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A Few Questions

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Newman378

Registered
Joined
Mar 22, 2011
Hello guys,

I got a good deal a few days ago on a computer that came with pretty much everything except a HDD for only $70.

The specs are as follows:

Q6600 (Revision B0) on an ECS G31T-M,
Corsair XMS2 2x2GB, VisionTek Radeon 2400 HD Pro w/HDMI,
Thermaltake 430W, CoolerMaster Case (not sure of the model #)
OptiArc DVD-RW Dual-Layer Writer, Logitech Wireless Mouse/Keyboard,

So I added a Western Digital Caviar Green 640GB SATA HDD that I had sitting in the closet and put Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit w/SP1, and then swapped out the VisionTek GPU with an older, but better performing, EVGA nVidia GeForce 9500GT 512MB PCI-e. Then I put on a Corsair A50 I also found on CraigsList brand new for only $17.

Now I have always wanted to screw around and try something like this, but unfortunately I haven't built my own PC since my last P4 3.2ghz Prescott CPU YEARS ago lol, this computer was cheap so I figured I'd have some fun with it!

With no OC experience I recorded my Idle and Prime95 (the max heat, little RAM option) temps after only 10 minutes and these were my results using CoreTemp (Cores 0-3, respectively):

Stock Cooler @ Idle - 30 30 26 24
Stock Cooler @ 100% Load - 65 61 59 58

After the A50 was installed they were:

Corsair A50 @ Idle - 26 25 23 20
Corsair A50 @ 100% Load - 45 45 42 38

A huge improvement!

Then I turned up the multiplier in BIOS from 266 to 300 (I think that is the correct terminology), which clocked me in at just under 2.7ghz, from the stock 2.4ghz and ran Prime95 again for only 10 minutes:

Corsair A50 OC'd to 2.7 @ Idle - 26 26 23 20
Corsair A50 OC'd to 2.7 @ 100% Load - 47 47 44 40

I thought this was pretty cool, and was starting to enjoy myself.

Now a few years ago I bought a Gateway FX 6800-01e, which is my current computer. I added an extra 3GB of Corsair XMS3 RAM and have been fairly happy playing most games (World of Warcraft, Red Alert 3, Fallout New Vegas and Crysis 2 Beta even, to name a few) but I have been dying to build a system of my own. I was disappointed to find out that with the Mobo it came with it couldn't be overclocked once I learned more about doing it.

I need to also mention my wife wants a desktop, she's tired of using her laptop at home all the time (this is all going somewhere I promise lol...).

So a few days ago I put an ad on CraigsList to sell the Q6600. Today someone called and offered me $300 for it.

So my questions are these, could the Q6600 OC'd outperform my Gateway if I put in a better GPU and a mobo that is more customizable for OC'ing (it only has the option to increase the multiplier)? If I did that I could give my wife the Gateway and she would be happy (she does not want the Q6600).

Is selling the Q6600 that I basically made for $87 and a HDD worth selling for $300 or could I get more for it? I know they are never worth as much as the total of all the parts, but still wasn't sure what it was worth exactly.

I like my Gateway but am having a lot of fun with this Q6600, what are your opinions? If the Q6600 has the potential to outperform the Gateway, I would like to keep it, if not, I might as well just sell it and make a profit =D

Thanks for reading!





 
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I would take the $300. This is craigslist you're talking about, where people change their minds within minutes of emailing you.
 
I would take the $300. This is craigslist you're talking about, where people change their minds within minutes of emailing you.

Thanks, if he shows up, I guess I will sell it. The wife just got home and said she doesn't really care either way. So I'm assuming you mean it can't compete with my i7 920, even if it's in an unclockable Gateway?
 
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