yet another move over to intel. poor old AMD

rangor gubbins · nForce Padawan

just placed an order for these parts:
any thoughts on the parts i've ordered. I have a day or two to change the order if need be.

Sapphire HD 3650 512MB DDR3
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140585

MSI P35 Neo2-FR iP35 Socket 775
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140205

Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 Socket 775 2.2GHz
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139584

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL

total cost = £204 incl VAT and delivery

also trying to get my hands on a second hand Tuniq tower (hard to find new in the UK). Will be overclocking. anyone got suggestions for reasonably priced, very quiet CPU coolers that are easier to get hold of than a tuniq tower?
Parts going into a LianLi V1000+ with tagan 580W PSU, and 3 x SATA drives.

Sticking with XP for the time being, until I build an HTPC later in the year which will probably be with Vista. The radeon might be moving into the HTPC then to work in hybrid xfire with a 780G mATX board (gigabyte thingamy).

should have some socket A stuff up for grabs in a week or two if anyone here is interested.

Scooby · nForced

Looks good bro. Intel is king at the moment with great prices and great chipset/motherboard support. Not to mention the overclockability of their CPU, you can loss.

I made the switch too. Wink

rangor gubbins · nForce Padawan

hey scoob,

all the bits have arrived now. Can't wait to put it all together. Finding a little hard to source a good and reasonably priced HSF though. Tring to get a Tuniq Tower, but they don't seem to be available in the UK now (apart from the overpriced LED version). not many available on Ebay either.

rangor gubbins · nForce Padawan

finally got round to putting the new parts together, and low and behold the proc won't post. Not a peep.
The MSI board has got some funky fault-finding LEDs that say the processor is either faulty or not seated correctly. I've tried reseating the CPU several times, but no joy Mad

the way intel HSF fit onto the board is a bit crap isn't it.

I don't have anything else to test either the CPU or the mobo, so I really hope it is the CPU that is DOA and i'm sending the right part back.

powerarmour · **--[papameister]--** Mod Squad

thegrommit · nForced²

rangor gubbins · nForce Padawan

powerarmour · **--[papameister]--** Mod Squad

ATI 3xxx cards are pretty nice, especially feature wise, and they get my money too, even if I'm not buying the higher end models anymore...

Mind you, CPU wise AMD have a bit of catching up to do before my pennies vote.

rangor gubbins · nForce Padawan

quick update:
the e2200 was fine. I had removed the memory jumpers from the board when i was installing it which was stopping the proc from posting Embarassed

. well that was a waste of £30 for the celeron. I only used it for about 15mins.

So far managed to clock the e2200 to 3ghz (its at 10 x 300 at the moment) with 1.4625v (1.44v according to Speedfan). Idle temps are around 34*C and load temps go up to 64*C. The IHS is not flat though, and I had a lot of trouble getting the tuniq tower to fit properly. At some point I will try lapping the CPU and HSF, and maybe cut a couple of mms off the tuniq copper base to get it to fit properly.
RAM divider is at 1:1.5, so RAM is at 450mhz (4-4-4-12 @2.1v, although speedfan reports 2.38v. i really hope thats not accurate!).

SuperPI 1M takes a scrinch over 20secs

Very impressed with this 3650. Will run oblivion at very high settings FPS 20-30. Not bad for a £50 card.

impar · **PC Gamer** Moderator

Greetings!

Use CoreTemp to check temperatures.