Well I have been saving for about a year and a half and i finally did my upgrade. The specs are:

Pentium Core 2 Duo E6700

2 gigs DDR2 PC 8000 ram

Asus P5B Deluxe Mobo(with bios upgrade supporting ATI crossfire)

ATI Radeon X1950XTX video card

Creative SoundBlaster X-fi Elite Pro sound card and creative gigaworks 5.1 speaker set.

I feel I have to say here that thanks to a certain electronics boutique I tend to favor(Fry's Electronics), I have had several (make that dozens) of problems to overcome getting this rig to work.So much so that I think I have a ratjher decent upgraders diary I could put together.Starting with a defective(and apparently previously returned) mother board which, due to some hoser messing with it beforehand, had a problem with the IDE connection and the CD-Rom drives would peter out after about 2 minutes of spinning.This happened while I was installing the drivers for the motherboard and subsequently corrupted my windows install permanently. It goes on from there. I am now, though, happily tweaking/downloading drivers/ and poking away at a fresh windows install.

Does anybody know of a good overclocking tutorial which would encompass all aspects of overclocking?. I think I would like to get the most performance possible out of this rig, but I know next to nothing about CPU functions with core voltages and such.

Let me know also if you'd be interested in the upgraders diary. You might find it enlightening, or at the very least entertaining.

That's awesome, but you should have waited, in the next couple months some big jumps are coming out and, at the least, you would have gotten stuff cheaper.

That and Fry's in generally more expensive than any online retailer.

Anyway, as far as overclocking goes. It doesn't generally help anything, but if you really want to, it's the FSB and Clock ratios in the BIOS. The only real way to see if they work well is to monitor temperatures and make sure nothing runs too hot. Of course, if you really want to overclock the thing, you'd have very nice cooling mechanisms and you'd overclock it a bunch. As long as it's getting cooled (water cooling or insanely fast fans) and you don't harm the connections (too much) it should be okay.

Most motherboards now come with some dynamic overclocking abilities, if the chipset supports it. In any case, that board does support overclocking (look at the cooling system) take a gander at the manual for your board I'm sure it'll give you some insight.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Big jumps?

Like the direcX 10 graphics boards?.

I waited a year and a half to get this stuff.

I suppose I could wait forever until technology plateaus and nothing better will ever come out, but quite frankly I don't see that happening. I might as well dive in somewhere, and now seemed like the right time. Even if Intel comes out with their 45mm architecture, or even if DirectX 10 is made available, I am still ahead of the gamefor some time now.

PS. I have a few things for sale and I only want to sell them as a group.

they include a mobo(P5N32 SLI Deluxe), a chip(P4 3.4), 2 gigs of ram(DDR2 PC 5400), two GEForce 7800 cards(with SLI interface),One network card, one Audigy Platinum sound card, and a Creative 5.1 speaker set.Almost all in boxes and all software included.

Asking Price 1000.00 (US)

PM me if you are interested.

I just want to say that I'm not scrutinizing you or anything like that.

PCI-E2 is coming out. AM2 is thriving (and Intel's new stuff is debuting). As well as the next generation of graphics cards (in November and January). So, quite literally, waiting a month or two would save significant amounts of money. That's all I was saying and it's actually pretty specific to the current happenings in hardware.

The "wait until next generation to upgrade, because it will be better" argument is never a novel one, in any case and that isn't what I was saying.

If your last machine was the one you're selling, why did you upgrade to what you have now? It would make more sense to build a rig to last about 3 years, or so, before upgrading would be needed more so than wanted. (that machine fits the bill)

The only thing I'll say about DX10 is that there are some other issues, so generally, even though some good games will require it, I wouldn't expect (or advise) anyone to wait for it. That is unless Vista's activation policies change.

Anyway, are you going to put up some numbers and screens? Or just try to pawn off your old machine? :razz:

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I'm in the market for a new setup at the moment. I can appreciate your advice to hold on a little before making the plunge Crono, but I think I'm gonna be making my investment next week. My current system is really getting fairly old now and I'm earning a enough cash to not worry TOO much about not getting the absolute best deal.

