well looking at those i think i would go for the msi p45 mobo and ill def take one of those e500's off you. ill be using my existing 350w psu and 8600gtx i dont think there would be any power issues but im looking to make my way thru my wish list piece by piece.


how long are those bit avail for pilsy? im a bit tight at the mo but should be all good in a few weeks.

oh and that 250 hdd has me tempted as well

-sounds like it could be tight Bo... depending on what CPU u upgrading from.
Shame- had a spare 430W or something I just gave to a random

Q6600- i own one also. Lets not forget the really great overclocking potential of the G0's on the right mobo!
I think they can be a perfectly good gaming chip- although obv not top of range anymore.

Admittedly theres the shared 8mb L2 cache... but still 4mbx2 is nothing to be sniffed at! Plus with a good overclocking mobo and heatsink you will easily break the 3ghz barrier- far past that if u are brave!

Then you've got the higher FSB's of these new Dual cores. I think some of them now have a 6mb cache too right? Tasty.
All really handy if you're thinking of throwing in some fast memory too.
Although I would actually reccomend one of these nippy dual's for someone building a rig right now there's no reason to write off a quad core alternative. (Although I would be tempted to wait till after Xmas and see what happens to prices of the QX models!!)

But my Q6600, still at stock and after a few Vista64 teething problems and glitches has caned everything ive managed to throw at it.
The Dual 8800GTXoc's do help- although SLi isn't as big as an improvement as people think and some games often run better with a card disabled!

There are games like CoD4 etc that recognise dual cards within the application and turning it on did give me an (unneeded) boost. Otherwise SLi really just more of a hassle and power requirement!

I can see my machine lasting the rest of the year reasonably happily, with some tweaks here and there- but ohh boy I'm going back to building them myself for my next rig!!!

Yeah thats pretty much my view Khola. The dual cores have the edge in terms of performance and cost at the moment for new builds, but that by no means makes the Q6600 poor.

Bomaster - pm or email me and ill reserve anything you want as long as were in agreement that you purchase .

350w power supply is iffy, id replace that asap . Should do you fine running at stock speed to get you going though, but I wouldnt try and run it long term. The gigabyte 470w off overclockers is £28 iirc and is the very cheapest psu i could recommend, even then I dont know about longevity. My personal favorite for price and power is the Corsair 650TX at £60ish. Best not to skimp on your PSU as if it goes pop its possible it could kill any or every component in your pc.

well im looking at being able to use the system after each upgrade while also having to never replace anything for a while, i was looking at the corsair 750w and being able to keep it for my next build. also, alltho i dont have beefy sli gpu's thats not to say i wont in the future. so i dont want to skimp on something now which will limit me in the future.

as far as the cpu's go i can get both the q6600 and the e8500 for the same price (pilsy aside). but as im understanding the E is better for single program use and the Q is better for multi tasking. im not too fussed with having to wait till im finished gaming before i start on something else so i think the E's are better suited to me. having said that is there any poss that in the future more of the q6600's potential will be unleashed therefore making it a better long term investment ?

the further i go the more it things i need to replace, soon ill be looking at a whole new rig. mmmmm

Well at the moment and possibly with a e8500 it should run bit would be close, e8400 100 watts ish gpu doesent need a 6pin pcie cable so 75watts through the pci-e x16 slot on your mobo plus ram etc should be something like 300 max output or something but thats trusting your psu is running at full and all this over crap i got told once

Unless you are overclocking/running 2 powerful cards in sli id probaly go with pilsy's corsair Tx650 as it should run 2 8600gt's in sli if thats what you are planning as well as other components

well im planning to stuck with my existing 8600gtx till i can afford some top o' the range beefy mofo's at a later date but looking again at pilsys' rig i dont think ill need more than the 650w hes got, especially as he's running a jet engine off the back as well. i dont plan on overclocking with my current psu but when i get a new one its a definite.

I can't see it happening really no. If you arent fussed about encoding or server apps then the high speed dual core will always at least match the quad.

65nm Quad v 45nm Dual is no contest on the power stakes - you need less of a beefy power supply (and use less electric for the benefit of all the scrooges out there ) for the dual. Id question whether you could run a Q6600 on that power supply. Infact I'd say you would definitely need to replace it whereas you *should* get away with the 350w on a temporary basis with the E8500.

I looked at the 750TX but decided the 650TX could do everything I wanted for £30 less. Its SLI capable by the way, has 2 x 6/8pin PCIe connectors.

well i have decided to go with the E8500, but i assume the mobo will impact the power use as well but all that aside i think im all good now.

E8500
650TX
any p3/4 sli mobo and top speed ram to match

i should get it all for 250 - 300 quid


pc's ftw

macs can suck my fat hairy kiwi fruit

Sigh. I wish I'd been part of the HH *before* I bought my new PC. Its not bad, but it could have been better.

tell me bout it, if i had known all this b4 i would have either saved a few hundred pounds or got a much better pc for mah duckets, im thinking of going for the tripplehead monitor thingy, depends on how it runs tho