• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

E6400 build advice?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Brando

Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2006
Tax time is approaching and I'm itching to upgrade with my gub'ment check. I want to build a quality system that will let me max out an E6400. Before everyone says get a P5-b deluxe and micron d9's, know that I'm hoping to avoid buying a sound card so I'd love decent onboard sound without driver issues. I also need high clocking ram(duh) for as little as possible. I saw another post with a link for $225 Gskill ddr800 but I'm not sure it'll go past 400fsb which as most of you know puts me at 3200mhz. I've seen people say 3400-3600+mhz is possible with E6400 but if I have to spend $75 more on ram it conflicts with the whole budget concept. I may go for the new $150 ASUS P5N-E 650i Nvidia board if nobody can think of a reason not to so that leaves me with the question of which ram to get. Do I really need d9's or is there a budget set that will get me there? If I have to spend 75 more bucks I'm thinking I may as well get cheaper ram and spend the extra money on an E6600 for the cache. Thoughts?:confused:
 
Ok first and for most whats your budget?

Then we can see whats available to you within your price range
 
Geil ultra DDR2-800 with the orange heatspreaders
E6600
Abit AB9-Pro

*this setup is bottleneck free*

is my upgrade from the standard E6400 garrenteed no bottleneck clocking setup.. how does that look for your budget?
 
I'm not convinced Nvidia chipsets are mature enough yet for an Intel rig, especially the 650i.

If you spend a bit more for the E6600 you get more cache of course... and like Greenie says, no FSB or RAM bottlenecks. So, you can spend a little less on mobo and RAM. Probably works out to be the same price for less headaches and a bit more performance.

With the E6600 you definitely do not need D9 chips in the RAM (assuming there is no phase cooling in your future). The Geil with orange spreaders would work or any CAS 4 PC2-6400 stuff. I have a buddy that uses G. Skill "PK" and it will O/C up to at least 429 FSB using default timing and with a bump in vdimm (that's as far as I went when I was playing with his system).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231087

That RAM I just mention was used in an Abit AB9, so you can be assured it's compatible.
 
yeah, for the $10 max price diff, its not worth the time waiting for your dough. those gskill are a great deal.

what about the more expensive ones i linked? once upon a time, those rams had d9's, didn't they? i don't think they have for a while now...but maybe you know better?

and oops, i meant to post links to 3 diff sets...looks like i gave the same set twice tho...meh don't feel like changing it. :p
 
Whats wrong with the 650i? I've got mine to boot at 500FSB and it also supports SLI, all for only 130 bucks. Right now I have a E6300stable at 3.4ghz. I would definitely not say its the best motherboard but for me it was the best deal.
 
Glad the Nvidia chipset worked out ok for you, but I see people struggling with them all the time.

D9 chips in the G. Skill "HZ"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231065

Mushkin eXtreme Performance
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146108

They were putting D9 in the Crucial Ballistix and maybe the OCZ S.O.E. and perhaps the Super Talent with 4-4-3-8 timings. Basically, look at the timings. If they are tight timings, they might have D9. If it has 5-5-5-15, then no way.
 
Thanks for the advice so far. I looked into the Abit Ab9 and saw some posts about a new revision that clocks way higher. How do I make sure I get one of those? Also, do they have those newfangled solid state capacitors that are supposed to be so great, like the AW9D-max and DS3? Does it matter?
 
if you have to spend an extra $50-$75 on memory to get a higher FSB for 6300 or 6400 then i would just get best price 800mhz memory with 4 cas and grab a 6600 and if your not an SLI man then for heavens sake get a Intel chipset.
 
stickroad said:
Ok first and for most whats your budget?

Then we can see whats available to you within your price range
Sorry, didn't mean to ignore you. My budget is somewhat flexible but I hate spending lots of extra $ for a tiny bit of performance. For me, that's what overclocking is for so I'm just looking for bang\buck ratio. I could get a P5w-dh, E6600,and micron d9's if I had to but I think I can live with a 1-2% performance drop to save some dough.
 
If you get an Abit AB9 from a high volume retailer like newegg, you can be almost assured to get the latest version.
 
Ok thanks. I'm torn on this. I just read 2 reviews for the ab9. One reviewer says it's great, the other one(hardocp)says it's the most problematic board he's worked with. I'm starting to think reviews are worthless.
 
Last edited:
The early AB9 did have some problems, most were eventually solved by BIOS updates. It was also a pain to set up because it needed extra drivers installed off a provided floppy disk, but Abit didn't explain that very well.

Regardless, I understand if you feel a little gunshy about buying one. I did put one in a gaming rig I built for a buddy last fall and it worked out good. He's not a hardcore overclocker, so he's just running at 400 FSB. If you get an E6600, then that's about all you'll be running too.

But, there are other worthy choices too, although you might have to spend a little more (like the Asus P5B-E for example). Maybe you can find a good deal on an Abit AW9D. I have the Max version and love it.
 
I haven't heard much about the Gigabyte DS3 lately. Is it a good board or did someone figure out that there was something wrong with it? It's got great ratings on newegg for the most part. I guess theres a new revision that fixes some issues and people seem to like it on that particular site.
 
I had a DS3 early on and at first it wasn't such an awesome board, they were mostly hit or miss. Then BIOS version F5 (i think?) gave the ability to hit 500FSB pretty easily. The only reason I have this P5B now is because I accidently broke the DS3. :rolleyes: I see they are going for a pretty good price now and if you don't have the cash for these more expensive board the DS3 would be a great choice.
 
A bunch of people bought the DS3 and lots are still happy, but I've also seen a growing number of RMAs.
 
batboy said:
A bunch of people bought the DS3 and lots are still happy, but I've also seen a growing number of RMAs.
That's funny. I just read that the "D" in DS3 stands for "Durable". No joke.
 
Back