Conroe system build

Camride · Post by **Camride** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:43 pm

I submitted to temptation and purchased a Conroe E6600 ES and it will be actually in my hands on wednesday(along with an Intel D975XBX Motherboard). I am placing an order with newegg today for the rest of the stuff I need. I am building this system as a HTPC/gaming rig since I need a good desktop computer at home to play games on and watch/record tv. As soon as I get the parts in hand I will start snapping pics and once everything is built I will start benchmarking for you guys.

I know there are a few people on some of the more extreme forums that have been OCing the everliving hell out of their Conroe systems with extreme cooling so I figure this will be the every man's build. This will be OC'd on regular old air and the rest of the system will be a relatively mid-end system. I decided not to go all out on a vid card as the new DX10 cards will prompt me to upgrade soon enough so I got my hands on a slightly used ATi x1800XL to use in the meantime. I'm building everything in the Lian-Li V800A desktop case since it'll look at home as a HTPC and a regular desktop PC. I'm running Windows MCE 2005 off two Samsung 350gb HD's in RAID 0 which should make for pretty decent performance. Memory is OCZ's Gold 2gb Dual Channel PC 6400 DDR2 800 which should provide good performance. TV viewing/recording will be done with a Hauppauge PVR-150, which should work great from what I've read. The rest of the system is typical DVD burners, media card reader and other random stuff. Haven't decided if I'm going to get a LCD monitor yet or not as this is getting to be an expensive build. I'm looking at a Viewsonic 19" widescreen LCD but I'm not sure if I should spend the $200 on it or not. Worse comes to worse I can just use the 21" Viewsonic CRT monitor I have, though it takes up a ton of room.

Anyway, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up and see what you think. This should be a pretty cool system. If you have any suggestions feel free to post them up.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:57 pm

Sweet..........

The E6600 should give you a ~1Gig OC (3.4) on air if it's one of the newer steppings! --> easilly a FX62 killer

INTEL ROCKS ;)

Camride · Post by **Camride** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:52 pm

It's a stepping 5, which I believe is the newest available. I'm hoping for at least 3.2Ghz on air, anymore than that will just make my grin even bigger! I can't wait to get ahold of this thing! Just placed my order with newegg so I should have everything by the end of the week. I will post specs this evening, gotta leave work now.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:48 pm

which revision board are you running? I'm running Conroe on the 304 revision and I believe brian is doing the same with his conroe.

Since I can't talk about performance I'm limited on to what I can say, but your video card choice seems to be wise along with the 800MHz memory also... make sure it's CL4 memory as you don't want CL5 memory with Conroe.

You better buckle your seat built when you turn it on.

Telya · Post by **Telya** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:01 pm

Hi, new here so please forgive me for asking this but I noticed you said you ordered the new Conroe chip? I did not know you could order it yet, thought it was to be out in August. I am considering getting a new Dell or Gateway and wanted to wait for them to start offering the Conroe. If I get one now
I'll probably get a better price but Dell is putting in the Pentiom D 820 and gateway is using the Pentium D 930. What is your advice.
I'll use it for video recording and playback and pictures, etc. My husband uses the computer for business and some gaming.
Thanks for any advice.
Getting a Conroe, wow, you'll be one of the first ones, right?

Telya

InspectahACE · Post by **InspectahACE** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:01 pm

how the hell are u guys gettin conroes already besides bein those "evaluation" versions? unless those are already

Pengwin · Post by **Pengwin** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:12 pm

u cna pre order

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:13 pm

It's a E6600 ES (engineering sample)

The first revision ES chips normally are crap........the later ones are basically retail chips with different markings. Sites like LR would also get them before release dates so they can test them and have a review posted on launch day.

InspectahACE · Post by **InspectahACE** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:15 pm

i see...i was gettin a lil ansy...like i am now with the fry;s ad in my hand lol....this waiting game sucks lol

Telya · Post by **Telya** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:17 pm

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I did not think they were out yet.
Can you tell me if you think the 9xxx chipsets are ok? Say Pentium D 930?
Probably they are going to run the price way up for Conroe machines when they come out.

Thanks.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:57 pm

they are fine but if you want something to hold you over till you can get a conroe, then the BadAX + a 805 is going to be the cheapest best way to do it.

Telya · Post by **Telya** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:58 pm

If I buy a new system now I'll have to choose. I won't be able to afford another one very soon after so I am stuck with what I get.
I guess I'll just go with the most I can get now which is a 930. Gateway is offering that now in a pretty good stystem set up.
I am kind of scared to leave Dell but they are offering an 820 chip and fewer extras.
I also hear that Gateway's customer service is USA based and better.
Dell appears to be losing it.
Dell also wants to charge me at least a hundred more to get a 930.
Sounds kind of like a rip off to me but then again, not sure.

