Advice on improving my rig....?

[Maverick2002]

Hi, My current spec is this:

CMaster Pretorian 730 Black

ASUS P5N32 SLI PREMIUM WIFI

600W ENERMAX EG701AXVE 2PCIE

Intel E6600 Core2Duo 2.40GHz @ 2.76

250G SEAGATE SATA2 ST3250620AS

320G SEAGATE SATA 2

BFG 8800 GTS

Windows Vista Ultimate

No Brand 2gb Ram

My question is, how is this rig looking? And how badly is the RAM likely to be affecting it?

If i buy an upgrade for it, will i see a big improvement? and if yes, any suggestions, in the £150 - £250 mark?

I dont really understand much lol

 

[markkleb]

Well if benchmarks/OCing matter YES.

In everyday use probably no. It matters if you are going to OC or not. If you are better memory is a +.

My new 2 favorite memories for OCing are

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820150054

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220174

 

[deathwish]

personally i wouldn't worry as long as it dose what you want it to,

without being slowl

 

[FarFarAway]

Well the spec looks good. Decent RAM is good if you want to overclock. And in fact if you have C2D then you should

There's a fair bit of mass cheapo RAM around atm

 

[llwyd]

I suggest Mushkin but give all the reviews in our memory section a scan and see if there is anything there that's for you.



Here

 

[FarFarAway]

I suggest looking here (I know OcUK suck but goddamn that's cheap) and getting the OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2

 

[Mr. Smith]

Nice looking specs tbh.

That ram kemp suggests is a steal, get that and upgrade your cooling to a scythe/thermalright (~£30) and OC your e6600 to 3.3ghz or more!

That will give you a nice boost

 

[Maverick2002]

Thanks for all the replies, very useful as always!

Unfortunately i've just got back from spain and its gone from "this week only"....not a big deal, but would it be worth getting this instead: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-082-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=817 or sticking with the cheaper stuff?

As you may have guessed my knowledge of RAM is very limited, not even sure what figures i should be looking at

And overclocking......i don't even know how to clock ram

 

[Mr. Smith]

Nice looking sticks there (the ocz pc8500) - if you got the money, go for it. However, check the latest review of some bargain OCZ sticks - the same performance for almost £70 less (once you bang on the postage)...

As for OC'ing ram - when you oc the cpu the frequency of the ram raises in at a set ratio (1:1, 4:5 etc)... Check here and here oh, and here for the how to's

 

[Maverick2002]

Thanks again smith.

a couple of probably stupid questions (but i'll ask anyway) :

would 2 sticks of more expensive ram be better than 4 of the cheaper ones originally suggested by kemp?

and as a side note, if i got another 8800 GTS, would i be wasting my money due to the bottleneck of the CPU?

 

[FarFarAway]

Just get 2 sticks of decent but cheap RAM due to the fact that XP and Vista 32bit can only run up to 4gb and see 4gb as 3.5gb

 

[Maverick2002]

still the case if i'm running 64bit vista?

 

[markkleb]

64bit will allow it to use more but you probably wont see the difference.

Better to get 2 gigs of good Ram.

As to using 2 8800GTS, unless you are using a 24 or 30" LCD or Plasma I dont know if you will see a difference.

Here is a interesting article on ram

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/02/21/overclocking-9-value-priced-ddr2-800-kits/

 

[FragTek]

Since you have such a nice processor I definitely recommend that you upgrade the RAM. C2D's clock like banshee's and to get the most out of one you need a good mobo and some good RAM. Your mobo could be better, but it will definitely work with the right RAM.

If you're looking to get some good RAM on a budget check out the stuff that PV just reviewed, that's some pretty wicked stuff for the price!

 

[Maverick2002]

As to using 2 8800GTS, unless you are using a 24 or 30" LCD or Plasma I dont know if you will see a difference.

I'm running on a 27" LCD HDTV

Frag, I'll check it out. At the moment the only clock i've done using the board is something called A.I Nos, it let me select a 15% overclock option. Not sure if thats the right way to do it. I'm not using the stock cooler either, i upgraded to a freezer 7 after reading the reviews on this site, and a few others.

 

[Mr. Smith]

Noooo... Don't use any overclocking software.

Use the bios mate. Turn AI whatever off and switch to manual. Have a look at the first guide I linked for you in post #9.

Turn off the recommended cpu featueres (c1e support etc) and set your ram divider at 1:1 to start.

My e6600 will do up to 3.0/3.1 on stock core volts (1.35v), with a raise to 1.4v on the nb... Go up on 10mhz increments on the front side bus (fsb) you should get 340*9 no sweat.

Everytime you raise the fsb you need to do some stress testing with something like orthos (google for it and download) - 15mins should indicate you are ok to raise up again, once you are unstable, up the core volts a smidge and try again. Also, your nb volts may need to be raised.

When you think you have your max OC then leave orthos running at priority 9 for 8+ hours.

As for volts, max cpu volts on air, 1.6v, 1.5v max for 24/7 usage. North bridge, well... Depends. I had my old mobo at 2v's 24/7... Say 1.6v to be safe!

Anyway mate, read the guide, have a go, take it slowly, should be no sweat. Don't overvolt your ram by the way... Depends what you have but 2.2v max in most cases.