VeeshanVault

I decided to do some research assuming that I would want to build my next gaming rig "soon" (assuming ), and with the power of Newegg, this is what I have so far:

Case: Antec Performance I P180
Mobo: ASUS P5W DH DELUXE - Out of stock atm.
Gfx Card: BFG Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
PS: Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W - One reason I want this is because the cables are long, which is good since the PS slot on that case is at the bottom.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz LGA 775 - Price = OUCH! I might wait on this.
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System
Heatsink/Fan: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro

I have a SATA Raptor drive and a 250gig 1.5 SATA that I'll keep as my hard drives, and DVD-ROM and RAM drives for my CD/DVD's. Keeping the old sound card too.

Subtotal cost is around $2k. I'm thinking of waiting till the Core 2 Extreme drops in price, but, any thoughts on this build would be appreciated.

I'd look into overclocking one of the lower priced core 2s. Word is that they are good OC'ers like the AMD X2s are. I cranked my X2 3800+ > X2 4800+ levels with just a few quick settings with the stock heatsink/fan and saved ~$500.00 at the time I made the purchase.

Also, you probably don't need any extra heatsink/fan for the CPU. I'm OC'd using the stock HSF and the Intel chips are supposed to run even cooler than the AMD X2s. The stock HSF's are much better these days on Intel and AMD CPUs and your P180 case is going to have excellent airflow.

The Antec P180 case is a great case IMO. You've already taken into consideration the longer Power Supply cables needed so you're set. The airflow in the P180 is great. One thing I don't use in it though is the goofy GPU funnel attachment. I just removed it. It's a pain in the ass (is supposed to draw cool air from the back of the case to blow over the GPU area of the MB. I haven't touched the P180 except once to clean the well designed and easy to remove and clean front air filters. If you can leave the case fans on low (there are three settings), the case is super quiet, if you need to bump the fans up a notch, the case is still pretty quiet.

As always with any motherboard/memory combo, take time to read the motherboard forums for that EXACT motherboard and see what kind of success people have had with the EXACT memory you plan to use with it. It's not plug and play with all memory and even expensive memory may have issues with particular motherboards.

Looks good so far!

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/02/ ... age14.html

The E6700 is slightly behind it and only costs half as much.

I think my wallet would thank me.

Edit: Benchmarks for the Extreme X6900.

Sargeras wrote:http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/02/ ... age14.html

The E6700 is slightly behind it and only costs half as much.

I think my wallet would thank me.

Edit: Benchmarks for the Extreme X6900.

To save even more, drop to the E6600 or even the E6400. They can both be OC'd to ~3.5 levels. Amazing bang for your buck if you have good air cooling. I'd also reccomend a scythe ninja w/ 120mm fan for your heatsink on the cpu. a little bit better than the freezer pro 7.

Bring the vidcard up to a 7950GX2 or 1950XTX. Great cards for the money. I'd also reccomend the 1900XT (can be OC'd to XTX levels quite easily) and the 7900GT/GTX.

You don't want to buy a core2 above the e6600. It's the most cost effective model and costs way less than the 6700/6800 plus it overclocks very nicely. Upgrade the videocard with the money you save!

MooZilla wrote:

Sargeras wrote:http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/02/ ... age14.html

The E6700 is slightly behind it and only costs half as much.

I think my wallet would thank me.

Edit: Benchmarks for the Extreme X6900.

To save even more, drop to the E6600 or even the E6400. They can both be OC'd to ~3.5 levels. Amazing bang for your buck if you have good air cooling. I'd also reccomend a scythe ninja w/ 120mm fan for your heatsink on the cpu. a little bit better than the freezer pro 7.

Bring the vidcard up to a 7950GX2 or 1950XTX. Great cards for the money. I'd also reccomend the 1900XT (can be OC'd to XTX levels quite easily) and the 7900GT/GTX.

I wouldn't go below the 6600 as that's the lowest model that still has 4mb of cache.

*~*stragi*~* wrote:
I wouldn't go below the 6600 as that's the lowest model that still has 4mb of cache.

I haven't seen any benchmarks but the 512 vs 1mb X2 cache variations didn't make that much of a difference so cranking up a 6400 to 6800+ levels is probably the best performance value.

Most people say that the extra cache isn't that major but for me, I wouldn't go below the 4 megs.

Regardless either chip runs circles around the high end AMD chips at the moment.

Also you can make up for the lack of cache with some decent OCing if you get a decent mobo. I think they say that the 965 chipsets do really well in that dept. (I think it's 965. I'm not awake yet!)