[QUOTE="CreasianDevaili"] You did your research and there really isnt anything anyone here can outright critic. The system flows well together. You got some nice performance parts in there and got options for future endevors. You got a good motherboard, cpu, ram, and psu.
However.. I would say the Corsair 6400 is better if you only plan to OC by a small amount. If you plan to take the Q9450 to say 3.2ghz i would stick with the 6400. If you try to hit 3.6ghz then you might be better off with the 1066 ram, aka Corsair 8500, as you dont have to worry as much about ocing your ram.
My XMS2 DDR2-800, just basic black heatsinks on them, not the dominator type, can do DDR2-960 stable so far. Havent taken it lower. However i could very well get another kit for 4gigs and see them struggle to hit 425mhz, DDR2-850 effective. Ram is one of the most nit picky components in your system. Corsair 8500 would have the least amount of issues with ocing however as you dont have to oc it. You shouldnt lose much performance outside of the 1:1 ratio, which for 1066, would downclock it ALOT.
If you dont oc however, then get the corsair 6400. Even that will be downclocked if running 1:1 divider. The 6400 has better timings than the 8500 so overall better if you DONT OC by a large degree.
reyad-u
Thanks. :)
To be honest I don't think I'll be overclocking too much, around 3.2GHz and thats about it, about the ram, well I thought that the 6400 would be better timing since I'll be overclocking to 3.2GHz but the 8500 is only £1 more ($2) so I thought I'm probably better off getting that.
Just make sure you dont run your ram 1:1 divider so that the higher frequency of the 1066 will outweigh the loss in tighter timings and 1:1 with the FSB. There is a small performance hit but long as you dont underclock your 1066 you shouldnt have any. It is often when people try to run 1:1 with a FSB on 1066 DDR2 but they are running say a 1333 FSB that they loose the benefit of the higher frequency of 1066.
To hit 3.2ghz you will be using a 8x400FSB, as the Q9450 has a 8x multiplier. That is easily achieveble and you will be able to run your DDR2-800 1:1, as it naturally runs at 400mhz. Thats the only reason why. However if you get the itch to say try for 3.6ghz you will need a 450fsb which is DDR2-900 speed. Your dominator DDR2-800 should hit it easy enough.
I.E. You will do better with the DDR2-800 kit you have for the Q9450 because even at 3.6ghz you will only need a 8x450 FSB. You wont be able to do 7x514 easily because alot of motherboards dont like FSB over 500, if they hit 500 at all stable. So if your going to buy performance ram meant to OC, it is better to oc it, have tighter timings and run 1:1 than having higher timings, run a 5:6 or bigger divider, or run 1:1 and underclock your 1066 to DDR2-800 Speeds anyhow.
Just my thoughts. Ocing ram and underclocking ram by large margins can cause instability on both ends. No guarentee either way of a perfect picture. So go with your gut.
Log in to comment