 is coming out with Windows 7. Late 2009 if MS don't delay it (unlikely).

I had a gigabyte, they are ok, no way near as good as a DFI. Also they look like they have been coloured in by a 5 year old with a new colouring set :thumb:

 

[Ben Tusting]

Marcel I have a corsair 520 watt power supply.

So are these the best products to go for

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK)
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (H.D.T.) 120mm PWM Fan x3 Heat-pipe LGA775/K8/AM2 Cpu cooler Quad Core Ready

 

[James Yates]

They are the best for the money... very good value

 

[Mtommi Tam]

I want to buy the new pc,

Now,i use the machine is...
AMD 5000+
8800GTS 640MB
1GBx4 DDR2 800mhz
ASUS-M2NE

every time,i use 1440x900,and AA set level 2,In game quality set high play Race 07,

 

[James Yates]

Your PC is pretty good Mtommi, only things you could upgrade would be to get a new motherboard, CPU and ram Your graphics card is fine for a while yet.

 

[Oliver Amos]

Marcel I have a corsair 520 watt power supply.

So are these the best products to go for

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK)
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (H.D.T.) 120mm PWM Fan x3 Heat-pipe LGA775/K8/AM2 Cpu cooler Quad Core Ready

Why cant you just trust what James said? He is not trying to make you waste any money and buy bad parts.

And yes, those parts are very good.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Marcel I have a corsair 520 watt power supply.

So are these the best products to go for

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK)
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (H.D.T.) 120mm PWM Fan x3 Heat-pipe LGA775/K8/AM2 Cpu cooler Quad Core Ready

Your new system fully loaded will peak 450 Watts so your Corsair can manage that, but it will be close to its limit.

My suggestion is try it first and when you get strange reboots and errors you can decide to change it for a 600+ version.

Which HDD will you use in this system?

 

[Ben Tusting]

Why cant you just trust what James said? He is not trying to make you waste any money and buy bad parts.

And yes, those parts are very good.

I know he's not trying to waste my money and make me buy bad parts but I was just asking for somebody else's opinion. I don't know to much about computers, So I thought I would get some other people opinions and also those products James said to buy there weren't very many searches for them but that was down to them being specialists parts.
I wasn't trying to undermine you James

 

[Oliver Amos]

I know he's not trying to waste my money and make me buy bad parts but I was just asking for somebody else's opinion. I don't know to much about computers, So I thought I would get some other people opinions and also those products James said to buy there weren't very many searches for them but that was down to them being specialists parts.
I was trying to undermine you James

There is loads of stuff about them. The only way you wouldn't find much about them was copying and pasting the whole line for each part.


Have a read:

Ati Radeon 4850
Intel Q6600
DFI - Technical review but shows the potential and quality
Xigmatek HDT-S1283

Hope these help.

 

[Ben Tusting]

I've got a HP 60 GB hard drive marcel

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I've got a HP 60 GB hard drive marcel

Do you have some budget to get a new HDD too, your system is as fast as its slowest component and i guess your HDD will be a bottleneck when it comes to speed and storage.

Storage is not that expensive these days and now you planned to get these new components i should get anoter HDD too, installing and configuring your OS and applications is a lot of work so it would be better to do it on a fresh new 500 GB SATA drive.

This is not a must, but my advise.

 

[Ben Tusting]

500 GB is a lot of space I would only use a tenth of that space

 

[Christopher Aponte]

but bigger space equals more space for file swapping

 

[Simon Trendell]

500 GB is a lot of space I would only use a tenth of that space

I said that in January when I bought my 500Gb HDD, before that I had a 60GB Laptop. I now have 120Gb left on my 500Gb one

 

[Ben Tusting]

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache OEM Processor - Ebuyer

Are these the same product if they aren't which product is better

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache OEM Processor - Ebuyer

Are these the same product if they aren't which product is better

They are the same, both a G0, this is important, do not go for an "old" B3.

 

[Lee Downham]

I skimmed most of this, but I got a Q6600 G0 around Christmas last year because of the price/performance ratio (... like Marcel said, make sure you don't get the B3, make sure you go "G0")
... overclocked it to ~3Ghz very quickly and easily (goes much higher, but never needed to - have had it up at 3.6Ghz too, but need water to keep it cool and stable at those speeds!) ... runs stable as you like, all day in 30ºC ambient room temps and never have I been processor bound (I do some video editing and stuff too).
Graphics, am on a 512MB 8800GT (XFX) ... overclocked using Riva Tuner to the same spec as the XXX / Extreme versions ... get around 13500 3DMark06 under Windows Vista, and run Race 07 with everything maxxed out ... tried setting AA to 16x last night and didn't notice a jot of difference between that and having AA switched off (except in image quality!).

I do have some decent "aftermarket" air-cooling kit my mine though (used to drive VW Beetles, must be an old habit ;-) ...
If I would add anything here, it would be to say that the Q6600 can be overclocked with the right motherboard, RAM and cooling kit to up near 4Ghz ... go water and if you do not want SLi go intel based mobo and you will reach it easily!
Yup, 4 x cores at near 4Ghz from a hundred quid processor ... how much are them there extreme processors costing these days ... its a bargain!

Future is quad core, more and more programs and games are taking advantage of quad cores ... but as with any kit, you will be ditching this machine in a few years time for the next level of latest and greatest.

 

[Simon Trendell]

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache OEM Processor - Ebuyer

Are these the same product if they aren't which product is better

One is OEM, one is retail.

With the retail you get 3 years warranty & the standard Intel heatsink. THe heatsink is useless though and your better getting a 3rd party HSF.

 

[Lee Downham]

What da man said ... don't go with the standard heatsink ... I got a Tuniq Tower keeping my Q6600 cool - fantastic and impressive looking too!

As I said before I run mine overclocked by some ~25% ... the fan is adjusted to around 1200RPM (ie. inaudible sound levels) and even in >30ºC room temps, if I run benchmarks or tools which utilise all cores at ~100% for lengthy periods of time, the max temp the CPU hits is 43ºC or 44ºC (its recommended to keep things below 61ºC if you want your CPU to last).

The quads do generate a lot of heat, so make sure the case you buy has good airflow, and then some ... or have done with it and go liquid cooled :thumb:

Tuniq - Tower 120 Cooler


FWIW ... I got an aftermarket cooler on my graphics card too ...

OEM 8800GT Nvidia fan was way too loud, and even with some fan speed tweaking with RivaTuner, the card would constantly run at over 75ºC or 80ºC and need 100% fan (which was sooo lound and nearly shook my case to bits) ... now I keep things nice and quiet at around 40ºC with GPU at full load for hours on end with a Thermaltake DuoOrb (cost around €30/£22)

... was thinking of a Thermalright HR-03GT, but might do the Sli thing (when my wife isn't looking and once the price of the graphics cards drop sufficiently), and the Thermalright would probably take up too much space in my case to do this.
Some tests and info on 8800GT coolers here:
[H] Enthusiast - GeForce 8800 GT Mega Heatsink Roundup

Also have a cheap fan speed controller (Skythe Kama-Panel) for all the fans in my system ... this is now the fastest and quietest rig I have ever built (done +16 years of PC building) - lovely :thumb:

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I use a Scythe Mugen and my Q6600 overclocks easily 50%, don't use the Intel stock cooler and watch out with cooling pasta, use a half rice grain and a credit card to make a smooth surface on the cpu.