Thanks so much for the help.

Camride · Post by **Camride** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:33 pm

Apoptosis - The guy I got the E6600 from also supplied me with the r304 XBX so it would work with the Conroe. Once I found out how much more newegg was and that they weren't shipping r304's yet(still on r302 as of the last review a week ago) I thought it would be best to get the MB from him. He shipped everything out today USPS Express so I should have it on wednesday. I got the vid card today and the rest of the stuff I need should be here by friday from newegg. I think the RAM I ordered is 4-4-4-12 but I'll have to check. If it's running at 5-5-5-12 or something similar how much is that going to hurt performance? If it's significant I'll just return it when it gets here and order something else. Although if I figure it out tonight I might be able to call them tomorrow morning and change the order before it ships out.

Teyla - If you can wait another month before you buy a computer. Getting a prebuilt right now is really going to stick you in an already aged computer in the matter of a few weeks. And it's not very likely that Dell/Gateway would release a new BIOS to enable Conroe support for whatever motherboards they're shipping now so you'd likely be stuck with what you bought. I would hold out until Conroe is shipping because even the high end Pentium D's are no0 match for the lowest end Conroe by far. It really is a huge difference from everything I've read so I would wait. If you absolutely have to get something I'd get a laptop as the Dell laptops are going to support Merom cpu's when they're released, not sure about Gateway's. If you can afford it I'd recommend the E1705 or the E1505 if you need something more portable.

One of the biggest reason I decided to drop the cash on this cpu is because I wanted to find out if the hype was justified for myself. Most of the Conroe benchmarks thus far have been from websites/magazines that got them free and have the highest end equipment hooked up to it. I wanted to build a "regular" system with it and see how it does in real life, not under extreme cooling and ideal conditions. Basically how most of you guys would build it, on a budget with air cooling and mid range components. I think this will give everyone a much better idea of how Conroe will perform for the regular Joe and see how much of a difference it will make in normal life.

I will try to document everything thoroughly and write up a review so that everyone can see how I did the build. I will do the normal array of benchmarks plus give some in-game fps averages and basically tell you how it "feels" in normal life.

If anyone has anything in particular you'd like me to test let me know and I'll do my best to include it in the review. If you have any other suggestions just post up and I will consider them.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:56 am

Camride wrote:Apoptosis - The guy I got the E6600 from also supplied me with the r304 XBX so it would work with the Conroe. Once I found out how much more newegg was and that they weren't shipping r304's yet(still on r302 as of the last review a week ago) I thought it would be best to get the MB from him. He shipped everything out today USPS Express so I should have it on wednesday. I got the vid card today and the rest of the stuff I need should be here by friday from newegg. I think the RAM I ordered is 4-4-4-12 but I'll have to check. If it's running at 5-5-5-12 or something similar how much is that going to hurt performance? If it's significant I'll just return it when it gets here and order something else. Although if I figure it out tonight I might be able to call them tomorrow morning and change the order before it ships out.

From running 800MHz C5 to C3 memory you can expect a 10-15 fps difference on many leading game titles... Which is quite a bit from my point of view.

Camride · Post by **Camride** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:45 am

Not sure if you got my PM but the RAM I ordered is 5-5-5-12 OCZ Gold so it should be able to run lower timings, but I'm not sure how it'll hold them once it's overclocked. We'll have to see. I think it'll do better than a set of G.Skill ram though once it's overclocked. Every set of OCZ ram I've used in the past has overclocked great even with tight timings so hopefully this set will also. Either way we'll see. If it ends up being lackluster I'll just sell it or return it and get another set.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 9:55 am

I'll ask OCZ and see what they say... it's not 9am in cali yet so no one is at the office.

Camride · Post by **Camride** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:49 am

Thanks! I really appreciate that. If they have other memory around $200-250 they recommend let me know. I really want to stick closer to the $200 mark if I can as this build has already cost me alot more than I wanted to spend(I think it'll be worth it though).

Imakeholesinu · Post by **Imakeholesinu** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:05 pm

Just to let you all know, Fully Buffered DIMMS will be the new standard. May want to take that into account when purchasing a system for Vista.

Oh yeah, there is no such thing as DDR3 either.

Post by **DMB2000uk** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:11 pm

Be sure to get that beast folding for us as soon as you can

Dan

Camride · Post by **Camride** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 9:01 pm

Imakeholesinu wrote:Just to let you all know, Fully Buffered DIMMS will be the new standard. May want to take that into account when purchasing a system for Vista.

Oh yeah, there is no such thing as DDR3 either.

WHen are fully buffered DIMMS going to become the new standard, and what makes you believe that? Just curious, as I see no need for it IMO.

And who said anything about DDR3? I read all the posts and no one mentioned it here. ???