[ozziesironman]

so the G5 was royally starting to bug me, as NOTHING is supported on it. (plus i secretly wanted to check out modern warfare 3 and Alice 2 but alice 2 is waitin until i get work settlement and i buy a mobo/Q6600 combo for 120 )

but anyway, heres the build. an OLD server case. here it is with a test pentium 4 and board:

now here it is after i was done with it...

and heres the airflow setup....

i know how it looks (airflow) but at idle it runs at 29C and under load (itunes and Modern Warfare 3) 36-38C. its slightly overclocked from 2.5 to 2.7GHz.

specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.5GHz (clocked at 2.7GHz)
ECS NFORCE6M-A v2
eVGA Geforce 9600GSO 512mb
Windows 7 64bit
Windows 8 dev. preview 64bit
4GB DDR2-800

can I either get some applause or critique (combo of both perhaps?) so i can feel even better about this build, and so I can make it better? Thanks!

 

[Tyree]

If it meets your needs then it's good.
Brand & Model of the PSU?

 

[ozziesironman]

If it meets your needs then it's good.
Brand & Model of the PSU?

No clue, to be honest. A cheapo ps. When I get my q6600 and mobo from craigslist , I'm getting an antec 850. (one major reason why I only tried a small oc)

Thinking about getting a gtx 580 and running the 9600 as a physx processor.

 

[Tyree]

We don't recommended Antec PSU's
SeaSonic-XFX-Corsair (not the CX-GS-M Series) are top quality.
ECS Mobo's are pretty low quality. Asus & Gigabyte are the better choice for reliability/support.

 

[ozziesironman]

I know... Got the mobo and proc for 50 bucks so can't complain. Lol...

I'm wondering though... For gaming, would it be better to get an asus am2 board and invest heavily on gpu and cooling, or would it be smarter to get the Q6600 and gigabyte mobo for 120-150 (guy can't make up his mind) ?

I'd like to go i series... But I'm on a bit of a budget. I know the core 2 architecture is dead... But the core 2 quads are still plenty powerful.

 

[toothman]

over on overclock.net there's a huge socket 775 overclocking club that swears by their core 2 quads' persisting beastliness lol

Games will use two threads on their own, so it's a good idea to get the quad core for the multitasking headroom. Keep in mind that buying used parts is always a gamble. Good prices, though :grin:

 

[ozziesironman]

So would it be better to upgrade the graphics card to let's say a gtx 580 and overclock the Athlon 64 x2, or better to get the core 2 quad and let's say a gtx 260?

 

[ozziesironman]

Sorry skimmed answer. Thanks for that link I'll check it out when I get home! Thanks

 

[toothman]

If you put a 580 in with any of those processors, you'd bottleneck it significantly. The 260 would be more in line.

I find it interesting that your two proposed cards are a 580 and a 260 lol I would think something like a 550 or a 6850 would be about what you're looking for.

 

[emosun]

I would never put any sort of high end gpu on an athlon 64 x2 , it's speed is comparable to a pentium D which is very slow. At least get yourself an old q6600 otherwise don't bother at all with a gpu.

 

[ozziesironman]

I would never put any sort of high end gpu on an athlon 64 x2 , it's speed is comparable to a pentium D which is very slow. At least get yourself an old q6600 otherwise don't bother at all with a gpu.

Exactly the type of answer I was looking for! Thank you much!! I know this Athlon is old.. I was playing dc universe last night, and the Athlon and a 9600gso, it shows it's age. It's playable, but it's more choppy than I'd prefer. (that's with an overclock to 3ghz on proc [got bored] and overclock on vid card)

So putting a 580 in with a Q6600 generally would be a HUGE bottleneck, huh? I'll definitely look at the 550... I know AMD/ATI have come a long way since the first radeon (which my voodoo3 put the smack down on... Even though the radeon had much more memory and higher clock speeds). I just feel more comfortable with a GeForce... Personal preference.

 

[emosun]

The q6600 would only bottleneck if the games your playing max out it's performance. The number one reason I still use a q6600 is because I have not found a reason to upgrade it.

All my games still play just fine on it at stock speeds.

 

[ozziesironman]

Perfect. Thanks!

I just tried playing Alice madness returns... My buddy bought it didn't like it so he let me check it out. It's ok with high setting and physx on high, but the minute anything happens it slows to a crawl and stutters. Big time. My choice is made haha.

 

[toothman]

The 550ti has pretty good price-to-performance. I have a buddy who's very happy with it playing SWTOR and WoW.

 

[Amd_Man]

Just as a side note here. I had a Athlon X2 and it would run circles around any pentium D made. I also had my HD 5770 running with the same cpu and it did not bottleneck whatsoever.

 

[emosun]

Just as a side note here. I had a Athlon X2 and it would run circles around any pentium D made. I also had my HD 5770 running with the same cpu and it did not bottleneck whatsoever.

That's because that is an athlon x2 , not an athlon 64 x2.

These two cpu's get mixed up frequently.

 

[ozziesironman]

What i will say is my ex gf had a pentium d at like 3.5ghz or whatever, 4gb ram, GeForce 8400, and my 5600+ tore it to pieces. When she was getting about 25fps in storm wind in wow, I was getting 100+ fps, with no lag once so ever. At 1680x1050.

Sure I was running a GT240 1gb ddr5 and had it overclocked to the moon, but that's besides the point =)

...and good info I always thought the Athlon x2 was a rebrand of the 64 core.