I'm actually going for a similar setup to you Juim, though a little less on the graphics and CPU...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
2x 1Gb G.Skill DDR2 6400C4 RAM
ATI X1800XT 256mb
150Gb Western Digital Raptor X

I know that the graphics card is kinda the weak link in there, but I don't want to fork out a huge amount of money for one at the moment when the DX10 cards are just around the corner. The X1800XT outperforms the X1900GT and the place I'm gonna order from has it at a reasonable price, so its the best within the budget I'm willing to thrown down for the graphics card. I'll probably upgrade it for a new card in 6-12 months or so, while the rest of the system I'm hoping will last me at least a year or two. The motherboard claims to be able to support upcoming Intel Quad-Core CPU's, so maybe I'll switch one of those in at some point down the line, but given the apparent performance and overclocking potential of the dual core E6600, I don't know if there will particularly be any need for quite some time!

The Raptor X is an ultra fast SATA HDD with a window on it. The window I don't really care about, but its currently selling for cheaper than the identical-but-sans-window version, so I might as well :smile: Might pick up another one down the line and run them in RAID-0. I'm thinking I'll eventually get a big external or network drive for media storage, but for now I'll just use my existing 250Gb IDE drive.

I'm also looking to put this system into a Thermaltake Armor case with liquid cooling, which should let me push the CPU to some pretty good overclocked figures :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

beware the Asus boards, i've assemebled two core 2 systems with them and they both had ram trouble that had to be fixed in the bios after using temporary ram sticks.

Awesome. I'm definitly jealous! :smile:

With so many people with up-to-date hardware knowledge around... What does "Pentium Core 2 Duo E6700" mean? I miss my Mega Hertz'! :biggrin:

Using clock speed as a measurement of performance is SOOOOO pass? :razz:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Clock Speed measurements are also totally 80's.

It is what it says: a duel core intel chip. I believe it's the second generation ... thus the 2. 6700 is the generation, which includes power consumption and speed (there's a table somewhere that tells you what that number means) and I don't know what the E means. Possibly a classification for core architecture?

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well I changed my system a bit and put in my order. Sadly the graphics card isn't released until Friday so I'll have to wait until next week to put it all together :sad: I went for a slightly different graphics card to the one I was planning on - should make a small performance improvement but nothing really noteworthy. Also went for the non-windowed Raptor as I'm now splitting the order between two shops and so can get it for cheaper.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi
2x 1Gb Corsair XMS2-6400C4
HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ 3
Western Digital Raptor 150Gb

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I beleve the E stands for Extreme which is as far as I know what Intel were calling the Dual core chips to start with.

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Tinterweb site
Deviantart

Human knowledge belongs to the world

nope, E is the normal Core 2 Duo line, the X line is the extreme

very nice choice with the X1950 reno

X19xx line represent.

X1900 XT here.

Keep in mind it is an X1950 pro, which is basically ATi's new mid-range card. Its the replacement for the X1900GT apparently - somewhere between that and an X1900XT in terms of performance but with some new improvements such as better crossfire support (no need for slave/master cards - any two will work). Reviews made it out to be a very good card for the money, so I decided to go for it. I think I'll wait 6-12 months and consider upgrading to a DX10 card along with Vista.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

My brother is looking to build a computer for ~$1000 USD sometime soon, which he asked me to help find good parts for.

So far I'm looking at:

• ASUS P5B - Everything I've seen about the P5B line since the most recent BIOS update makes these boards out to be great overclockers, and all-around good mobos for the price.
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 - He's planning to overclock it, this chip on the P5B made it to 3.68GHz in this Anandtech article. Possibly an E6400 instead, for the 8x multiplier = lower FSB for same operating frequency = less stress on the chipset.
• X1950 Pro - Read ReNo's post above this.

Which leaves ~$470 for RAM, case, PSU, CPU heatsink, HDD etc. within the $1000 budget.

