Matt

Have a budget of £350 to spend on a Mobo, Gfx card, CPU, and RAM.
I've already have a new Hiper PSU and Thermaltake Case (armour) with Watercooling big water 745, so cooling and power not an issue. Also have HDD's and DVDRW etc.
I have been looking at cheep deals on 939 X2's to AM2 and core 2's, theirs some good stuff out there right now.
So what to get i can't make my mind up, i have been looking at some 3800 x2 939 Asus AN8 SE and a 7600 GT 256MB.

What do you peeps think?

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Blazer

First you have to look at what you are planing to do with your system, Then you have to decide on which graphics processor technology you want to use (crossfire or slr) then you can decide whether to go AMD or Intel. then you can get the motherboard that matches your needs, the cpu and memory to match the motherboard, and the video card that you want.

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PangingJr

a good Intel Core 2 Duo board will cost higher than a good socket AM2 or socket 939 board,
Intel C2D E6400 is now also cost more than the AMD X2 3800 Dual-Core's,
if the budget plan can go up a bit... i'd say get Intel C2D E6400 (or E6300), Intel P965 Asus P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP (or P5B Deluxe), a 2x1GB kits of DDR2-800 (or DDR2-667) in VS series RAMs as for now, and a 7600 GT 256MB.

and as i see you already have a good computer case and system’s cooling you can go for some heavy overclocking easily with a better RAM like the G.Skill F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ (with micron D9xxx IC modules) as i've seen there are many people doing them lately.

note-- the Intel P965 boards as of now won't support Ati CF or Nvidia SLI.

note-- some (not all AFAIK) of the Kingston's VS series are also use micron D9xxx IC modules and they are very good (and are not too expensive) RAMs for normal uses and/or overclocking purposes, (there are some fake products for Kingston's RAM out there as well), as i've heard, but anyway please check out these info for yourself first.

swimtech

$660.00 USD, might not be enough unless you compromise a little if going the Intel route - but right now and for the rest of the year it is the fastest solution - and then again, speed isn't always king. What are the top three to five things you want to do or will do with your new rig?

If only you could wait until after Christmas, your money could/should go about $150.00 further.

You seem inclined to overclock considering your cooling solution - and that is a big up front consideration when building up a system to a set dollar figure. Also - do you ever think you'll want to do SLI or Crossfire?

If I were you, I absolutely would not go with a Socket 939 system - I would get an AM2 socket AMD board for the future...

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PangingJr

Intel C2D E6400, Gigabyte GA-P965-DS3, 2x1GB DDR2 533/667 of CORSAIR ValueSelect or Kingston ValueRAM...
i'm not sure how much you'll have pay for all of these... when buying them in the UK. but it seems to me that, with your budget you can almost also get the 7600 GT 256MB.

swimtech

That's the exact mainboard I would recommend for a non-SLI/Crossfire system, but would drop back to a E6300 processor and get the GSkill 800Mhz 2gig memory kit for o'clocking... There's a combo deal on the mobo with an ATI X1600pro card Here that should come in well under budget - take the money saved and get a nice DX10 video card next year...

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PangingJr

i didn't look up at the US./UK. online stores for the prices of those hardwares, just compare the prices that i can buy them...
it's almost like $100USD (around £52) difference between the G.Skill F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ and both Value series RAMs,
there's also about $38USD (around £20) difference between Intel C2D E6400 and E6300

the Gigabyte GA-P965-DS3 (Intel P965+ICH8 chipsets) is a good and is not too expensive motherboard,
even though i haven't used it, but i do think it's a good board for the processors and the overall.
so not only i want to meet the budget, i really like you to check it out...

so, there're your options (this includes all things that swimtech has recommended to you earlier).

note-- remember, IF you want to buy the DDR2-800 G.Skill, then only buy the F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ (or higher models)
there is also others G.Skill DDR2-800 models, one of them is known to be made for Intel platform only (not for or not good for AMD), just pay a bit more and get the "HZ". heard good things about this G.Skill RAM.
but anyway, it's always true that any hardwares (and other things too) may work well for the others, but not for you, or vice versa.

and good luck with your new computer.

swimtech

Yeah, you've got a couple different but similar perspectives on the hardware from us here, maybe others will chime in too, and I agree totally that you ought to take some time and read up on the hardware and research yourself - you'll learn a lot in the process - that's pretty much how we all learned here... There's other threads in the forums here too that talk about the different Conroe mainboards, as well as opinions about whether to go AMD or Intel right now - take all those perspectives in as you read them, if you care to, and hopefully you will come to a conclusion that suits you the best.

That's the coolest thing about building your own system - you get to 'call the ball' on every tiny aspect...

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