[Dark RevenantX]

I have negative ten dollars to upgrade my computer from a dilapidated, dusty, and gutted case to a working computer.  Help please?

It used to be:
-ECS (random number) Mobo with 4 ram slots (2 were thin and 2 were fat), a single pcie 16x slot, two pcie 1x slots , and 3 pci slots, plus a socket 939 for an Athlon 64 to an Athlon X2
-AMD Athlon 64 3500+
-nVidia GeForce 7600GS
-1024mb of ddr333 RAM (PC 3200 i think)
-a REALLY old audigy 2 card
-a 400w freaking noisy power supply that would emit the most aggrivating freaking squeal in existance
-a basic case fan
-a really crappy temperature thermometer which would say that my processor was overheating when I started my computer, even though it was not hot to the touch.  The fan was at a whopping 4000 RPM!  This would throttle my cpu down so I couldn't run any programs that would, in any way, bring my CPU usage above 60%.
-a basic 120gb hard drive
-some random 40gb hard drive that doesn't work, but was in the case until the day the cpu/mobo died.

After inadvertently royally ****ing up my computer by ripping out the CPU and putting it back in, it would not boot into DOS.  My motherboard and cpu were toast.  Therefore, I will be forced to replace every single part, save for the case fan, video card, and sound card.  My power supply is too retarded to use, and my hard drive is too old/corrupted/evil to be used.  My ram is also too slow to bear.  Obviously, my CPU will never get used again.  I wouldn't use the motherboard ever again even if it still worked.

My shopping list:
- A new case that looks good, has a lot of space, has nice airflow, and is ACTUALLY MADE OF METAL : $90 - $150
- A STABLE motherboard with good overclocking potential and two pcie 16x slots and full SLi functionality (both running at 16x when in SLi) : $125 - $180
- Case fans that are worth a damn : $20 - $30
- A CPU fan that DOESN'T GIVE ****ING FALSE TEMPERATURES : $35 - $60
- A 7600GS or better (I will be recieving a hand-me-down 7600GT from a friend, so I might not have to purchase anything here) : possibly $0 or $150 - $250
- AT LEAST one gigabyte of DDR2 800 ram – I would definitely perfer two gigabytes : $60 - $80 or $115 - $150
- An Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 AT LEAST : $200 - $300
- A 600W or above power supply that doesn't make me **** my pants and take an axe to the computer : $75 - $150
- Sanity : $6 - $10 (amazingly, this isn't sold at WalMart)

Total: $611 - $1,280

In the cheapest case, I have only 621 dollars to go.

[wtf_cl0vvn]

I have a raidmax case thats working out well with me...

as for the PSU: I think 600w is a little too much. 500 seems like plenty for the system. Ive got a Athlon 64 x2 4400+, a 7900 GTX, 5 case fans,and a SATA HD, and my 450w PSU is working out fine for me.

just make sure youve got a good 12V rail on the PSU and you should be fine.



If you want sanity, go get boba tea...

[CP5670]

OK so where can i look for the best OC boards for C2D?

Forums. See what overclocks people are getting on various boards. Normal reviews are unreliable with this since they only test one sample, which is often a cherry-picked board sent by the manufacturer.

Note that the FSBs you listed there are just the highest frequencies you can set in the BIOSes and don't really mean anything. The actual stable speeds are a lot lower; none of the boards will go anywhere near their max theoretical speeds.

- A new case that looks good, has a lot of space, has nice airflow, and is ACTUALLY MADE OF METAL : $90 - $150
- A STABLE motherboard with good overclocking potential and two pcie 16x slots and full SLi functionality (both running at 16x when in SLi) : $125 - $180
- Case fans that are worth a damn : $20 - $30
- A CPU fan that DOESN'T GIVE ****ING FALSE TEMPERATURES : $35 - $60
- A 7600GS or better (I will be recieving a hand-me-down 7600GT from a friend, so I might not have to purchase anything here) : possibly $0 or $150 - $250
- AT LEAST one gigabyte of DDR2 800 ram – I would definitely perfer two gigabytes : $60 - $80 or $115 - $150
- An Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 AT LEAST : $200 - $300
- A 600W or above power supply that doesn't make me **** my pants and take an axe to the computer : $75 - $150
- Sanity : $6 - $10 (amazingly, this isn't sold at WalMart)