Just thought I'd throw that out there, since it's Core 2 Duo, with a P5B, and X1950 Pro. P5B + E6300 + aftermarket cooler = overclocking win(z0rz).

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o

HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ 3

Chhhhhh :heee:

And you can even say you buy that for work.

_______________________________________

About the new CPUs... How can you compare an Athlon and a Pentium now for example? Seperate program speed tests only? I find this to be rather confusing. :sad:

I've been looking to build a new rig by the end of the year. Let me know how yours turns out Reno, I checked out some prices here in Australia and your system came up pretty good, about the best you can buy without blowing the budget.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Will do mate :smile:

I'm currently trying to design a system for a mate of mine, within a rather tight ?600 budget. I was hoping to go down the very same low-level core 2 duo route like Baron is (with an E6300 and either the Asus P5B or Abit AB9), but with everything in that was coming out at around ?850 :sad: I'd be able to scrape that down if I settle for 1Gb RAM rather than 2, but still nowhere near the ?600 figure. Looks like I'm gonna have to go down a different avenue...and try convincing him to up the budget by ?100 or so :wink:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Well, the new addition to my computer is going to be a CD burner. Last one failed completely while it was burning something :/

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

You should definately encourage him to up the price a bit. For roughly $1700 AUS (?700) I built the system I've been running for 2-3 years, and its only starting to struggle now. That little bit of extra cash goes a long way :smile: .

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Juim said:
I feel I have to say here that thanks to a certain electronics boutique I tend to favor(Fry's Electronics), I have had several (make that dozens) of problems to overcome getting this rig to work.

And people think me slow on the uptake. This isn't the first time you've complained Master Juim. Seems like you favor the faster gratification of availability in this store you frequent.

May I suggest the longer, slower, but more satisfying route of Pricewatch?

I know that it creates inconvenience when something goes badly, but.. you seem to already have inconvenience in abundance. I highly recommend online shopping.

BTW, after my recent demise in losing my PC, I am drooling over your new setup.

You lucky dog.. Might I ask, any spare parts you can send this way? At a bargain perhaps?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

LAME LAME LAME. Why did nobody tell me PCI-E graphics cards require some new 6-pin PCI-E power connector that my (really not all that old) PSU doesn't have? What the hell was wrong with the 4-pin molex connectors that AGP cards use? Now I have to wait another couple of days, with my PC already taken apart and the new one semi-setup, for some little adapter to turn one of those 4-pin molex cables into this 6-pin thing. And if it doesn't arrive on Friday, that means I gotta wait until Monday. Not a very happy chappy right now - always the tiniest things that prove the stumbling blocks!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

The video card doesn't come with a converter? This is the first time I've ever heard of a PCI-E card not coming with a converter.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

It's odd - the back of the box claims that it does (though it definately doesn't), but their website, in bold, says "Adapter NOT included" :sad: I can probably complain that the box says it is included and get one for free, but for the few quid it will cost me, I'd rather not go through the potential hassle and delay. Our tech guy at work is going for some computer supplies tomorrow morning so he is gonna try and pick me one up, so hopefully I'll be back setting everything up tomorrow evening :smile:

Oh, I should probably mention that the card I got in the end WASN'T the X1950 Pro. I had that preordered, but they didn't get the stock in on the proposed date and they weren't sure when they would. I was quite glad too - I noticed they had an X1900XT 256mb for only ?5 more, and it trumps the X1950 Pro's performance by quite a bit across the board, so I asked if I could switch my order to that and they oblidged :smile: Sadly it is a very no-frills Connect3D card (no frills meaning not even a freakin' power adapter), but performance wise it should have been a wise switch!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Hmm, good thing I went on and setup the rest of the PC, as I just noticed I also need an adaptor to change my PSU's 20-pin motherboard power cable into the 24-pin power cable my new motherboard demands. I had no idea they had brought in all these new bloody standards - I thought my PSU was gonna last me ages when I bought it a few years back but it looks like it missing all these new cables is gonna prove me wrong :sad:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I really hate when the tiniest thing stops you from setting up your new rig.

