Need to put together a pc

Komete

Hi all. I need to put together a system for a relative. Basically his mobo died so we will be using his old hardrive, case, dvd player, and cdrom, and an antec power supply I have laying around.

He doesn't game, or do anything intensive. Just chats online and plays online poker.

His budget is $200 for cpu, mem, and motherboard.

THis is what I have in mind.

GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (has on board video)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231144

Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor (hopefully I can do a little ocing on it to get it around 3.2ghz on the stock HSF.)

SYBA SD-SATA-IDE SATA/IDE Adapter ( he has an ata hard drive)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822998001

and a little arctic silver 5 to get the most out of the stock HSF.

All together comes out to 200.38 shipped. Talk about cutting it close.

I know none of it is exciting hardware but it should give him a nice boost over what he had. If anyone sees a way to get a little more or perhaps a better recommendation on the motherboard or memory, let me know. I wish I could add a video card in there and still be around 200 shipped but that's pushing it. I want to stick with the e5200 cpu because I may be building a system down the road based off of it.

BuddyJ

Looks like a good deal to me. Go for it.

siruspernot

Is his case a MicroATX? If it's a midtower or full tower you might have problems mounting the motherboard in the case. It will physically fit but mounting screw locations may be an issue. The easiest way to check is to put in the old motherboard model numbers on google and see what form factor it is if you don't already know, I just saw you didn't mention it.

Good choice on the processor BTW, I am currently using it at 333x9 (3GHz). I'm orthos testing while i type this, so far I'm 1 hour 25 minutes in and core temps are 55-53 max right now. 77F ambient. I'm using 1.2V. Good luck to you.

BuddyJ

Mounting screw locations on an mATX board aren't an issue when sticking it in an ATX or eATX case. All the important ones line up just fine.:thumbup

siruspernot

Thanks Buddy J, I'll remember that one. Does this apply to all cases by all manufacturers? Even OEM like Dell and Compaq?

Komete

Yea, I know from experience it'll fit. Sometimes you end up with one hole not fitting but over all they line up. But even if none of them fit, you can see in this thread, http://icrontic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77125&page=2 , a few holes won't stop me.

I've never used a Gigabyte board but I've always wanted try one. SO I'm actually looking forward to it. I haven't touched an intel CPU in over 9 years so that'll be a little odd but it's all the same really.

I have had 2 bad expediences in dealing with onboard video. So I'm a little hesitant on that aspect, but the price is hard to argue with.

Oh and thanks for the CPU info. it's good to have a reference point when overclocking.

Buddy J wrote:

Mounting screw locations on an mATX board aren't an issue when sticking it in an ATX or eATX case. All the important ones line up just fine.:thumbup

siruspernot wrote:

Thanks Buddy J, I'll remember that one. Does this apply to all cases by all manufacturers? Even OEM like Dell and Compaq?

Leonardo

Does this apply to all cases by all manufacturers? Even OEM like Dell and Compaq?

I wouldn't count on it. I honestly don't remember, but I bet the OEM cases have holes drilled only for the specific form factor that ships with them. But then, most of the OEMs ship with mATX, right? So I just shut down my own argument. Yay, me!

My excuse is that's it's been about two years since I've opened up a branded PC.

Komete

Leonardo wrote:

My excuse is that's it's been about two years since I've opened up a branded PC.

At my job I'm a programmer. So technically, if my pc has a problem I'm supposed to call the help desk and have them fix it for me. I hate for anyone besides me to touch the inside of my pc. Grant it, it is a work pc.

Last time I saw the inside of a retail pc was about 6 months ago when we all got new Dell core duo systems. 400 pc's in all. Well they were freaking out because so many were having booting and shut down problems. They were debating shipping them all back. Dell was offering to get an overnight work crew there to fix the problem for free. On top of all that, we had a new CIO who thought it would be bright to copy everyones work and personal data on to our servers and have all the old pc harddrives erased. Which were erased. The whole agency would have to shut down while our old pc's got loaded over a two day period.

As soon as I booted mine I knew it was the memory. I laid it on its side, opened the case, and resat them memory. I did a few of my other coworkers on my isle's. Then we basically sat back and watched them run around like chickens with their heads cut off all day. Eventually they figured out the memory just needed to be resat. But it was fun to watch.

Komete

After seeing siruspernot's e5200 ovreclocking thread I've decided to change the memory I'm going to order for my uncle.

I'm going to go with G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 800 instead of 2gb of DDR2 1066. If anyone sees a problem witht his please let me know. I'm not in the know when it comes to intel cup's and fsb's and matching performance.

Thrax

You're better off with more memory and a 1:1 FSB:RAM divider. If you don't think you can run a 500MHz FSB, then 400 is a better choice. Having excess bandwidth on the RAM doesn't do anything for the Core 2.

Komete

Thrax wrote:

You're better off with more memory and a 1:1 FSB:RAM divider. If you don't think you can run a 500MHz FSB, then 400 is a better choice. Having excess bandwidth on the RAM doesn't do anything for the Core 2.

I don't get it. OK the chip is sold as a 800fsb. But it has a 12.5 multiplier. I do remember something about a quad pumped fsb. So really it is 12.5x 200. Is it the bandwidth at 800 that gets data from the ram @ 800mghz ddr?

So say I wanted to do a light overclock of 3.2ghz. If I did it with a multiplier of 12.5 i'd set the base fsb at 256. But 256 quad pumped would be 1024. So how do I get to 3.2 ghz and match it to the memory?

Wait a minute, it isn't 1:1 "1:1 FSB:RAM divider" So if the ram divider is 1/2 then then the mem would run at 562mghz..ddr Ouch that hurt my head. Now I'm understanding.
Err... Thanks for the help

Thrax

Please read this: http://icrontic.com/articles/core2_fsb_explained

Komete

Good read Thrax, thanks.

I ordered the parts yesterday and they arrived today. Everything I've ever ordered from Newegg has always came in on time but never early. Makes me wonder is the economy so bad that ups can get things shipped faster because their work load is down or is newegg just opening closer warehouses. My bet is on a new warehouse.

I'm downloading win7 for it. New build, new OS, new thermal paste. Should be interesting I'm seriously wondering about overclocking on the stock hsf. It is so tiny.

Komete

I just wanted to post back. Everything went smooth as could be with the setup. I didn't have much time to overclock it too much. I know I got it up to 3.6ghz (freaking cpu throttling was annoying) but I ended up leaving it at a safe 3.0 ghz on the stock HSF. My uncle was happy with it. The other day he said he's been very impressed by it.

Eventually, when I get the time, I'm suppossed to put win 7 on it. He wants to try it out.

The bios setting for the memory was a little confusing. I think 2:1 equaled 1:1 for some strange reason on that motherboard. I had to look it up online. Go figure.

But if anyone is looking for a cheap upgrade path, for 198 shipped, it was a heck of a deal.