In the order you listed:

1: Can't go wrong with the one I have: http://www.svc.com/stc-t01-ubk.html
2: No such thing exists. The older Nvidia boards are not good with overclocking and the 680 ones, although better than the older ones, are all over $250 and have various other issues.
3: Stick with 120mm fans, any Yate Loon or CM ones for quietness, or the medium speed Panaflo BX for more performance. All are around $6 each on SVC. The Delta triple blades are also supposed to be good, but they're fairly expensive.
4: The throttling you described is either a bad motherboard sensor or you didn't install the heatsink correctly. It has nothing to do the particular cooler. If you want something anyway, since the Tuniq is still out of stock everywhere, the one I have is still tied for second place with some others: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=BA23202&CartID=done&nextloc=
5: If you need to buy something, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102067
6: I can't make any recommendations here; I don't know anything about the 1GB sets. Note that 2GB of slower memory is overall much better than 1GB of faster memory in actual usage.
7: The E6600 is slightly over your range, so your choice here is easy.
8: This is among the best until you get to the $170-200 range: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=PS-EN0565
9: Play FS2.

[Descenterace]

Bear in mind that the Core 2 still uses the FSB. Regardless of how far you overclock the CPU, the FSB will always be a bottleneck when dealing with lots of I/O and memory access.

This is why Core 2s don't get used in servers, although for games machines they're usually OK.

It's also why the day I buy a Core 2 will be the same day Hell freezes over. Intel better get rid of The One Big Bus Architecture before they go quad core, or it'll be laughable.

[Bob-san]

Other then the thread hijack... I am still looking at the Biostar P965 Deluxe. Any thoughts on that one?

[Deniidil]

SLI or CrossFire (obviously dependant on which people you bought your cards from) is compeltely worthless for any game you're not running at 1600x1200+ (or equivalent 16:9), with 8x+ FSAA and 8x+ AF - the communications overhead between the two cards eats up any advantage their would have been below that in transfer latency. 

Also if you are still going SLI/CrossFire (i'd recommend the later as opposed to the former - get Radeon X1850s) then make sure you have a motherboard that can supply 16 lanes to each video card.  Some motherboards like the MSI K9N Platinum do not have enough lanes to do this, but they still have two 16-lane slots - one of them only has one lane to it though.

[Bob-san]

An update on my planned stuff

Intel DG965WHMKR, Socket 775, ATX
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (to be overclocked)
Corsair Value Select? 1024MB PC-4200 (533MHz) DDR2 Memory
Ultra V-Series 400-Watt ATX Power Supply, SATA-Ready
XFX GeForce 7600 GS / 256MB GDDR2 / PCI Express / Dual DVI Video Card (it's at special... a hold-me-over card for 3 years of gaming, at least until next nextgen midrange comes out, or for the next 3 years)
Seagate / 320GB / 7200RPM / 16MB Cache / SATA-300 / OEM Hard Drive
Ultra Wizard Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
Lite-on SHD-16P1S / 16x DVD-ROM / 48x CD-ROM / Black / Internal / Retail Drive
Logitech X-530 70-watt 5.1 Speakers
Cooler Master / Hyper L3 / Socket 775 / Heat Pipe / Core 2 Duo CPU Cooling Fan
Masscool 120mm Sleeve Bearing Case Fan (3-pin Motherboard and 4-pin Molex)
Masscool 80mm Sleeve Bearing Case Fan (3-pin Motherboard and 4-pin Molex)
Microsoft Windows XP Home or Media Centre (with express upgrade?)
Samsung 941BW, 19" wide screen LCD, 4ms response, WXGA+

The monitor is $180 at special, and that is not included in the budget.

[Deniidil]

So no SLI?

[Bob-san]

Waste of money so I hear... why buy two affordable cards for a 20% preformance gain, when i could spend just as much for a single better card? No merit in buying 2 $100 cards when i could just get 1 for $200? Wastes money, wastes power, and wastes sys resources. ALso... no physics is done on the second card.

