[SteveLord]

I've been an AMD fanboy since the first Athlon. Now, they've been dethroned as the optimal choice for gaming, so myself...and 2 buddies of mine are going to treat ourselves to an upgrade with our tax returns. I will be building all of the systems.

My current system, I am going to sell off the CPU, Mobo, Memory, Fan and probably the case too.

My friends, will get entirely new systems. And I am going to overclock all 3.

Myself and one friend look to be getting the E6600, while another might opt for the 6400.

Been browsing feedback on Newegg for boards, and it looks like there are a couple "good ones" but no "great" ones.

Specifically, the offerings from eVga, Gigabyte and ASUS. I've always believed that the best Nforce chipsets came in even numbers, so right now, Im leaning toward the EVGA 122-CK-NF68-TR. They have an AR too that costs more, but I cant tell the difference.

Memory. Looking at 2gigs of Corsair's DDR2800 sticks. Not the CAS4 one, since they seem to have more negative reviews for some reason and we dont want to spend the extra cash just for the timing.

CPU Heatsink. Not sure on this one. That Zalman CPNS9500 (sp?) is quite popular. I've also seen this Tuniq Tower looking monster. Recommended fans?

ThermalGoop. Arctic Silver5 still the best? Any new technique or is it still the rice grain?

Powersupply. Gonna power this and an 8800GTS for my buddies. Need something reliable and affordable. Preferably not more than $130. Hows that Enermax Liberty series? Any new brands getting noticed?

In addition to that, I havent done any overclocking since I got my Opteron here in Dec05. These Core2s from Intel are the rage of the internet from the looks of it. Overclock easier and run cooler right?


Anyways, thanks for any help. I can't wait to get back into overclocking and will be putting my parts up in the classifieds soon.

[Ed B]

AnandTech just did their intel P965 mobo round-up and awards presentation. ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi-AP came out the winner for best performance. The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 took second. That article might be worth reading.

I know the ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi-AP is very popular around here.

[greenmaji]

The feedback at newegg is good to find a funny, not knolegble reviews.

Corsair doen't have preimum IC's on there ram right now (probibly why people are complaining) but there all good for there stock speeds and possibly a little overclocking (unless you buy the high end product)

The Zalman CPU cooling products are popular because there atractive, they are not top performers.. the Tuniq Tower and the TR Ultra-120 are the top performers..

The best CPU fans depend on the noise level and type of noise your willing to put up with, Panaflow has a good reputation for the noise level being tolleratable even if its rather high so I recomend the ultra modle quite often. http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/pa12ulhisp.html

The Nforce chipsets are more difficult to overclock, and are really not needed for anything but benchmarking and running high end (or great deal) SLI.

AS5 is still considered the best for long term ambant cooling performance and the grain of rice technique works best with relitivly flat CPU to HS mounting surfases.

Enthermax power supplies do not have the best quality capasitors.. there are a few PSU's in your price range that I like.. Ill try to list them off the top of my head
Silverstone ST56ZF 560W
Corsiar 520W
Zippy G1 500W gaming PSU.

C2D's scale higher so yes they overclock very well but more frequency from stock means more heat and the CPU's have more accurate temperature reporting so if you get a 1GHz+ overclock don't be supprised if its a little warm

The motherboard recomendations for the E6600 are fairly simple, the CPU only needs about 400FSB to get a good overclock on air. So the Asus and Abit 975X motherboards do well.

The motherboard I perfer for the E6400 right now is the Asus Commando.

Wow.. If I missed something Ill check back for Q's

[SteveLord]

Originally Posted by greenmaji

The feedback at newegg is good to find a funny, not knolegble reviews.

Corsair doen't have preimum IC's on there ram right now (probibly why people are complaining) but there all good for there stock speeds and possibly a little overclocking (unless you buy the high end product)

The Zalman CPU cooling products are popular because there atractive, they are not top performers.. the Tuniq Tower and the TR Ultra-120 are the top performers..

The best CPU fans depend on the noise level and type of noise your willing to put up with, Panaflow has a good reputation for the noise level being tolleratable even if its rather high so I recomend the ultra modle quite often. http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/pa12ulhisp.html

The Nforce chipsets are more difficult to overclock, and are really not needed for anything but benchmarking and running high end (or great deal) SLI.

AS5 is still considered the best for long term ambant cooling performance and the grain of rice technique works best with relitivly flat CPU to HS mounting surfases.

Enthermax power supplies do not have the best quality capasitors.. there are a few PSU's in your price range that I like.. Ill try to list them off the top of my head
Silverstone ST56ZF 560W
Corsiar 520W
Zippy G1 500W gaming PSU.

C2D's scale higher so yes they overclock very well but more frequency from stock means more heat and the CPU's have more accurate temperature reporting so if you get a 1GHz+ overclock don't be supprised if its a little warm

The motherboard recomendations for the E6600 are fairly simple, the CPU only needs about 400FSB to get a good overclock on air. So the Asus and Abit 975X motherboards do well.

The motherboard I perfer for the E6400 right now is the Asus Commando.

Wow.. If I missed something Ill check back for Q's

the Nvidia6 series is harder to overclock? i thought it was good....hmmm. no plans for SLI just yet. just want a good reliable chipset.

yeah i think i will stick with Panaflow. the model i use now has been great.

ill be sure to check out those PSUs. guess we have some new competition.

im hoping to get these cpus to 3ghz at a minimum. which is only a +600mhz overclock. considering what ive seen people do with this, its funny that would be considered "minor"!

looking at ABIT's 975x boards. they have a AW9D and a MAX version. any important differences? all i see are extra SATA ports.

