Hi, I've decided to build a new rig for gaming. Keep in mind that I'm from NZ where things like this are expensive and not always available. (shipping costs from overseas are often huge) I've decided to get this board with this CPU. Would that CPU/Mobo combo justify using this DDR3 ram? or should I get a Corsair PC2-6400 DDR2-800 2GB kit for half the price? So basicly, would the benefits of DDR3 for a casual gaming rig be worth the extra 80 odd bucks?
I've yet to see any benefits to having DDR3, no matter how much you game. Stick with DDR2 and save money.
I found this which pretty much confirms what you say http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1124/print/ However the latency of the DDR3 I'm looking at is much lower than in those tests. Tough decision. Would the $80 be better off going towards the cpu? maybe Q6600? will that out perform the E6850 in games such as call of duty 4?
The latency is lower because the speed is lower - that DDR3 is only 1066mhz, the same speed as high end DDR2 - and that's usually CAS5, not CAS7 like the DDR3. Stick with the DDR2 stuff, really. As for the quad core, probably not much in COD4, but certainly in Supreme Commander and Assassins Creed.
Thanks for your advice sam. I've ordered these. CPU Cooler Motherboard Memory Video Card PSU Should give me a little room to upgrade if need be.
Coolermaster Realpowers aren't very good power supplies, though you could do worse. The rest of the components are alright though.
Hmm, it can be hard to get hold of stuff here at times. I have to wait three weeks for the cpu cooler now, Stock one will do for now as I wont be overclocking anything for a while. By "not very good" do you mean they dont last? or they have an unstable output?
I emailed them today to ask why they hadnt shipped yet. Got a response 5 hours later saying they have no E6850's for 2 weeks but they will send an E8400 for the same price. I specificly wanted the E6850 due to it's overclocking capabilities. Nothing but problems from these guys.
Never really had to provide links to shops in NZ so I wouldn't know I'm afraid. Thanks for the heads up though. Any other places you know of?
The conroe's are well proven to be rock solid and the E8400 only has about a 1-3% performance over the E6850 at stock speeds. Finally they have shipped but still waiting for word on the PSU which was a seperate order, no reply from them as yet. sam I've only dealt with a few. http://www.edencomputer.co.nz/c.aspx should have stuck with them. http://www.overclockers.co.nz/index.shtml got my H2O gear off these guys, totally forgot about them, very fast and no probs at all. Then there's always http://www.trademe.co.nz/ where most kiwi's buy there stuff
New and improved Wolfdales have supposedly hit the market. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/news.php 6th news Story
The context of 'new and improved' on that page suggests it refers to OcUK's product range and not to the E8000s themselves, but nonetheless even the newer 45nm chips still seem to suffer migration issues, just not quite as badly.
I did a little research. It seems you should not exceed intels max Vcore of 1.25v for this chip to prevent the migration problems. When the 32nm chips are out it will be even less. Heat is no longer a limiting factor but rather volts. I'm not complaing though,I have mine running comfortably at 3.2 and see no need to run it any faster yet. Very happy with this setup, just a little peeved at the boards misleading RAID 0/1 abilities, can only set up a RAID through the external eSATA port and one of the internals. Great for RAID 1, bad for RAID 0.
From what I've seen, the newer revisions of the 45nm DUAL cores such as the E8400 can take some overvolting, though it's probably not a good idea to push beyond 1.4V still. The Quads however, last time I looked were still subject to the no overvolting restrictions.
