Hi Friends,

Greetings of the day!

I'm Planning to buy a new system for Software development and software testing...

I have decided to opt for the Following Configuration,

Please give a look to it and provide me your suggestions for the improvements...

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Intel 965 or DG 33 MoBo
2 Gb DDR2 RAM
500 GB WD HDD
Circle Cabinet with PSU
19"/22" LCD Screen
+ other stuffs

My budget is around INR Rs. 40,000/-
(wiil be purchasing in Mumbai, India)

Please help me in figure out the best possible configuration within the said budget.

I'm planning to go to the market on monday it self so please suggest me as early as possible...


Thank You in advance!


@ Dins'

Not really easy giving you a suggestion considering your budget of 40k Rupees does not translage easily to product prices here in the US. I am sure parts in India are probably a bit more expensive. I would not recommend a quad core if you are in a budget since you will not get much of a benefit. I would rather suggest a very high clock dual core for the best performance.

Instead of the quad core, how about a nice Intel E8400? Cheaper, and fast as hell from what I've heard...

DinsTheTechDigger,

Are you going to run Virtual machines of any kind? Then go with AMD like the Phenom 9550. There are more reasons to go with AMD, like the graphics performance in Vista with ATI/AMD chipsets (less RAID, Intel is better in that).

To stay in your budget, take a look at the ACER 20" screens. It could be that you need to spend 45k, but it will be worth it.

As for the motherboard, don't bother with the 965. In fact, I wasn't aware that any of them (at least that I use) can support a quad-core. Also, a lot of the 965 boards are going EOL, we can't even order any more of them!

Of course they can. The 965 chipset officially supports any Core 2 CPU using up to a 1066MHz FSB, including the Q6600, Q6700, QX6700 and QX6800.

Some 965 based motherboards even has BIOS updates for unofficial 1333 support for the QX6850.

At this point though, on a new system I wouldn't look at anything lower than a P35 or P45 based motherboard.

I sometimes forget that other board makers besides Intel use Intel chipsets with different capabilities. Plus at least all the 965 Intel boards we deal with here aren't specd for a quad core. They are the 965RY/SS and 965GFE.

I don't know why Intel doesn't list it for the DG965RY and DG965SS boards, but the CPU support page for the DQ965GF states support for Core 2 Quad CPUs. The 965 series chipset supports Core 2 Quad CPUs so Intel must be specifically disabling support for them on those boards through the BIOS. More than likely since it's a mATX motherboard they're using a lower spec VRM and/or less power phases to reduce the cost, which would mean the components on the board itself probably can't support the power requirements for a quad-core CPU.

Well we've never had a customer order a board with that CPU in it. Originally, our sales guys were special-ordering new boards to support the Quad-Core, and I had to tell them that the G33 supported it. Since then its just been G33 with the quad-core, although most of our sales have a Celeron or Core 2 in it instead. Intel did release new BIOS updates for the 965GF and RY/SS boards recently, perhaps they were given the support for that CPU with those updates?