Hi guys, its that time of year again (student loan instalment time for those who aren't aware)

In anticipation of this, my Vapochill PE case is currently winging its way oop norf to a guy up there who is going to give it an upgrade (240v TL4A compressor, LS lineset and evap, DSH coil and a regas) Si the cooling is still sorted


What I'm after are opinions on this proposed spec, I use the PC mainly for net browsing, listening to music, usual MS word etc, and a bit of programming, with the occasional game, nothing spectacular (Ghost Recon at the mo, probbaly counterstrike soon).

The spec I propose is as follows;

Core2Duo 6300 (With a bit of an overclock on it, nothing mad).
Asus P5LD2 SE Motherboard
2gb Ram (DDR2 PC2-5400 I think?)
2x80gb SATA HDD, run in RAID as one primary drive (giving double bandwidth?) - a mate recommendied this, i don't know much about it
200gb IDE disk that I already have for filestorage.

An for the graphics I was thinking of an X850XT, as I'm not a big gamer, I don't know anything about cards! It needs to be OK for games and spot on for Vista Aero. Either that or if it's really crap, I might spend £50 extra on a X1950 Pro.

Any opinions welcome guys, especially on the graphics card front

PS. I'm thinking perhaps I should save the £50 on the grpahics card and stick with an X850XT and spend the saved £50 on a better motherboard, ASUS around the £100 mark perhaps.

 

Id get a slightly faster processor like the 6400, i dont believe in overcloking as it only stresses other parts of the pc where its not necessary and things can start to break etc, just get a nippy processor out of the box then no need to fanny about with it, thats just me anyway, but no dout someone else will say do it, its so easy, but its up to you.

Graphics card, id say go for the x1950 pro, its a good graphics card for the money, it will play all new games.
Im not sure what a X850XT is( im an Nvidia guy) but it sounds like its old? in which case it will probably make counterstrike look like its on a super nintendo

 

x850xt is a good graphics card
why not go for twin raptors on raid
also have a look at gigabyte motherboards

 

Don;t spend a fortune on a graphics card for vista aero. i spent £40 on a PCI-E Nvidia 7600 GS and it runs it perfectly

 

Cheers lads

Apparently my Vapo will be shipped back to me on Monday, pics soon

As for graphics cards, I think it's gunna be a 7600GT, which is better than the X850XT apparently, about the same, but the nvidia card has Shader Model 3, thats about it. Apparently both will run CS:S on full settings, so that'll do me, will run Aero too

As for mainboards, it's between a Gigabyte DS3, Asus P5B-E+ or my personal board of choice, the new DFI Infinity 965-S Dark, which is a fooking awesome board, ment to be the best 965 chipset board out, but the problem is, its not out here yet Might be worth holding on for though! The FSB goes higher on it than both the Asus and the Gigabyte.

Seems theres a new chip out too, the old E6300 Core2Duo was 1.86Ghz, with 2mb cache and it was an allendale core. They have, for the same price, now released a E6320, which is again 1.86Ghz, but has 4mb cache and a conroe core So that's the chip I'll be getting.

Still unsure about memory, the OcUK value stuff loks a bit too cheap to be good? Theres also Patriot DDR2-6400 that looks ok, cheap too, with 4-4-4-12 timings

It'll all start to fall in place next week I think, when me student loan arrives Just got to see if I can hold out for the DFI board

 

The prices of chips have come down this week, a core 2 duo E6600 (2.4GHZ 4meg cache) can be had for £150 thats really cheap considering its a very fast processor, i assume the lower spec chips have had a price slash too