Jakg thanks for the reminder forgot to mention crossfire. I have an older SLI board which either runs either 1 16xPCI-E or 2 8xPCI-E slots so im not sure if im gonna be able to run a new 8800 and another cardas the 8800 requires a 16xPCI-E channel all to itself. I plan to test this as soon as I get the time.

Not quite true.

8800GTS (old), GTX or Ultra's run in 8x and 16x slots, but there have been reported inompatibilities running in some 8x slots. The new PCI-e 2.0 cards (ie the new 8800GTS, 8800GT, 3850/3870) NEED to run in either a PCI-e 2 or 16x slot.

Great Advice guys.

Ok Jakg,

Ive sen these >>
OCZ 4GB PC2-6400 nVIDIA SLI Approved (2X2GB) OCZ2N800SR4GK, 800MHz, CL 5-4-4-15, Lifetime Warranty @ £73.97 inc. VAT


or


OCZ 4GB PC2-6400 Reaper HPC (2x2GB) Part: OCZ2RPR800C44GK, 800MHz, CL 4-4-4-15, Lifetime Warranty @ £76.32 inc. VAT

what would u recommend please? the sli ready 1 sounds interesting cos i may sli later on BUT the timings r higher!



Also - Im Not gonna raid - it scares me too much.

I will edit list back to a GT aswell & add the extra 2gb.

With the drive im gonna just have the system drive & programs on 1 drive and game s& stuff & backups on the other.

Great advice from u all. Thx again.

Quote from neilmichaelcasey :

what would u recommend please? the sli ready 1 sounds interesting cos i may sli later on BUT the timings r higher!

There's nothing "special" about SLi approved memory. It's just a marketing thing that the memory is *drumroll* APPROVED FOR SLi!!! But its just memory, same as any other. So just go for the one with the lower timings.

Also, if you don't wanna RAID that's fine, but it's really not that scary. It just involves a few clicks of the mouse really.

Quote from neilmichaelcasey :

Great Advice guys.

Ok Jakg,

Ive sen these >>
OCZ 4GB PC2-6400 nVIDIA SLI Approved (2X2GB) OCZ2N800SR4GK, 800MHz, CL 5-4-4-15, Lifetime Warranty @ £73.97 inc. VAT


or


OCZ 4GB PC2-6400 Reaper HPC (2x2GB) Part: OCZ2RPR800C44GK, 800MHz, CL 4-4-4-15, Lifetime Warranty @ £76.32 inc. VAT

what would u recommend please? the sli ready 1 sounds interesting cos i may sli later on BUT the timings r higher!



Also - Im Not gonna raid - it scares me too much.

I will edit list back to a GT aswell & add the extra 2gb.

With the drive im gonna just have the system drive & programs on 1 drive and game s& stuff & backups on the other.

Great advice from u all. Thx again.

If you plan on overclocking your card at all, go with the GTS, that thing is a monster with overclocking, and usually runs much cooler than a GT.

GTS is £20 more than a GT, aka enough for a mega cooler. Not worth it imo.

The SLi ready stuff is a gimmick, the only thing it has is EPP, which is still pretty pointless.

I'd get the reapers.

SLI memory has nothing to do with SLI graphics it is basicaly memory that has extra profiles in it to give better performance. As the poster before me said its really just marketing which is not worth paying any extra for

read here for a bit more info

http://www.behardware.com/news ... ce-sli-memory-ou-epp.html

Great info again guys. Ok I need to choose a new mobo from Aria.
Jakg, I couldnt find a Asus P5K-E on Aria. Nearest i got was this thing >>>
Asus P5N32SLi Premium Socket 775 - 2x PCIE SLi / DUAL CH DDR2 / SATA(II) RAID / WiFi AP / ATX MOTHERBOARD £74.32 inc. VAT


is this overkill or can i do better? - budget 70-90 squids! Im not if i need an sli board now.

To be honest, I doubt you will ever actually use SLi. I know tons of people who have SLi-capable boards, myself included, but when it comes down to it, it usually makes more sense - price wise - to just sell whatever card you have and get a newer one, rather that just getting another of the same and SLi-ing them. Unless you are doing SLi from the start, I wouldn't worry too much about getting an SLi-capable board.

OK - I ditched the SLI stuff as it sound abit ropey atm. Im thinking Do I need 4GB Ram? Im only gonna run Win XP! Is 4GB only for Vista? Just wanna get everything straight before i buy next week. Cheers.

You need a 64-bit OS (XP or Vista) to use the full 4GB. With a 32-bit OS you can still fit the 4GB but it will only be able to use just over 3GB of it, depending on how much RAM the graphics card uses (as this counts towards the total adressable memory too).

thx for that Crashgate. So Im not gonna wreck anything by having the extra, thats good. I do like high end games so it wont harm anything if i do have the extra GB.