I'll stick with a single card setup... can't afford two :-P

[Deniidil]

exactly

[Bob-san]

I wouldn't mind running SLI or the new Xfire but those are plagued with some horrid issues..
1) Power consumption; u'd need like a 1100 powersupply to run dual 8800GTX's.
2) Mediocre processing gains... a 20% boost by a SLI setup isn't worth the money to buy a second card. If you can, just buy a single expensive card and save in the long run... (I'd like a 8800GTS).
3) I don't want to pay for the power bill
4) I don't own a 1080p HDTV or a 22" LCD monitor! I can't see any more then about 1280x1024 on a 17" or 19" LCD, and a max of about 1024x768 at a comfortable 75hertz on a 17" CRT...
5) I'm piss-poor! I can't afford a new PC in cash so I have asked for the parts for christmas.

Anyways I'll ask for the Biostar P965 Deluxe as it's cheap and OC's well enough for me.

[CP5670]

Actually, you do get the performance improvement you would expect (usually 70-90%), if you just measure the framerates. That isn't the issue. It's all the software bugs that are the problem. With SLI, you'll find a lot of games that show high framerates but in which motion still "feels" choppy due to various bugs with vsync and triple buffering. I would estimate about half of the games from the last two years work fine and everything else has this problem. This issue has been around for three years but hasn't been fixed (ignore the BS about this on Nvidia's SLI site; I fell for that myself) and I still see people complaining about it. There are also some games that appear to run fine at first but show weird problems in only certain situations. Far Cry is one example of this, where the framerate in SLI drops like a brick only when you turn on the nightvision.

Crossfire doesn't have this vsync issue but has its own set of problems.

SLI and Crossfire would be excellent choices if the Nvidia and AMD/ATI driver teams could get in gear, but as it stands I wouldn't recommend them to people unless they only play a handful of specific games that work perfectly with these setups. If I'm paying top dollar for this stuff, I expect a flawless experience across the board.

[Bob-san]

I know about the bad bugs of SLI and Crossfire... neither seem to be particularly lucerative to me at this moment. I don't have 3000$ to splurge on a high-end gaming machine, so I'm asking for a computer that will cost a fifth of the high-end system

[wtf_cl0vvn]

My friend is getting a budget of 3000$ for his new system...

*grumble*

[Bob-san]

*joins grubling*

If I had a 3000$ budget, I'd be getting a 24" gaming LCD, nVidia's nForce 680, Intel c2q 6700, at least 4GB of memory, and a GeForce 8800gtx! I'd have no problem hooking up at least 4 150gb WD Raptors in a RAID 0+1... but that's just me! 

  No 3000$ budget for me... my budget is about 600$....

[Bob-san]

An update on my planned stuff

Intel DG965WHMKR, Socket 775, ATX
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (to be overclocked)
Corsair Value Select? 1024MB PC-4200 (533MHz) DDR2 Memory
Ultra V-Series 400-Watt ATX Power Supply, SATA-Ready
XFX GeForce 7600 GS / 256MB GDDR2 / PCI Express / Dual DVI Video Card (it's at special... a hold-me-over card for 3 years of gaming, at least until next nextgen midrange comes out, or for the next 3 years)
Seagate / 320GB / 7200RPM / 16MB Cache / SATA-300 / OEM Hard Drive
Ultra Wizard Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
Lite-on SHD-16P1S / 16x DVD-ROM / 48x CD-ROM / Black / Internal / Retail Drive
Logitech X-530 70-watt 5.1 Speakers
Cooler Master / Hyper L3 / Socket 775 / Heat Pipe / Core 2 Duo CPU Cooling Fan
Masscool 120mm Sleeve Bearing Case Fan (3-pin Motherboard and 4-pin Molex)
Masscool 80mm Sleeve Bearing Case Fan (3-pin Motherboard and 4-pin Molex)
Microsoft Windows XP Home or Media Centre (with express upgrade?)
Samsung 941BW, 19" wide screen LCD, 4ms response, WXGA+

The monitor is $180 at special, and that is not included in the budget.

Just updated this....

[Taristin]

"Intel DG965WHMKR, Socket 775, ATX"


"G965" is the integrated graphics board. It isnt a great OC'er.

[Bob-san]

Whatever... it's an intel and ive never EVER had a problem with intel mobo's...