$500 PC Build: Core 2 Duo E7200

First of all, my sincere apologies if you were trying to find reliable information on some of these components and the whimsy of google sent you to my blog. I am neither an expert nor a real hobbyist; however, every few years I decide to upgrade my computer and it is inevitably cheaper for me to update the build I’ve been working on for the past six years rather than buy a boxed system. Without further ado, here are the results of my triennial foray into pc building.

Obviously, the first constraints to be considered are the budget for the project, and the goals to be reached within that budget. I decided I had about $500 to spend. As for my needs, a few things make this project slightly unusual. First of all, my xbox 360 is currently serving my high-end gaming needs so for the time being I will try to make do with my GeForce 6600GT graphics card, which was only middle of the road when I bought it this time in 2006. Second, my primary interest at this point with the computer is in music production. As such I decided to focus on processor performance and memory. Finally, I have been well-served my newegg.com in the past in terms of price, speed, and customer service, so I decided I buy all my components there to make my life a little easier.

Component 1: CPU

the CPU was the only logical place to start my search, especially with a GPU out of the picture. In the past I have found $100 to be my sweet spot for processors so through a few simple google searches I found two early contenders: the Intel Core 2 Duo E2160, and the AMD X2 5000+. My past two processors have been AMD, so that’s where I gravitated first, and the 5000 seemed to be the budget sweet spot. However the more I read the more it became apparent that with a little overclocking the core 2 duos could produce much bigger bang for the buck than the AMD chips. Starting with the E2160, hailed as a “budget champion” I then realized my budget could support a stronger CPU and discovered a brand new chip with the 45nm architecture, the E7200. At $131, with strong reviews and apparently easy overclocking, I felt like I had a solid choice

Choice: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200: $131

Component 2: Mainboard

When I updated two years ago Gigabyte had emerged as a great choice for quality budget mainboards, and as far as I can tell that is still the case, although Asus had a competitive offering as well. The two newest chipsets for the Core 2 Duos are the X38 and X48, but the budget choices in those categories are lacking. As far as I could determine, the P35 chipset is the next best thing and actually offers comparable performance to the newer chipsets. It was fairly easy to narrow my choice to two boards: the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS2L and the Asus P5K SE. The gigabyte features solid-state capacitors and what appeared to be superior overclocking options, except for one glaring problem: the DSL2 for which I read reviews has been replaced by the GA-EP35-DS2L, an identical board with a power saving utility added. As far as I can tell the utility disables the option to make adjustments to the cpu voltage, which limits overclocking options. I nearly went with the P5K, but switched back after making the following considerations. First, I am fairly conservative overclocker, and from the reviews it appears the E7200 is capable of a 25% overclock to 1333 (333×4) FSB without adjusting the core voltage. Second, I might actually benefit from the power saving features, and third, that if I decided down the road I needed extra power it may still be possible to disable the power saving features and boost the voltage (at this point I couldn’t dig up a conclusive statement one way or the other).

Choice: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS2L $89.99

Component 3: Memory

My first idea here was what seemed to be a fantastic featured deal on newegg: a 2 GB G.Skill pair marked down from $99.99 to $59.99. However after a little bit of research it became apparent that the DDR2 1066 rating on this set would be superfluous. Again, I am speaking only from second-hand research, but it seems that overclocking the memory beyond synchronous speeds is superfluous. In other words, if I boost my E7200 to a 333 FSB (or 1333, because something multiplies it by 4 somewhere) then the memory only needs to operate at 667 (again, some multiplier working here) for an essentially maximal experience. With that in mind I found Corsair XMS2 2 GB pairs for $29 after mail-in rebate. I haven’t been following component prices, but this seems like an incredibly good deal. A day after I placed the order for everything, I realized it would be insanity not to get another set (now bumped up to $31 after rebate), ending up with 4 GB. If I had realized at the time I would be buying 4 GB I might have considered the 2×2 set marked down to $82, but I certainly can’t complain about what I ended up with. Word of warning: after I made the purchase I stumbled across some comments indicating that they may be using lower quality components than previously. If I had spent more I’d be worried.

Choice: 4 GB: 4×1 Corsair XMS2 1GB DDR2 800 $60

Operating System

Thanks to university licensing I was able to save on an OS purchase the last two times I built, but this time around I’m taking the plunge and buying a windows product. Not really thrilled about it. There were some serious choices to be had here. Vista vs. XP, OEM vs retail, and 32 bit vs. 64 bit. None of the three were easy. I settled on Vista mostly through consensus of scanned reviews and security info that I could find. OEM might have been the wrong choice but with retail at double the price, even if I need to buy again when I upgrade I’ll still be breaking even. Not to mention that when that time comes I may want to upgrade to 64 bit. This was the choice that gave me the most trouble. The 32 bit OS means I’m pushed right to the memory max, but on the other hand compatibility will not be an issue. Frankly I had a bad experience trying to install Windows XP 64 two years ago and it probably impacted my decision. I have no 64 bit apps on the horizon any time soon, so I settled on:

Choice: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit OEM – $99.99

Final Build:

CPU: C2D E7200 $130

MB: GA-EP35-DS2L $90

RAM: Corsair XMS2 4×1 GB $60

HD: WD Caviar 320GB $70

OS: Vista 32-bit OEM $100

PSU: Seasonic S12 II 380W $70

Total: $520

Well, I hope you enjoyed the rundown of the major choices I made for my system. The PSU may have been excessive but I went with a cheap one last time and my system had frequent problems with overheating, so I decided to make an investment on quality (and quiet!) this time around. Obviously that could be brought under $50 to bring us under budget.  As for other components, I bought an external sound interface a few months ago, I have a nice LCD monitor, I’m sticking with my 6600GT for the time being, and my case has nostalgia value. If you have feedback on any of my choices, I’d love to hear it; the parts are in the mail and there’s still time for me to switch