[greenmaji]

The Nvidia chipset is much more complex, The NB and the SB are connected with a HT bus and there are seperate clock generators for the CPU and the ram.. this leaves ALOT more settings to be adjusted correctly by the user.. The chipset generaly runs hotter overclocked as well. I don't recomend it for anyone not planing on running high end SLI or got a great deal on GFX's SLI.

Panaflow

3Ghz is a modest goal, you should be able to do better then that

I think there is a firewire and a few SATA's difference between those two boards.. Abit's has the features of each on there website.. they overclock roughly the same.

[SteveLord]

Any other recommended memory?

I see GSkill and Crucial have some really hot DDR800 offerings, but they are also like $300!!!

[greenmaji]

For the CPU's that you have selected.. and high end air cooling, your looking at an average of 3.6Ghz overclocked on the CPU's

Thats 400mhz for the E6600's.. so any DDR2-800 will do fine.

Thats 450mhz for the E6400's.. the Gskill DDR2-800 PK's would be the cheapest that seem to perform well (if there in stock anywere)

[SteveLord]

Originally Posted by greenmaji

For the CPU's that you have selected.. and high end air cooling, your looking at an average of 3.6Ghz overclocked on the CPU's

Thats 400mhz for the E6600's.. so any DDR2-800 will do fine.

Thats 450mhz for the E6400's.. the Gskill DDR2-800 PK's would be the cheapest that seem to perform well (if there in stock anywere)

I assume you mean bus speeds?

Yeah...my buddies are re-considering their parts. I told em they could knock $100 off buy downgrading to the 6400. Im sure they wouldnt notice any kind of performance hit anyway. Cache costs a lot.

[hUMANbEATbOX]

ok its like this. your bus speed is directly linked to your memory speed. so if you want to run a e6600 (9x multi) at 3.6ghz, you run 400fsb. which in turn makes your ram run at 400mhz, aka ddr2-800. now, any old ddr2-800 will work fine here, but i would go with some ram that can do 4-4-4-12 or so at those speeds.

for the e6400, you will want ram that can go up to 450mhz, because 450*8 = 3600mhz.

of course, these ram reccomendations only apply if you don't want your ram to get in the way of your cpu clocks. if you only want 3ghz or so, then don't worry about it. but these chips are capable of so much more.

[greenmaji]

Yep, HBB is on top of it

400FSB = DDR2-800 stock
450FSB = DDR2-900 (DDR2-800 overclocked)

[greenmaji]

Microcenter has the Intel Badaxe2 and the Abit AW9-MAX3 for $176
And Gautam gives a strong recomendation for the Badaxe2 for 975X mobos right now.

[SteveLord]

alright this is what we got. we are going to an expo on saturday to see if we can save a few bucks on the smaller items.

All to be ordered from ZIPZOOMFLY thanks to free shipping and no tax.


the ABIT AW9D MAX

E6600

FOXCONN 7950GT - Affordable and performs well. If the 1900XT wasn't so rare/expensive, I'd get him that. Since DX10's performance and the 8800 series performance is unknown with it and Vista...we are doing this.

2GIGS OF CORSAIR DDR800

TUNIQ TOWER

PANAFLO 120MM (midrange noise/cooling version)

THERMAL TAKE ARMOR CASE (expensive, but he loves the look and it has a lot of solid feedback)

SeaGate 320gb 7200.10

Corsair 520w or OCZ 600w GameXStream? (OCZ has a 4th 12v rail I think)

DVDRW

Floppy

WinXP Pro for $100 if I can find it.

He will keep his SB Audigy 2 ZS

Total $1621 and $1516 after a few MIRs.

Right in our original $1500 goal.

How's everything look?

[greenmaji]

Any DDR2-800 cas4 will do.. probibly save him a few bucks.
And I doubt you'll find a better deal on a 975X motherboard then the badaxe2 and AW9-max deal at microcenter right now.

[SteveLord]

Oh my...thats like $40 less than ZZF for the Abit! and their shipping rates are cheap!!!

they even have some solid video card options!

[squashfx]

Originally Posted by greenmaji

Any DDR2-800 cas4 will do.. probibly save him a few bucks.
And I doubt you'll find a better deal on a 975X motherboard then the badaxe2 and AW9-max deal at microcenter right now.

listen to this man he knows what he is talking about

[greenmaji]

And take a second look at the Intel BadAxe2

[Gautam]

I'd expect slighter higher FSB speeds from the BX2. Both are pretty solid. There's something weird about how the AW9D performs in some situations, whereas the BX2 seems to be the fastest Conroe board on the planet bar none.

Definitely consider it.

[SteveLord]

so now this Badaxe2 could be a better choice? its priced the same as the ABIT. i need the best of opinions because i will be buying 3 of these in total. =)

i thought i found an old review of this board saying it wasnt as fast it was hyped to be. have there been some great BIOS revisions?

we're still lookin to get the Corsair Cas5s DDR2800. they seem to have good feedback and arent expensive.

[greenmaji]

Are you sure you didn't read reviews of the badaxe?
This is the badaxe2..

Besides.. Gautam says its the best 975X mobo right now.. Thats all it takes for me

This would be the mobo for the E6600 build.. for the E6400's get the Asus commando
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB-...21da9eac8cbd26

QUICK ewiz sold out of them at this price in 2-3 days last time they had them.

[jjdeltor]

Greenmaji, what is your reasoning for using the Asus Commando w/ the e6400? Curious as I just received my Commando and I am waiting to push the button on an e6600 (note: i also have an e4300 that I have not used but not sure if i want to use it with this board, thoughts?).

- J