Mulling over parts for new system - What's your opinion?

[Mehen]

Yikes, so many posts!

I would say the installation was average, not overly hard.

As for memory, all the brands are good quality (Corsair, Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ, etc etc) - go with whatever fits the budget the best.

The X1950pro can be found pretty cheap and is still a really good card, would easily tide you over until even R700 or the G90(?).

[Helevitia]

On a sidenote, what kind of setup do you have for guitar/bass?

Very simple. I have my guitar and bass both plugged into a POD XT Live and the POD is plugged into the computer via USB and audio in. I use the software that comes with the POD to do all of my recordings. If I ever move into a bigger place, I will setup more equipment such as monitor speakers, midi keyboard, etc... but no room in my current house I would also love to setup a nice mic for all kinds of things. I do have amps for my equipment but with a baby around the house and a computer, I rarely plug in to those anymore.

[Mehen]

I'm gonna start a thread in the lounge about musical instruments (asking what everyone plays etc so I don't hijack this thread...)

[Helevitia]

Sounds good

[Admiral]

Latest rumors on the R600 are for a May/June release, supposedly they wanted to have the whole range available at launch, or so they say

About the Thermalright Ultra-120, the fan clips suck, otherwise it's a very good cooler
I get 65C under full load with an E6600 @3.6 GHz, 1.5V (reported by PC Probe in Windows at around 1.4V).

[Helevitia]

Hi Admiral, isn't 65C pretty high for that setup unless you are running fanless?

Check out this page for comparison. It shows your cooler running at 3.9GHz @ 37c!!!

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2941&p=6

[Admiral]

I can't explain how they managed to get such low temps with the X6800 even at close to 1.6V.
For the E6600 @3.6 GHz, 60-65C is what most people report with few running 70-75C. I actually ran my CPU on the XP-120 at those temps when I first tested.