You didn't know about the 24 pin power connector either? Maybe you should have read the specs on the parts a little closer.

These standards aren't new, they've been using 24 power connectors for a few years. PCI-E has used a six pin power cable since it's inception as far as I know.

You know SATA drives don't use IDE and 'D' pin power cables, right? :razz:

Anyway, stuff just started requiring more power. In addition to that around 2002 Intel demanded the 12V dual rails be introduced, since a single line with the same current (whatever the current is on those rails) was deemed too dangerous and fire proned. The stuff isn't really a "standard" by any means, it's just a standard for the amount of power the hardware now requires. Especially with the graphics cards and some of the multi-core CPUs, it's necessary.

I guarantee you the issue I had would annoy you more. I bought a Maxtor SATA3 drive and the board I have has an nVidia nForce 4 chipset. Go look up some details on that one. They simply didn't work together. Period. (In a round about way, I found out it's actually Dell's fault ...)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well, I can completely understand your dilemma Reno, I bought a Silverstone Temjin T6 cased last year and it was a rather cool case because the motherboard mounts upside down to keep the CPU away from other heat sources. The bummer was no power cord from the PSU was going to be long enough, so I had to order extentions which took several days to arrive.

I am always looking for such snags now, because they are annoying. My current dilemma is the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard I wound up getting. The Asus P5B became unstable after every overclocking attempt and windows would'nt boot for long, if at all, so I switched to this board and I am very happy (so far).

Now I need a cooling solution and I am looking into the Thermaltake Bigwater 745. The problem is Gigabyte put this rather annoying(but helpful) copper heatsink underneath the motherboard/CPU, and My powerfan won't fit unless I find some longer screws. But I would rather go liquid cooled anyway,so I have to call thermaltake tomorrow and ask them about this. It's amazing how un-coordinated peripheral manufacturers are, but if you research, everything works out fine.

I got my PSU - a Thermaltake Butterfly 480W - less than 3 years ago. To be honest, I expected the thing to last me through a few PC's. I've read dozens of reviews of all my new components and done plenty of what I would deem research, and I know my PSU would supply plenty of power for what I've bought, but of course since these "new standards" have been around a while, none of the reviews or components ever feel the need to make a song and dance about requiring them. Since the 24 pin power connectors look (and ARE) so damn similar to the 20 pin power connectors, its not something you ever notice when looking at pictures or reading the specs. Its true, I should have done more research to look for this sort of thing, but when you've never heard any mention of a change in standards, theres no real reason you would think to check :sad:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Well I was gonna pick up the two adapter cables I need, but in the end it was gonna cost me about ?20, so I decided to go for a new PSU instead. I was planning on picking one up during my next incremental upgrade (along with Vista, a new case, and new X-Fi sound card, maybe a few other bits and bobs) so it woulda been ?20 effectively down the drain had I bought them. The new PSU is a Hiper Type-R 580W, which is modular so I can lose all those extra wires I'm not using, has 2 of those PCI-E 6-pin connectors, and a 20/24 pin motherboard connector you can switch between. ?75, which to be honest is a lot more money than I should be spending this month after throwing down the cash for the PC, but hey, when needs must!

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I know, I spent another 180$ on a Thermaltake 750w toughpower last weekend, thinking maybe power was my trouble with the Asus board (which it was'nt). I really like the fact that I can connect only the cables I need to the thing. Helps keep the case cleaner and cooler.

@Juim.

No spare parts you wanna sell bud?

@Duncan.

Work out all those kinks. I wanna know what I might be in for if I opt for PCI-E this time.

A 6800GTX still looks sweet though.. :biggrin:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I've got two of the cheapest power supplies I could find (came free with cheap cases) and they both have the 4-pin extra power connector for 24-pin motherboards. Seems a bit strange that a high end PSU like that wouldnt have it (unless theres an older 24-pin standard which is different, if so, thats the one I have).