Also Ive been looking at mobos (non sli) and was looking at this >>> is it overkill? (only seems mid-range).

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Socket 775 Motherboard


iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E x16, DDR2 1066/533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

£102.17 inc. VAT

I was looking for a new motherboard a while back and frankly the only thing in it's class is the P5K-E. The DS4 looks goofy and doesn't overclock that well and the Abit has some wierd quirks - the Asus P5K-E is spot on.

I couldnt find a P5K-E on Aria Jakg m8. What is the next one up or down from a P5K-E? Im sorry for all the questions guys! Im kinda stuck with Aria for now UNLESS i get it all somewhere else like dabs which i could, with abit of gentle persuasion!

Also - I dont really need any Overclock abilities, or anything!

Why do you want to get it ALL from Aria?

I like Aria but they are more limited in stock than eBuyer etc.

Dabs have the P5K-E, however the best i could find from Aria was this - http://www.aria.co.uk/Products ... herboard+?productId=27303

Also your GFX card is on offer atm - http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpe ... rclocked+?productId=29670

BTW - I'd REALLY look into a new monitor.

EDIT - I'd also ditch those Maxtors for some WD AAKS drives or a set of Seagate Barracuda's in RAID0

Cheers J. OK - I have made a new list from Dabs (see image). They have the good mobo and the price seems OK. Any glaring problems with FSMs or FSBs

Oh - I dont need a monitor. I mainly use a Projector. I dont 'really' need all that stuff on the list really BUT just need to spend it whilst i got it.

I need to try and get 2-3 years from it.

Are WD on Par with Seagate with quality?

That looks fine, imo Seagate are a little better than WD but they both rock.

I'd suggest an Antec 900 case, though.

I'd suggest the 320 Gb Seagate drives. They're only something like $15 more, but it's a lot more space.

I'd swap the out E6850 out for an E8400, and save yourself £40 at the same time.

Quote from pb32000 :

I'd swap the out E6850 out for an E8400, and save yourself £40 at the same time.

Hi there - mmmm - not sure, whats the main difference, will i get 2-3 years out of a E8400? (i do like the price though!). Cheers.

Oh - Jakg - Ive updated to an Antec nine-hundred (looks nice) but abit more expensive. I cant really go over £800ish which is already 50 over budget - Doh.

Stangy - Id love 2 320mb but dont really need them, also I need to start looking at overall cost £800 really is my top limit (give or take 20).

Quote from neilmichaelcasey :

Hi there - mmmm - not sure, whats the main difference, will i get 2-3 years out of a E8400? (i do like the price though!). Cheers.

The differences between the E6850 and E8400 are:

The E8400 is the new 'Wolfdale' 45nm architecture, whereas the E6850 is the current 65nm type. In a nutshell this means the E8400 runs cooler than the E6850 at the same speed. It also means it's cheaper to produce (for Intel) which is reflected in the consumer price.

The E8400 has a 6mb cache compared to the E6850's 4mb, essentially meaning quicker processing (slightly, you may not notice it though in a normal environment).

The E8400 also supports SSE4 instructions, not that those are widely used yet, as the older Core 2 Duos don't support it.

They both have the same clock speed as stock, however the E8400 uses an 8x multiplier, which could potentially mean less overclocking ability, however the 45nm architecture shoudl counteract that disadvantage. This may or may not be of any value to you.

Overall, there are no disadvantages to choosing the E8400 over the E6850.

However with regards to future proofing your computer for the next 3 years or so, I would seriously consider a quad-core. Depending on how quickly you want to build this machine, your primary options are the current Q6600 (2.4Ghz) or the future Q9450 or Q9300, I'm not surely what the release date for those is expected to be, but I believe it's around Feb-March time.

lol - ok - u sold me on it (£40 reduction FTW) will the e8400 go in that mobo i have on the list?

The E8400 will work fine in the P5K-E. It also runs faster clock for clock (iirc a 3.0 GHz E8xxx runs about the same speed as a 3.6 GHz E6xxx

Quote from Jakg :

The E8400 will work fine in the P5K-E. It also runs faster clock for clock (iirc a 3.0 GHz E8xxx runs about the same speed as a 3.6 GHz E6xxx

Hmm I'm not sure, I thought I read 'they' only noticed a 5-8% improvement in speed over the E6850, I may be wrong though.

Quote from pb32000 :

Hmm I'm not sure, I thought I read 'they' only noticed a 5-8% improvement in speed over the E6850, I may be wrong though.

Regardless, it's still more than twice as powerful as the E6850 (once programs start taking advantage of it...)