Revamping My System

[Ashur]

I'm installing Ubuntu dual boot if all goes well.

[Aslanna]

What kind of memory scores are others getting? Everything else looks fine. I'm running 5-5-5-15 with a 1:1 ratio. That is pretty loose. I might have to "tighten" them up as they said in "Knocked Up" I know my memory can swing better scores than that! Anyone that's OC'ing getting better memory scores and have lower timings? (Bahnanna, I think you might have a little higher score to begin with because of your 4GB > 2GB Ram which appears to affect the score) doh, nm, forgot you're using XP still.

I have 5.7 base score. 5.9 for everything but Disk (5.8) and Processor (5.7).

This is with Vista 32bit. 6600 at 3.0GHz. Memory timings are 5-5-5-12. Ratio is 5:6 but I don't really know anything about that. I'm stable that's all I care about!

[Boogahz]

No issues for me! Vista has been running extremely stable for the last month!

I'm sure it's just fine for a lot of people. That changes nothing!

Besides which this has been discussed already Here!

I know. I just expected a hell of a lot more issues prior to installing. All I can say without sounding fanboyish is that I am impressed.

[Winnow]

I have 5.7 base score. 5.9 for everything but Disk (5. and Processor (5.7).

This is with Vista 32bit. 6600 at 3.0GHz. Memory timings are 5-5-5-12. Ratio is 5:6 but I don't really know anything about that. I'm stable that's all I care about!

wtf...

I read up on my memory to see what it was capable of and it can do 4-4-4-12 with no problem with a E6600 @ 3Ghz

I just changed my memory settings to 4-4-4-12 and still get a 5.0 on memory although my CPU score went up to 5.6 from 5.5

I don't get what's wrong with my memory to be scoring so low. 4-4-4-12 1:1 is a very good timing.

So I'm at:

5.6 Processor
5.0 Memory
5.9 Desktop Graphics
5.8 3D Graphics
5.7 Disk

[Winnow]

I figured out why my memory was under performing. I had my memory multiplier set to 2X so my memory was running at 677Mhz or something like that. I set my multiplier to 2.5 (memory @ 833Mhz) and got these scores:



Now I just need to figure out why I'm back running at 2.4Ghz after the multiplier change, get myself back to 3Ghz, eventually switch my OS boot drive to one of the speedier new WD 750's to pick up .1 or .2 for disk performance and I'll be set until the graphics card upgrade.

[Syenye]

i bought this case yesterday:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133154

now i need crap to put in it. i will probably end up with the Core 2 Duo E6600, but i will need a power supply and a motherboard to get me started. i'd prefer an asus board, just because i've always had good luck with those. any recommendations?

[Winnow]

i bought this case yesterday:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133154

now i need crap to put in it. i will probably end up with the Core 2 Duo E6600, but i will need a power supply and a motherboard to get me started. i'd prefer an asus board, just because i've always had good luck with those. any recommendations?

That case would rock with a Pink LED lighting instead of blue!

As for Motherboards, the Gigabyte DS3 board I researched heavily for my E6600 upgrade works great. I bought Rev 2.0 of the board but it's up to Rev 3.3 with F10 bios...nice to have a MB that's been out awhile and has been fine tuned through a few revisions.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128012

Are you going to be using Linux or SLi? Those would be the only two reasons to consider not getting it. Other than that, it's rock solid and OC's like a champ.

[Aslanna]

i bought this case yesterday:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133154

now i need crap to put in it. i will probably end up with the Core 2 Duo E6600, but i will need a power supply and a motherboard to get me started. i'd prefer an asus board, just because i've always had good luck with those. any recommendations?

I'm pretty happy with the system I put together so you could look at an earlier post to see what components I am using. For the power supply I got a Thermaltake W0106RU 700W. I was holding out for a Tagan but Newegg never had them (the one I wanted) in stock. Also.. Now that I have modular I'm not sure I would recommend it unless the back of the power supply is easily accessible once in the case. For something like the Antec P180 this is not the case and I would dread having to pull it out just to add another cable so I basically just connected them all. Which sorta nullifys the modular design.

As for Motherboard I have the Asus P5N32-E SLI even though I don't necessarily think I'll ever setup SLI. However I'm not sure I'd recommend it to others as it's quite finicky. I personally am not having any problems with it now but reading the forums it seems a lot of people are having memory issues particular with 4GB (4x1GB modules). I got 2x2GB and those seem less problem prone but even those can be tricky. Earlier BIOSes were also fairly unstable and unreliable but 1002 seemed to fix most of them. There is a 1003 but I never tried it as I'm not one to tempt fate. If the system is working fine don't update the BIOS is my motto.

[Aardor]

As for Motherboard I have the Asus P5N32-E SLI even though I don't necessarily think I'll ever setup SLI. However I'm not sure I'd recommend it to others as it's quite finicky. I personally am not having any problems with it now but reading the forums it seems a lot of people are having memory issues particular with 4GB (4x1GB modules). I got 2x2GB and those seem less problem prone but even those can be tricky. Earlier BIOSes were also fairly unstable and unreliable but 1002 seemed to fix most of them. There is a 1003 but I never tried it as I'm not one to tempt fate. If the system is working fine don't update the BIOS is my motto.

