You want the lowest timings (the numbers like "4-4-4-12" - the first number is more important), which are on the 2 cheaper ones. The £40 one runs at between 1.9-2.3v, whereas the next one up run at 1.8-2.0v, which is probably better, but not worth the price premium.
Slightly off topic, but hows the build going AJP ?, got yourself a GFX card yet ?
I managed to pick up a brand new XFX 6800GS XXX for £18 the other day, but it's stuck in the backlog of the postal strike along with my PSU and heatsink, which is a bit of a bummer. Can't wait till it all arrives so i can see what it can do coz this PC's starting to sound like a vacuum cleaner now
Well I've just had some good news and hopefully will be able to extend my budget slightly, to around £600. I'd of thought that would let me scrap the idea of buying a placeholder graphics card until I can afford one and at the same time get a slight CPU upgrade. I'm still not going to be going all out but basically what I'd like to know is whether an 8800GTS would be limited by an E6550 in current games?
Also would the power supply be able to cope with an 8800GTS, given the fact I don't need 12 hard drives or want to overclock. As for the other bits I can't really see any point in upgrading as I don't wish to overclock.
Depends on what games you'll be playing, ie if it's Multi-threaded etc.
Before you "splash the cash" on an 8800GTS, theres a new GTS (slightly faster) and an 8800GT (ie ~£150), which should also be a little easier on the power consumption.
I wouldn't like to trust that 8800GTS on a 500 OcUK Huntkey PSU, but i don't really have any suggestions.
I suppose currently nothing too demanding, I have enjoyed playing Bioshock though and the graphics are amazing.
Any idea when the new cards are likely to come out? With the way computer technology moves I just want to get round to buying something, so I'm going to put my order in 3 weeks time regardless of whatever else is just around the corner.
Is there any indication yet as to how much slower the 8800GT will be than the 8800GTS, assuming that price is including VAT it may be just what I'm looking for. I don't need the best of the best but I'd like it to be able to cope for 2 or 3 years without major upgrades.
I had budgeted in a 550 OcUK Huntkey but if it's worth upgrading to a better PSU then it seems silly to spend the extra £150 all on the graphics card.
Sorry Harjun I know you're only trying to help but as I've said before I'm not interested in hearing your poor attempts to regurgitate things Jakg has said in the past, I'd far rather discuss this with him or anybody else who hasn't made themself look like a complete tit in the past over a complete lack of understanding of computer hardware.
If it were my cash i'd go for an 8800GT and the Hiper, as it also has an 8-pin (Which the newer ATi cards are starting to want for overclocking, and i'd imagine soon for general use) - however i'm not sure if that goes massively over-budget. You might be able to run on a 4xx W PSU, but you might not have much upgrade possibility.
You might (if you want to save some cash) want to go for a cheaper CPU, the most obvious of these would be the E2180 - same as a Core 2 Duo, but a lower FSB (800 MHz) and less Cache (1 mb VS 4 mb - making about 5% difference in game) - however a 2 GHz E2180 would come in at £58, perhaps giving you the option to upgrade to one of the first generation Intel Quad Cores (ie a B3 Q6600, which when the new Quad's come out will be 2 generations old, and hopefully coming in at £100 or less used).
I can't give you a solid date on the new releases though, although "t3h internets" might give you a hint in the right direction.
jakg...maybe you can tell him to try the corsair 450W one? thats powered Q6600 with 8800GTS and antec 900, so it will easily stand up to his piddle little machine
Is there a set date for its release (or is it likely to be released within a month)? Is it likely to be nearer an 8800GTS than an 8600GTS because it seems there is a huge performance difference between the cards in benchmarks? All of this waiting around for new bits and waiting for prices to fall I'm just going to buy whatever is the best match for me come 3 weeks time and if that means forking out £20 for a bit of needless extra graphics power then so be it, had I forked out an extra £20 when I upgraded my graphics card I probably still be scrapping through playing new games...
I want to buy a CPU that will last me at least 2-3 years before I need an upgrade, I'd like to just get something now that I can just completely forget about computer hardware until I come to upgrade and am so far out of the loop I have no idea what's what (like now ).
What I don't really see is which is better out of the E2xxx and E6xxx from what I've gathered the 2xxx overclock better but don't have as many features, that don't seem to make a difference. So what I'd like really is the best CPU for the money, taking into consideration the fact that I will not overclock it so headroom isn't important. It seems that an 8800GTS won't be held back by any Core2Duo and I get the feeling even under Vista I'm going to be blown away by the speed of it. TBH my CPU is only actually important for games (mainly LFS) and if it weren't for sim racing I'd be quite happy with the speed of my pre-historic P4 and probably have a new console sitting gathering dust somewhere hardly touched.
In short, thanks to the newer design it should keep up with the current 8800GTS'
The E2180 is a great bargain, but an E6550 or E6750 is ultimately more powerful - your choice.
