Advice on CPU, Motherboard and RAM combo

[madman300]

A once avid system builder, leaving school and entering the working world has robbed me of quality read and research time. I am looking for some general comments about the combo of RAM, proc, and mobo that I have chosen. Anything to look out for? Am I making a bad / good decision?

I am putting together my first complete build since my dual Athlon 2600+ setup and have decided on the following components. Note that this system will be used as a daily driver workhorse and tasks will include lite music / video compression, movie watching, internet browsing, and perhaps some gaming. I plan to add a single graphics card in the $100-$150 price range, but that has yet to be decided.


Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 12 MB Cache - (My last Intel chip was a PII 266MHZ, I have used AMD since the release of the 1GHZ Thunderbird. I had been planning on going with the Q6600 until until announced the $599->$329 price drop)

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 - Seems to have received pretty rave reviews thus far and should suit my single graphics card needs.

RAM: OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR 2 1066

I do not really plan on overclocking, I live in the U.S. and my budget is flexible but I will probably try to keep them system to <$800 sans monitor and other accessories.

 

[DSF]

Since you don't plan on overclocking go with less expensive DDR2-800. Also, I don't recommend a combo motherboard. Get a DDR2-only board.

 

[madman300]

Thanks DSF.

Any specific model / maker for the board? I would like to keep it under $150.

Also, why do you recommend against a combo board.

 

[Roguestar]

Combo boards are much more expensive and by the time you have to upgrade to DDR3 you'll be tossing that motherboard anyway because the socket will be too old for new CPUs.

A decent motherboard if you're not overclocking would be the Gigabyte P45 DS3L or the P43 flavour.

Seconding the recommendation for DDR2-800. Just get a cheap set from any decent manufacturer and you've got more than the headroom you need.

Consider going for the Q9300 to save a few bucks, if you want.

 

[DSF]

Since you're not overclocking it's tough to beat the value of the P43 chipset boards. The ASUS P5Q or P5Q Pro are two other options for under $150.

There are two problems with a combo board:

1) Changing to DDR3 is not in and of itself going to produce a performance improvement over DDR2 on a Core2-based system. As Roguestar said, to realize the potential of DDR3 you'd need to be changing CPUs and motherboards anyway.
2) You're either limited to 4GB of DDR2 or 4GB of DDR3, depending on the board. If it's the former you're handicapped in the short term. If it's the latter your upgrade is gimped because you can't use 8GB of DDR3. By the time DDR3 has become mainstream we're likely to see 4-8GB being the typically system memory capacity rather than the 2-4GB of the DDR2 days or 512MB-2GB of the DDR days.

 

[madman300]

Thanks once again.

I am checking out the Asus P5Q and P5Q pro. It appears that they use different heatsinks on the north and south bridge. Any idea which board is more efficient when it comes to heat transfer? I am looking to keep this build in a small ATX case and I want it running cool and quiet.

Also, I have read a number of bad things regarding intel's stock heatsinks and fans. Does everybody pretty much replace them with an aftermarket?

If so, what would you guys recommend for the 9550. Again, I am trying to stay cool, stable and silent. Not very worried about overclocking.

Thanks!

 

[Roguestar]

I'd only use an aftermarket cooler if I was overclocking; the stock ones are decent enough.

 

[DSF]

If you're looking for true silence you'll want to get an aftermarket cooler. At stock speeds you won't have any heat issues with the retail heatsink though.

Two notes about silence though:
- Silence is in the ear of the beholder. No computer system, or at least very few, are truly silent. However, you can get the system noise below the ambient noise level in the room, which is really what you're talking about. That ambient noise level varies from place to place, so you could build two identical computers that would sound silent in one location and not in another. (Or even at one time and not another. For example, my computer seems dead silent if the A/C is running in my house. If the A/C is off, I can hear the whooshing of the fans, although it's not loud by any means.)

- Silence isn't just a question of the CPU cooler. It's also a question of the video card, hard drives, system fans and case. You could buy the quietest CPU cooler in the world and end up with something that doesn't even remotely resemble a silent system. If you're really serious about getting the computer as quiet as you can, www.silentpcreview.com is a good resource.