e6400 or 6600

[XenatR]

i was wondering whether there was any point spending so much more money for the e6600?

does the extra L2 cache make that much difference?

i will mostly be playing Counter Strike 1.6, Quake 3, Football Manager 2007 at the moment, and in the future i will get Crysis, and also upgrade my graphics at the same time. do i need to spend the extra however much on an e6600 + dq6 combo, rather than going for the considerably cheaper e6400 + ds3 one? (unless there are better suggestions)

im also pondering on whether to buy the gigabyte ds3 or dq6..

so far my rig (buying in january) looks like:

scythe infinity
g.skill pc2-6400 (2x1gb) cas4
ocz gamexstream 700w
gainward bliss 7900 gs (dont need a better one at this time, until Crysis comes out)
x-meridian sound card
nzxt lexa classic series case
150gb raptor
320 perp seagate (from old comp, might buy another one though)
nec ad5170 drive (black)
beyerdynamic 770 headphones

i also dont know whether to go for an nec drive or a plextor one. they both seem to be reliable!

[Dan444]

The E6400 will do a good job for you. For real world gaming [not benchmarks] you will not need a faster CPU until you decide to run two 8800 GTX in SLI, I am not sure where the 8800 GTS reaches the upper limit in CPU power.

As to the motherboard, I am not sure when you are going to build the system, if you are going to wait a few weeks there are some very nice and highly overclockable motherboards coming out soon that use the i965 chipset.

Take a close look at your PSU needs, if you will never go with an 8800 GTX in SLI, you will not need the PSU you have listed, you can use something smaller like a Seasonic 600 watt, even 550 will do fine if the PSU is high quality. If you will be using 8800 GTX in SLI make sure the power supply you choose will be up to the task, some people are using 1000 watt units.

I suggest using a 150GB Raptor if you are going to put much on it. After a drive gets 50% full Windows XP begins to slow down, I am not sure how Vista will perform with a drive over 50% full.

Using the 320 GB drive from you old computer is a good idea. There are heat issues with drives larger than 320 GB [they fail faster]. This may be rectified in the future, however that will not help you at present.

As to optical drives, I use two by NEC, they are very reliable, fast and are very inexpensive.

[XenatR]

The E6400 will do a good job for you. For real world gaming [not benchmarks] you will not need a faster CPU until you decide to run two 8800 GTX in SLI, I am not sure where the 8800 GTS reaches the upper limit in CPU power.

As to the motherboard, I am not sure when you are going to build the system, if you are going to wait a few weeks there are some very nice and highly overclockable motherboards coming out soon that use the i965 chipset.

Take a close look at your PSU needs, if you will never go with an 8800 GTX in SLI, you will not need the PSU you have listed, you can use something smaller like a Seasonic 600 watt, even 550 will do fine if the PSU is high quality. If you will be using 8800 GTX in SLI make sure the power supply you choose will be up to the task, some people are using 1000 watt units.

I suggest using a 150GB Raptor if you are going to put much on it. After a drive gets 50% full Windows XP begins to slow down, I am not sure how Vista will perform with a drive over 50% full.

Using the 320 GB drive from you old computer is a good idea. There are heat issues with drives larger than 320 GB [they fail faster]. This may be rectified in the future, however that will not help you at present.

As to optical drives, I use two by NEC, they are very reliable, fast and are very inexpensive.

i will be making my comp sometime in january

i will also try to overclock my system (although ive never done this before). will the mobos coming out be better for ocing than the gs3? ive heard good things about the e6400 gs3 combo

so youre saying if i will use SLi cards in the future, then i will need more than 700watts, but if i will only use 1card, theres no point in getting a 700watt ocz? maybe a 600 one from the same company?

well.. all i am going to put on the raptor, is windows xp, my main programs (such as wmp, winamp, some music software, on the raptor), some games (HL1 and HL2, Quake3, Football Manager 2007), and the music i most often listen to (around 5gig)

do i need a larger one?

[Dan444]

Yes, there will be some very fine overclocking motherboards out soon, however there are some motherboards that are available now that will do you a good job, here is an example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128012

Because you are not familiar with overclocking there may be no need for you to wait for a motherbard that will overclock better, there is a lot to learn if you want run your equipment for a long period of time [years] while overclocked.

Here is a very fine power supply that has a total of 72 watts on the 12 volt rails. This PSU is very efficient and will provide stable power as low as 100 volts from the wall [you get what you pay for, especially in this case]: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151027

One item that many people do not budget for is protection for their investment, I have seen some real horror stories and crys of anguish from customers over this.

The following will be of great benefit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16842101140
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16842101138

Read up on all the info provided by the following, to give you an idea of what these units will do for you:

Info on the 800VA: http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR800BLK
Comparison page: http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR900&tab=compare

As to the hard drive, you will get 35GB very quickly on your boot drive, I suggest that you put some of your programs on the second drive to yield the best performance.

By the way, if you are not going to overclock very much, there is no need to purchase RAM that is more costly that the lower cost memory. If this is the case, look for something just a few dollars more than the least expensive RAM you can find.

Sorry, I just noticed that is what you have done with memory. Note that the supported voltage needs to be the same with the motherboard and memory

[XenatR]

what the hell is a ups? lol

hmm yea.. i might go for the 150gig

but isnt it the case that, the larger the drive, the slower it will perform... so a 74gig raptor will work and load things slower than the 150gig one?

and yea, that gigabyte ds3 is the one ive been talking about in this thread :P

[Dan444]

In most cases, hard drives of the same type, the larger drive is faster, primarily because there are more heads and/or platters on the larger drive, which means more devices are writing data at the same time.

A very fast overview of what the above UPS will do for you, if the power fails [thunderstorm, tornado 40 miles away, and so on] while the hard drive is writing, it can damage the hard drive, also, other components in the computer can be damaged if voltage swings wildly or is unclean. A UPS will keep your computer running for several minutes, allowing you to safely shut it down.

The above unit will also clean the electrical signal, this will keep your hardware safe [note that there are other devices that can be attached that provide even more or better protection, for those that may read this and are aware of what I am writing]. I keep the lower voltage level on my UPS set at 103 volts [it will kick on and provide battery power to run the computer when voltage drops below this level]. I have a Seasonic PSU that is rated to supply clean power to the computer down to 100 volts, so, I have a 3 volt overlap, which keeps my computer functioning safely.

Click on the links I provided and read up on the UPS for more information.

I needed to correct a typo, sorry

[XenatR]

hmm.. thanks for the info, but i live in england, and we never have tornado's or violent storms like in america. its so rare i dont think there is any point in my buying one!

thanks for your input into this thread. i am going for the 150gig raptor now!