I have that motherboard too, and I absolutely hate it. However, the reasons for me hating it are due to numerous cases where bios settings are completely ignored (for example, you would set your vcore to one value, and the motherboard would use a totally different value based on FSB speed, totally screwing up overclocks). However, this seems to be fixed (I read the forum specific to this motherboard on Asus's site for 3 months, and finally gave up assuming they were never going to fix the issues with the bios). People still have problems with memory, so if you choose the motherboard, make sure you get a type you know people have successfully used.

I hear very good things about the Asus Striker Extreme, though.

[Aslanna]

Yeah I thought about the Striker but I didn't really want to spend that much. Popular opinion seemed to be that the P5N32-E was basically the same MB but without the fancy touches like LEDs and whatever.

I haven't noticed any issues with BIOS settings not staying but I'm not real knowledgable about all that voltage and overclocking stuff. All I know is I got it running well at 3GHz so not making any more changes!

So, as I said, while it's working peachy for me I'm not sure I'd really recommend that MB to people who just like to plug it in and forget it because more than likely it wont work correctly from the get-go.

[Syenye]

Are you going to be using Linux or SLi? Those would be the only two reasons to consider not getting it. Other than that, it's rock solid and OC's like a champ.

this is going to be a gaming box, so no linux. freeciv is only entertaining for so long. and i probably won't do SLi right away, but i'd like the option to upgrade to it.

[Canelek]

Anyone else have thoughts on the ASUS P5N32-E or Striker? Newegg goes in either direction, so tough to figure out...

Also, I have heard some good things about the EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI.

I am researching outside of ASUS due to some customer reviews, but have used ASUS for years otherwise.

[Aslanna]

Finally submitted order. This is what I ended up getting:

ASUS P5N32-E SLI

It looks like the P5N32-E has given up the ghost. It started to blue screen and constantly reboot. At first I was thinking it was a bad drive but putting it in another system I couldn't find anything wrong with it however now it's to the point that it wont even make it to the POST display. I tried nearly every combination of removing hardware but no go. I checked around on the Asus forums and saw other people who had this issue and in most cases Asus sent them another board. There is a three year warranty so I tried contacting their technical support and was not happy with the results. I tried the 'Live chat' thing and the first representative never bothered to respond or even indicate they were there. The second one asked me a question and as I was looking in the manual to see how to do it he disconnected without even getting a response from me. I rated their support as extremely bad or whatever and requested a callback so will see how that goes.

In the meantime I ended up putting in an order for an i7-930 and... an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard even though I had previously sent them a nastygram saying I would no longer be buying Asus products.. It was really the only motherboard I could find mostly consistant customers reviews on at Newegg in the admittedly short time I was looking. I wanted to get the order in today so it would hopefully be here by Friday but I'm thinking it will probably be Monday. I was going to go with EVGA as I had good customer support with them sending me another 8800-GTX but I wasn't too confident in their motherboards after reading some of the reviews. Oh and I threw some G-Skill memory in while I was at it. I hope this new MB/memory combo isn't as picky as the last one.

[Canelek]

I am done with EVGA motherboards, although I still like their video cards.

You really cannot beat ASUS motherboards. The notebooks are solid as well. My G1 is still going strong!

G.Skill is excellent RAM. I recently upped my desktop to 8GB @ 1333 and 4GB on the notebook. The notepbook G.Skill sticks have cute little heatsinks too! Awwww..

[miir]

I concur on the GSkill RAM!

I still swear by Asus motherboards but their RMAs tend to take a long fucking time.

[Aardor]

I somehow missed the discussion on the P5N32-E SLI. I bought it the week it came out, and the BIOS blew dicks for the first 2 months, driving me nuts trying to OC the thing (or at least to the highest stable OC, voltages would randomly reset). After that got that fixed, it was a really sweet motherboard.

[Aslanna]

I somehow missed the discussion on the P5N32-E SLI. I bought it the week it came out, and the BIOS blew dicks for the first 2 months, driving me nuts trying to OC the thing (or at least to the highest stable OC, voltages would randomly reset). After that got that fixed, it was a really sweet motherboard.

Yeah I had issues in the beginning but once that was finally sorted wth a BIOS update I was happy and never had an issue until recently. Hoping they will send me another one so I can just do a swap and use that as a backup computer. Otherwise will have to go search for a P5 MB that will work with the memory I have.

[Psyloche]

I am done with EVGA motherboards, although I still like their video cards.

You really cannot beat ASUS motherboards. The notebooks are solid as well. My G1 is still going strong!

G.Skill is excellent RAM. I recently upped my desktop to 8GB @ 1333 and 4GB on the notebook. The notepbook G.Skill sticks have cute little heatsinks too! Awwww..

That's interesting, I've had a shitty time with 3 Asus Motherboards, meanwhile the EVGA motherboards I've used still run quite well.

[Canelek]

I suppose mileage will vary!