Taking off my overclockz0r hat, i'd go for the best you can afford - ie an E6550
Is there anything to choose between the 8800GTSs, given I don't need to overclock? The cheapest ones seem to be from OC, they have an OcUK and Leadtek one both for £152 + VAT, which is about what I can realistically go to.
Leadtek is cheapest, but why not click specifications, and then find out from there? they use exactly the same engines, the nVidia 8800GTS, its just they have different fans on, and some are maybe like, 75Mhz better on the engine, but nothing you would really notice, Leadtek is alright though.
With the 8800GTS every manufacturer makes the exact same PCB and core, and then has the choice of using the standard heatsink or making their own, they can also make "Overclocked" editions, but because no company picks 8800GTS' that overclock well and make them overclocked versions, every card should be able to do the "Overclocked" speeds if you ever wanted to spend about 5 minutes setting it up. Usually the main factor is Warranty - i wouldn't trust an OcUK or generic one, simply because I'd imagine my only way of returning it would be via the retailer where from my experience the best people tend to be the manufacturer - BFG, XFX and eVGA have the absolute best warranties, however it's up to you if you think it's worth it - BFG have been known to send out 7600GT's as replacements for 6600GT's simply because they didn't have any 6600's spare at the time, XFX have a good warranty reputation, but eVGA are easily the best - you can return it with an aftermarket heatsink (and in some cases, even volt-modded) and they'll take it, the only problem is that you have to "register" the warranty to you, and if you sell the card either they send it to you to send back, or the new owner gets no warranty.
Off Topic - Some "overclocked" editions are hand-picked for overclockability, however afaik eVGA only do this for their £600 "Black Pearl" 8800 Ultra, and Gainward only did it for their "Golden Sample" cards (Which ranges from GeForce FX's to my lovely 7950GT right up to the 8800 Ultra).
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It's not "Engines", it's cores. and yes you really could notice the speed difference.
If you look at the "reference specs" (the specifications nVidia lay down) we can see that the 8800GTS 320 runs 500 MHz - companies will often overclock the cards a little by upping the Core/Memory speed, however unless the card was binned (aka hand-picked or chosen because it was special) i can't see it being worth it, as you could just up the clocks yourself if you wanted to.
Off Topic-ish - i bought a 7950GT "Golden Sample", which runs at 580 MHz stock, 30 MHz over the refence clock, which then overclocks to about 630 MHz, this set me back £186 when it was new (and boy do i regret it), however i coulda bought a 7900GS for £140 and got a free copy of HL2 - i could of bough a VF900 cooler for ~£25, and then volt-modded it and overclocked it up to 700 MHz, which would of only cost £165, been faster (although not by as much as it sounds thanks to the 4 less Pixel Pipelines) and would have been quieter.
The warranties do look appealing and it's only a £3 difference from the OcUK to the BFG from OC. I don't think I really need the factory overclocked one for an extra £20 would it really make a noticable difference.
Ok sorry about this, I've just seen the RBR video of SoftTH and after putting my eyes back into their sockets I've decided I'd rather fancy it. AFAIK I need a motherboard with two PCI Express slots and a cheap PCI Express card. I can get the card off ebay but I'm wondering how much getting a motherboard with two PCI Express slots will add to the cost?
Not necessarily that much - the eVGA 650i board has 2x PCI-e slots, however you really want a board with an 16x and a 4x slot. I recommend getting a non-turbocache 6200 for the second card.
i have the BFG 640mb oc, its quite big, i had to put mine in the blue looking pci-e slot, and it also took up another normal white pie slot which was underneath it....because of the fan ...
My board had 2 of those pci-e slots, but in the motherboard manual, it says the blue one gives more voltage, so i put it in that
The "Blue one" doesn't give more voltage - all PCI-e slots give the same voltage.
From looking at the P5K i have "Handy" theres a Black Slot and a Blue slot, both PCI-e, ones 16x (the blue one) and the other (the black one) is 16x (However run both at the same time and they drop to 8x each) - as such you want can put you GFX card in either, but due to the size of graphics cards the Blue one is easier.
The white ones are PCI, and the tiny white one at the bottom is a PCI-e x1 slot.
For any P5K owners, one of the RAM slots works "better" than the other (like most motherboards), and while at stock speeds it makes no difference when overclocking it could help - unfortunately the colour of the one which works better escapes me currently, i think it's the yellow one.
when i was making my computer, the guide said better to put it in the slot closer to the cpu, so thats what i did, and then i put it into the other slot which was the same colour
I was looking at the 650i still, because that's what you suggested in the first place. I'm really a little lost to what's what with motherboards all I know is I need a 1333mhz FSB 775 socket board with an IDE for my DVD and CD/RW drives, obviously a PCIe 16x for my main graphics card and whatever other slot I need for the second card. As I've said before I don't need to overclock or get anything fancy for the sake of it.
As for the second card I'm guessing Turbocache is a RAM sharing system which needs to be avoided?
I think so, from the SoftTH site it only says you need a PCIe slot, doesn't specify a speed, and any card. From what I gather Turbocache cards are 6200TC and the 6200 and 6200LE don't have it?
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