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[flipping_heck]

Ok, my gaming PC died recently and its time to upgrade, i dont have a huge budget so this gaming pc won't be high end stuff but will keep my satisifed for some time. Anyways, here's the stuff im gonna buy

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
Asus P5B (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
BFG 8800 GTS OC 320MB DDR3 DVI PCI-E Graphics Card
Casecom Black Mid Tower Case - Front Blue LED 120mm Fan - With Side Window
Extra Value Gold 600W 12cm Fan Silent PSU - PFC 20+4pin (not too sure about this)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-037-OK
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=125183
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=119227
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=115479

Totals about £500, the other stuff like HDD/monitor etc i can take from my dead gaming pc. Thoughts and recommendations? (especially the PSU)

 

[theBishop]

the last thing you should do is pay a bunch of money on a PC right now.

Find the part that is broken, and replace it.

Next year will be a better time to upgrade.

 

[pswii60]

the last thing you should do is pay a bunch of money on a PC right now.

Find the part that is broken, and replace it.

Next year will be a better time to upgrade.

What's happening next year?

 

[flipping_heck]

that is one option but probably gonna upgrade it still, im missing out on some good PC gaming recently, so its a good idea for me to get back into it.

 

[MickeyKnox]

the last thing you should do is pay a bunch of money on a PC right now.

Find the part that is broken, and replace it.

Next year will be a better time to upgrade.

What a bunch of crap.
This is THE summer for upgrading. Massive price cuts on ridiculously powerful hardware with quad-cores having room to grow and stay fast as hell as time goes on and more applications become multithreaded and optimised for 4 cores instead of one or two.

But like I'm doing, start getting parts now and wait till July 22nd for the big Intel price drop to get your proc.

 

[Shogun]

that is one option but probably gonna upgrade it still, im missing out on some good PC gaming recently, so its a good idea for me to get back into it.

Yeah like what was said, if E6600 is gonna be old real fast, wait for the intel price drop and grab a E6850.

 

[flipping_heck]

the processor comes with the mobo and RAM bundle, so its actually quite a good offer at the moment for me. I could wait over a month for a price slash but i have an urge to play PC games now..

 

[theBishop]

What's happening next year?

- Multicore CPUs will come down a lot
- AMD will announce their next CPU socket
- Physics hardware situation will be clearer

and most of all:

- Games will be released that justify the upgrade

Never upgrade months before an anticipated game. Wait for the game and/or hardware requirements to be released. DX10 is still in its infancy. It rarely pays off to be a first adopter.

 

[Mrbob]

Bishop, his PC is dead. He can't wait.

I personally think DX10 full throttle is a long ways off (like 2+ years), and DX9/XP will remain king for the forseeable future. Quad Core CPU pricing is tempting, but the E6600 overclocks very well on air alone, where I hear you may want to get water cooling to O/C the Q6600.

I do think multicore CPU fruition will come much sooner, but the target market for games will end up being Dual Core and not Quad Core for the forseeable future as well.

If you wait on upgrading your PC, you might as well wait forever. I'm almost ready to pull the trigger on an upgrade nearly identical to what the original poster is getting.

E6600 is a fantastic CPU, and the 8800GTS is going to burn through DX9 games like butter. Don't worry about DX10, Vista is a joke at the moment and so is DX10. It is going to take a long time for MS to fix up that cluster****, and once it is fixed you can make another upgrade. Make sure to get a motherboard that will accept a future quad core cpu, so you can make the quad core upgrade painless and easy. If I remember right the Asus P5B does accept quad core CPU, but I'll double check. If anything I would buy one of the best dual core chips right now (E6600), enjoy your setup, and then in a year or two when more Quad Core chips become available at a lower price take the plunge into a quad core setup.

 

[Mrbob]

Not sure if this will fit in your budget, but what about this power supply?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001

It gets some really good reviews, and the break away connectors seem awesome to get rid of case clutter from unused pieces.

I also noticed there are multiple Asus P5B models, confusing. Is this the one you are thinking about:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131030

??

Description mentions quad core cpu support.

 

[flipping_heck]

i was thinking of going budget with 8600GTS but ive heard not so favorable reviews about them.

The Mobo is this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-151-AS

The P5B motherboard supports the most powerful and energy efficient Intel® Core™2 processors. It features the Intel® P965 chipset and supports DDR2 800MHz dual-channel memory architecture. With exclusive innovative tools – AI NOS™, AI Gear and AI Nap – users can adjust operation speed according to their specific needs. The P5B is a cool and stable platform that delivers extreme performance, minimum noise and maximum power saving!

