New to Overclocking.. Some help needed:D

Hello! I am new to this forum and at overclocking as well.
I am going to build a new pc soon and i have generally made my decisions about the parts i am going to use:
Intel q6600 CPU
Asus maximus formula motherboard
Sparkle 8800gts 512mb Graphics card
2x 2GB kits ddr2 1066mhz memory
2x 320gb HDDs in RAID 0 for OS and Programs
2x 640gb HDDS in RAID 1 for data
1x 320gb for more data..

My question is about the ram timings. These MBs have 1600/1333 FSB Given the ram I have what should i set the MB timing to? Should i overclock the ram too? (say 1200mhz o sth..)

Please tell me your opinion about how good the system will be, and i am willing to look into any suggestions.

Thank you all in advance

Welcome to the Forum! http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=491697 Johnkat
If I were to get one of the 2, I'd get the Rampage
Vcard, get the Evga 8800gts, if you want nvidia, and then "Evga step up" when the newer cards come out at the end of this month or next, if you are needing to buy soon..
Do you know what the "evga step up" is?
You might want to get acquainted with this "sticky" http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=515316

First off:
What are your goals with the computer? You might be spending too much for what your goals are.

Second:
Have you read a lot about raid configurations? I'm a pretty hardcore PC user, and even I don't do raid configurations just because of needing two of the same hard drives and if one of the hard drives goes out, you can't use either until you get your data recovered and the bad drive replaced.

Remember that a motherboard, while the most important component of a PC build, can either be too much or too little. Given you're NEW to this forum or new to building in general, I would say the Rampage Formula would be too much for you. Take a look at the P5K Deluxe or P5K Wifi. Don't immediately jump to an X48 or 790i board without thinking of what you're doing.

Replace all those hard drives with a couple WD 640s

You should look into getting 2 of the WD 640 GB (WD6400AAHDK). The first 30% of the hard drives read and write faster than the rest, so partition both hard drives so you have about about 195 GB on the first part of the drive, and 400 GB on the second. Run the 195s in Raid 0, and the 400s in Raid 1.

Go to the Storage sections and check out the matrix array stickies.

I'll be honest, I'm just a noob that has read a lot of reviews lately, and all the reviewers say the "higher density" platter design really makes these fly.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Western-Digital-640GB-blows-away-rivals-in-The-Tech-Report-review.html


I'm about to put a thread in this forum on the computer I'm thinking about building - you should check it out, I think it'll run games just about as good as yours for less dough.

BTW - first post ever in any pc forum - woot

Well I will look into Evga, but since i live in Greece i don't know if i am eligible and how long the shipping will take..
@Essenar: Well I use my computer for all sorts of things, and I can say that I am well above the average use. I will play some of the latest games i couldn't play wil my old pc, I will do video rendering and sound proccessing ( I am a musician as well), and I am going to study Programming at the university from september, so I will have to do loads of programming too...

I have thought it through about raid and i am definately doing it. I was about to go for an 10000rpm drive for the OS partition but raid0 is cheaper and faster. And raid1 is the best way of backing up. I dont care if i lose the OS partition at all so its raid for me.

As for the WD i have heard that they perform better but they are not big enough for me.. I am even thinking of getting more than 1TB for data, but I will be getting 320gb seagate for the OS partition which are based on the same technology so that will do it.

Could anyone enlighten me about the clock speeds of ram though?

Johnkat said:

....And raid1 is the best way of backing up. I dont care if i lose the OS partition at all so its raid for me....

Click to expand...

Just need to chime in here, RAID1 is not a back up. Its a duplicate copy of your hard drive. This means if either drive fails you can happily switch over to the other without more then a few minutes delay. That is why its used in severs, to have maximum uptime.

Backing Up means storing multiple copies of files so that if you delete, corrupt or over-right a file you can quickly jump back to a pervious version and carry on rather then starting again.

Now backing up to a RAID1 setup is a good idea. That way you all the versions of the files on two different drives, should a drive fail you have a copy or should a file become corrupt you have an older version to go back to.

Ok... noone seems to answer my previous questions but i will post another one i can't quite figure out
I dont know how many watts my PSU needs to be.
I edited my first post with the parts I figured i should get, also add the SupremeFX II included in the MB package, a pinnacle TV-Tuner and a network adapter.

I checked out Coolermaster'd Real Power Series that have modular cables (You add only the ones you need) which is good for the airflow and some reviews i read say they are top-notch. I was thinking of getting either the 620W, or the 700W, but i dont know..
I will be doing some overclocking and the online power calculators show me i need 600-700W, but I want your opinion: How much do i need?
Can you suggest any other company that has good quality for reasonable money? (Modular cables are highly preffered..)