Building new PC for games. Need advice on MoBO

I'm gonna build a new PC primarily for running games.
Don't wanna spend too much so I'm thinking this setup:

Moederbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667 118 euro
VGA Asus EN7600GS Silent/HTD 256MB PCI-E 128.95 euro
A-open QF50C Miditower Blue 300W 55 euro
400 W PSU 30 euro
XP UK: 100 euro
Maxtor 200GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 8MB 76.95

This will set me back about 885.90 euro's
What do you think about this ?

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:31:13 +0100,
"no-spam-"
<no-spam-> wrote:

>Moederbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro

Both good.

>2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667 118 euro

Quite many games now prefers more than 1 GB RAM. If you also are going
to upgrade to Windows Vista, if will even be more a advantage. But
then, you can upgrade to more later on...

>VGA Asus EN7600GS Silent/HTD 256MB PCI-E 128.95 euro

Well. It's ok, but not *that* powerful. I think you should be able to
get a Radeon X1650Pro-board for that price -- then with a fan. A
7600GT also ain't that much more expensive, but is quite much faster.

>A-open QF50C Miditower Blue 300W 55 euro
>400 W PSU 30 euro

Shouldn't it be better to buy a housing with a better PSU in the first
place?

30 euro for a 400W is quite cheap. A lot of the cheaper 400W PSUs are
baiscly ****. What PSU are you thinking about buying?

I don't know about this model, but AOpen has housings that are
delivered with more powerful PSUs. AOpen normaly uses Fortron-Source,
which has high quality. If you look at brands such as Q-Tec, which I
guess sells a bit in Holland (seems like your from there, and Q-Tec is
a Trust-brand), a 300W Fortron-Source should often be better than a
400W Q-tec (this, Trusts new own-branded PSUs ain't as bad as the
Q-tec-branded).

The PSU is important for both stability and noiselevel. Since you are
buying a fanless VGA-board I will guess the noise-level is important
(if not, you get a better board with a fan normaly for the same price
as a 7600GS with a fan).

As for a window-based "gaming housing", take a look at e.g. Antec
P160. Also Chieftec has some good housings that don't look that cool,
but has great build quality. Chieftec can deliver some of them with
400W "ok" PSU.

A Forton-Source 400W PSU is about 40 euro in the UK it seems. But, if
you stick to this config that you have set up, it might be that a good
300W is enough....

>XP UK: 100 euro

If you buy XP MCE you get a cheaper Vista-update.

>Maxtor 200GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 8MB 76.95

This is quite a old drive now (don't manufactured anymore, and for
some time now I guess). I will instead recommend Western Digital
Caviar SE16, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, Hitachi T7K500 or Samsung
Spoinpoint P120 -- all these are delivered in 200 or 250 GB versions.
Also you have the new Maxtor DiamondMax 20 and 21, but from what I
understand these are just "rebranded" Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (but
with less cache than Seagate normaly ships with -- 8 MB instead of 16
MB)


--
Clas Mehus
- "Den som har flest prylar när han dör vinner..."

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:31:13 +0100,
"no-spam-"
<no-spam-> wrote:

>I'm gonna build a new PC primarily for running games.
>Don't wanna spend too much so I'm thinking this setup:
>
>Moederbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
>2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667 118 euro
>VGA Asus EN7600GS Silent/HTD 256MB PCI-E 128.95 euro
>A-open QF50C Miditower Blue 300W 55 euro
>400 W PSU 30 euro
>XP UK: 100 euro
>Maxtor 200GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 8MB 76.95
>
>This will set me back about 885.90 euro's
>What do you think about this ?
>

For games?
Spring for the E6600 and 2 GB Ram.
How many more euros will that add?

-- Zadok

The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is also a good motherboard; it's comparable to
the P5B-E but may be less expensive.

I'd want to upgrade to the E6600 CPU if at all possible, it has the
larger 4MB cache system.

Don't get 666MHz memory; either get 512MHz or 800MHz. At 512MHz, the
memory runs synchronous with the CPU. At 666MHz, it's asynchronous and
the system actually slows down. At 800MHz, it's still asynchronous, but
the memory is so much faster that the extra speed is able to more than
make up for being asynchronous.

Personally, I'd go for a larger hard drive ... in the US, with careful
shopping, we are able to get 250 and 320 GB hard drives for under US $100.


no-spam- wrote:
> I'm gonna build a new PC primarily for running games.
> Don't wanna spend too much so I'm thinking this setup:
>
> Moederbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
> Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
> 2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667 118 euro
> VGA Asus EN7600GS Silent/HTD 256MB PCI-E 128.95 euro
> A-open QF50C Miditower Blue 300W 55 euro
> 400 W PSU 30 euro
> XP UK: 100 euro
> Maxtor 200GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 8MB 76.95
>
> This will set me back about 885.90 euro's
> What do you think about this ?
>
>

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:31:13 +0100,
"no-spam-"
<no-spam-> wrote:

>I'm gonna build a new PC primarily for running games.
>Don't wanna spend too much so I'm thinking this setup:
>
>Moederbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
>2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC5400/DDR667 118 euro
>VGA Asus EN7600GS Silent/HTD 256MB PCI-E 128.95 euro
>A-open QF50C Miditower Blue 300W 55 euro
>400 W PSU 30 euro
>XP UK: 100 euro
>Maxtor 200GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 8MB 76.95
>
>This will set me back about 885.90 euro's
>What do you think about this ?
>

Based on the input I received I came up with this slightly
modified list:
Getting a faster CPU would cost me almost 100 euro's extra.
Not worth it (yet).

Motherbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC4200/DDR533 112 euro (ipv 118 euro)
VGA Asus EN7600GT/HTDI 256MB PCI-E 194.95 (ipv 128,95)
Antec Sonata II 450W ipv A-Open/losse voeding 119 euro (ipv 85 euro)
Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 16MB 81 euro (ipv 76,95)
XP UK: 100 euro
total: 983.95

I could get a different case which would save me some money:
A-open QF50D Miditower Black 350W 54.95 euro's instead of 119 euro's
for the Antec. What do you think ?

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:08:57 +0100,
"no-spam-"
<no-spam-> wrote:

>Motherbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
>2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC4200/DDR533 112 euro (ipv 118 euro)
>VGA Asus EN7600GT/HTDI 256MB PCI-E 194.95 (ipv 128,95)
>Antec Sonata II 450W ipv A-Open/losse voeding 119 euro (ipv 85 euro)
>Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 16MB 81 euro (ipv 76,95)
>XP UK: 100 euro
>total: 983.95
>
>I could get a different case which would save me some money:
>A-open QF50D Miditower Black 350W 54.95 euro's instead of 119 euro's
>for the Antec. What do you think ?

From what I remember the Sonata is a OK housing. How the noiselevel
from that 450W from Antec is I don't know, but Antec normaly have OK
PSUs. But for 100 euro you should be able to get a Antec
PerformanceOne P150, which is a very good housing with a good 430W
PSU. I have one of these myself, running a Athlon 64 FX-62 and a ATI
Radeon X1950XTX, two HDDs, one optical and a Peltier-based CPU-cooler,
so the PSU does it job! Good thermal design, quite low noise from PSU
(I stress it quite hard... even the CPU-cooler itself, being
Peltier-based, can consume quite much power). Also, the housing has a
VERY good solution for reducing noise from HDDs.


--
Clas Mehus
- "Den som har flest prylar när han dör vinner..."

"Clas Mehus" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:08:57 +0100,
> "no-spam-"
> <no-spam-> wrote:
>
>>Motherbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>>Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
>>2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC4200/DDR533 112 euro (ipv 118 euro)
>>VGA Asus EN7600GT/HTDI 256MB PCI-E 194.95 (ipv 128,95)
>>Antec Sonata II 450W ipv A-Open/losse voeding 119 euro (ipv 85 euro)
>>Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 16MB 81 euro (ipv 76,95)
>>XP UK: 100 euro
>>total: 983.95
>>
>>I could get a different case which would save me some money:
>>A-open QF50D Miditower Black 350W 54.95 euro's instead of 119 euro's
>>for the Antec. What do you think ?
>
>
The power supply is too small get at minimum a 600 watt

"Craig Sutton" <> wrote in message
news:ejmiod$9fb$
> "Clas Mehus" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:08:57 +0100,
>> "no-spam-"
>> <no-spam-> wrote:
>>
>>> Motherbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>>> Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
>>> 2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC4200/DDR533 112 euro (ipv 118 euro)
>>> VGA Asus EN7600GT/HTDI 256MB PCI-E 194.95 (ipv 128,95)
>>> Antec Sonata II 450W ipv A-Open/losse voeding 119 euro (ipv 85 euro)
>>> Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 16MB 81 euro (ipv 76,95)
>>> XP UK: 100 euro
>>> total: 983.95
>>>
>>> I could get a different case which would save me some money:
>>> A-open QF50D Miditower Black 350W 54.95 euro's instead of 119 euro's
>>> for the Antec. What do you think ?
>>
> The power supply is too small get at minimum a 600 watt

Why? The actual power usage of that sort of system is probably under 250W.

Hi, get a 6300 instead of the 6400, for value for money is much better and
can overclock to speeds up to that of a 6800 extreme. 2mb instead of 4 will
only make a difference, and a small one, if you are performing video
decrypting, it will hardly make any differences with gaming...
ChrisC
"Craig Sutton" <> wrote in message
news:ejmiod$9fb$...
>
> "Clas Mehus" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:08:57 +0100,
>> "no-spam-"
>> <no-spam-> wrote:
>>
>>>Motherbord Pentium Asus P5B-E 149 euro
>>>Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2,13/1066/2MB) 228 euro
>>>2*512 MB DDR2-RAM PC4200/DDR533 112 euro (ipv 118 euro)
>>>VGA Asus EN7600GT/HTDI 256MB PCI-E 194.95 (ipv 128,95)
>>>Antec Sonata II 450W ipv A-Open/losse voeding 119 euro (ipv 85 euro)
>>>Maxtor 250GB Diamondmax 10 S-ATA2 7200rpm 16MB 81 euro (ipv 76,95)
>>>XP UK: 100 euro
>>>total: 983.95
>>>
>>>I could get a different case which would save me some money:
>>>A-open QF50D Miditower Black 350W 54.95 euro's instead of 119 euro's
>>>for the Antec. What do you think ?
>>
>>
> The power supply is too small get at minimum a 600 watt
>
>

On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:14:24 +1300, "Craig Sutton"
<> wrote:

>The power supply is too small get at minimum a 600 watt

Uhm... in cause you want to have a boild water for coffie with a
water-boilder connected to the PC or something?

600W might be nneded for the most extreme CPUs and a couple of very
power hungry videoboards, a lot of disk etc etc. For most "normal"
PCs, a good 350W does the job well. I even once runned a system fine
for quite some time with Pentium 4 Prescott 3,6 GHz and two 6800GTs in
SLI on a 350W Fortron-Source (in additions to X-Fi, GbE NIC, 2-3 HDDs,
2 optical etc).

Even for most CF/SLI-configs, a good 500W does the jobb well.



--
Clas Mehus
- "Den som har flest prylar när han dör vinner..."