- Intel LGA775 Platform
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo Ready
- Intel® Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D Ready
- 1066/800/ 533 MHz
- Dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533
- 1x PCI Express x16
- 6x SATA 3Gb/s
- RTL8111B PCI-E Gb LAN
- 8-channel HD Audio
- AI NOS™ / AI Gear / AI Nap

 

[tokkun]

Next year will be a better time to upgrade.

It always is.

 

[tokkun]

i was thinking of going budget with 8600GTS but ive heard not so favorable reviews about them.

The Mobo is this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-151-AS

For gaming purposes the 8600 is not a great option. You can either spend more money to get an 8800 or spend the money on a top-end last-gen card like the 7950 or x1950 that offers better performance.

My co-worker has the P5B, and he doesn't like it that much and says he wished he spent more for the P5B Deluxe. I'm planning on buying a P5K Deluxe soon, but that is admittedly a little pricey. Abit is supposed to have a low-price, feature-rich P35-based board out in between 1-4 weeks. You might want to wait on that. Of course, you can spend a lifetime waiting for the next big thing when it comes to computers.

 

[Ryu1999]

For gaming purposes the 8600 is not a great option. You can either spend more money to get an 8800 or spend the money on a top-end last-gen card like the 7950 or x1950 that offers better performance.

My co-worker has the P5B, and he doesn't like it that much and says he wished he spent more for the P5B Deluxe. I'm planning on buying a P5K Deluxe soon, but that is admittedly a little pricey. Abit is supposed to have a low-price, feature-rich P35-based board out in between 1-4 weeks. You might want to wait on that. Of course, you can spend a lifetime waiting for the next big thing when it comes to computers.

Whats your opinion on the nforce 680i boards?

 

[Bauer Action Hour]

Lots of review sites think they aren't worth the money compared to their 650i brethren.

Another 650i board that's good (maybe the best) and hasn't been mentioned is MSI's P6N SLI Platinum. I've got a 3 GHZ OC on my E4300 and have wiggle room for a future upgrade to quad core.

 

[theultimo]

for $399, the HD 2900 XT is aweome. A little slower then the 8800GTS, but much cheaper. If you are looking to run vista, 2 GB MINIMUM, 4 GB if you are running x64. Quad Core is great right now, but Duel Core will suffice.

 

[Ryu1999]

for $399, the HD 2900 XT is aweome. A little slower then the 8800GTS, but much cheaper. If you are looking to run vista, 2 GB MINIMUM, 4 GB if you are running x64. Quad Core is great right now, but Duel Core will suffice.

If you're in the U.S., the GTS (640 and 320) are both cheaper than the 2900 XT. In fact you can get a EVGA 640 for less than 300 dollars (w/ MIR)

There is absolutely no reason to get a 2900 (now) unless you're a ATI fanboy

 

[momolicious]

how much faster is the quad core E6850 compared to AMD 64 3700+

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

Whats the best laptop GPU available?

 

[bee]

my honest opinion, graphics card is fine, the psu is a piece of shit so is the case and the bundle well its ok but i'd pick cheaper stuff u can get a gigabyte ds3p for £75 the same ram for £58 and a core2duo e4300 for £63, freezer 7 pro for £12 so u can clock it to 3ghz+ really theres only one cpu to buy these days and its the e4300.

busy at the mo but i just 1 week ago built a pc for a friend was really cheap (for a pc) and really fast/high quality, i'll post a list later.

 

[1-D_FTW]

What a bunch of crap.
This is THE summer for upgrading. Massive price cuts on ridiculously powerful hardware with quad-cores having room to grow and stay fast as hell as time goes on and more applications become multithreaded and optimised for 4 cores instead of one or two.

But like I'm doing, start getting parts now and wait till July 22nd for the big Intel price drop to get your proc.

I haven't really decided what I'm doing yet, but I've gotten an Earthwatts 500 Power Supply (Seasonic OEM) for 39.99 after MIR and 3GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR 800 for 113.xx after the MIRs (2 *1GB for 78.xx after 45 MIR) and (2 *512MB for 34.99 after 50 MIR.)

Definitely waiting till at least the July cuts for my gaming PC (To see what's up with the P35 boards... which are confirmed to be Penryn compatible).

Although, in the meantime, I'm seriously considering throwing together a media PC (AMD 3600*2, 1GB ram, 690G motherboard with integrated VGA/DVI graphics for under 175. Plus, the thing would probably idle at less than 50 watts.)

It's a great time and bad time to buy. But the RAM prices are supposed to start jumping back up from their obscenely low levels.

 

[flipping_heck]

Cool, a friend of mine recommended another PSU to me, whcih i shall get instead.
As for the case, im not really looking into anything expensive or flashy at all, my friend has suggested one other case as well but due to tight-ish budget i dont know whether to consider getting one.

Anyways, im gonna get these tomorrow, thx for the help guys