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Well I think I am finally at a point where I can say done. I had to go with a different motherboard as I could'nt get the Asus to work right. I switched cases and added a spinky CPU fan and an extra 120mm fan in the case and so far it has run for 24 hours with no mishaps, cruising at about 3.1gh and running at room temperature.

Several techs have told me that theres still alot of debugging to be done with regaurd to Core 2 Duos/ram/and mobo's living in harmony and from my experience I have to believe them. I wound up going with the Gigabyte

GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard,

and while it does not support ATI crossfire (yet) it is rather stable in overclocked mode. I also upgraded to Corsair PC8500 ram which runs at 1066mh, but the boards topspeed is 800mh so that parameter is locked at 800.I also installed a Thernaltake toughpower 750 watt PSU.

Crono was asking for numbers, and I hav'nt run any diagnostic programs yet, but I can tell you that HL2 ran for about 30 minutwes yesterday at 1600 x 1200 with all the bells and whistles,4xAA, 8xAF, reflect all, and the highest settings everywhere else and it does'nt even burp in the most hectic of scenarios.

Warning: High res screenshot alert!

http://gamersdiner.com/images/ep1_citadel_000001.jpg

This shot was taken in-game yesterday.

Now I have to re-install the games I have, but I will probably leave a few out this time around.

I am also getting a direct device error occasionally with HL2 since the re-install, I think it might be drivers from ATI, I will update them this morning and see how that goes.

The device driver error was a result of the Easy Tune 5 overclocking utility that came with the mobo drivers. If I turn it off theres no problems with HL2. As for benchmarks, I get a score of 12975 on 3D Mark05, and a score of 6816 on 3D Mark06. When I go to the results browser the message I get says there is only 1 other machine with my specific configuration, so therefor comparisons could not be made. I am unaware of any other benchmarking programs, if there are any that interest you let me know and I will dl them. My current map also compiles in half the time as well.

I also just ran through F.E.A.R. again from front to back and I can only say wow!. This game never ceases to amaze me with it's particle effects, slo-mo combat and everything else about it. I highly recommend upgrading.

I know DX10 and subsequent cards/mobo's/ are just now coming out (including the new nvidia chipset) but I feel pretty confident that I can handle most current and upcoming technology for at least a year before upgrading any more components. Now back to mapping.

I found this yesterday. Haven't had a chance to scope it out yet. If you do, post your thoughts.

Good luck... And, sweet scores. Beat mine to hell and back. (not that I am complaining, I got the fastest machine I have ever owned now.)

[EDIT]

It takes a bit of email bulls**t, just to get this thing working, then it benches you against really old hardware.

I don't think this program will help you much Juim. Your machine is leagues ahead of mine, and I whipped its ass.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

yay another rig thread! i think i'll join this time:

i tried to play F.E.A.R. ... again, had to bring my settings down. my current (out-dated) setup is really in need of an upgrade..

Video: 9700pro
Memory: 1.5gb 3200? ddr
Mobo: some stupid soyo pos
Processor: p4 2.8ghz. woot =D

fooled around on newegg, trying to find something moderately priced that will get me out of my current fps slump..

Video: x1950xt $270
Memory: 2gb Corsair XMS2 $240
Mobo: Intel =D $110
Processor: PentiumD, D.C., 3ghz $154

i've got everything else already.. case, psu, optical drives, sound card, etc. comments? suggestions? thinking maybe an xmas gift for myself.. heh

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

personally I like AMD better, but everyone has their preferences.
you could get an AMD 64 x2 3800+ for about $150 (CPU)
and a comparable MB for about the same as the Intel MB you picked.
Go with what you're comfortable with though.

The card you picked is an excellent choice.

(couldnt find the specs on the 9700pro)

Memory Clock Speed (MHz)
9800 pro = 340
x1950xt = 1000

Engine Clock Speed (MHz)
9800 pro = 380
x1950xt = 650

Corsair is always gold to me.