This is a system I bought in 2007:

Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz/Conroe/4MB/1066FSB/EMT64/Dual Core)
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2GB (2x XMS2 1GB) Twin2X PC-6400 DDR2 RAM
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3P P965
Geforce 8800GTX
4x Samsung HD401LJ SpinPoint 400GB, 16MB CACHE, SATAII (RAID0+1)
Seasonic PSR550+ S12 Energy+ 550W Power Supply

Ran like a charm, I later upgraded the CPU to a Q9650. I regret spending so much on the video card though (cost $875 and died after about 2 years- would have been much better off spending half that much on a mid range card then upgrading in a couple of years to something faster and supporting the newer DirectX version)

I think that was a pretty popular build DK.

Mine was a E6600+DS3P build, same RAM, but I opted for the 8800GTS 640MB.

Later upgraded to a Q6600 because I was able to get it at the "right price" and sell my E6600 for a good sum.

I still have that system, in fact. It gets "borrowed" when I hold, or go to LAN parties.

Ah... Core 2!

I built from the ground-up last time:

ASUS Striker II Formula Mobo
Core 2 Quad Q9300 with custom CoolerMasterGemini II Heatsink
Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC-8500 @ 1333MHz RAMs 4GB (2 + 2)
Dual Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX in SLI
CoolerMaster PSU 850W
SB X-Fi Platinum with I/O Drive
1.5 TB HDD (3 HDDs)
2 DVD+RW Drives

I built it with such enthusiasm that it even overshadowed the excitement of putting together my latest build - a Core i5 2500K based system with 2 AMD Radeon HD 6950s in Crossfire.

I will add my past c2d system and it's upgrades 😊

mobo: Asus P5Q
cpu: E6750 -> E8500 -> Q9300
ram: 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 -> 4x2GB XMS2 sticks
vga: 8600GTS -> 8800GTX -> 260GTX -> 285GTX/2GB
sound: SB X-Fi pci Platinum with I/O Drive
psu: Coolermaster 700W cable management with SLI cert.

nowdays the p5q+q9300+ram and an ATI 6790 is sitting at my office as my main work pc... 😁

😁 Keep 'em coming dudes!

I agree with you Malik... this may be the most exciting build ever.... possibly even more than s939 days for me. So far this has been most useful and I can deduce a few things here:

1) Quads are the way to go- !!! and I always thought the e8xxx series was the pinnacle and nobody actually used quads, but then my knowledge was based on what I followed back in 2006-08...back when these systems were new builds, dual cores were de rigueur for gaming and quads viewed as expensive and superfluous. Good thing I started this thread then since I was about to actually purchase an E6600 / E8400 before this.

2) Upper mid-end to high end mobos - I favour Asus myself. Would love an SLI board (EVGA 790i anyone?) but I believe these might be harder to come by since Nvidia was on Intel's shitlist during that period? So the number of crossfire boards would be proportionately higher I guess, thereby making them easier to come by after all these years?

3) 2-4gb of high quality ram - can I get away with generic CL 5/ 6 stuff like Kingston and Team Elite? I've got some spare old DDR800 lying around. Or would this not be cool?

4) G80/ G92 GPUs - This was the bomb back then. I myself had an 8800GT when it first came out but paired with a 5200+ back then (that's what you get when you have fanboyism- thank god Bulldozer came out and broke the spell). Built like a bomb and would have lasted me till today, had I not forgotten to plug in the fan header after cleaning it one day... 😵 😢 poof! Luckily Asus' warranty is so superb that they RMA'ed me a GTS250 - which was promptly preserved in vinegar and has remained sitting in its box for the last 2 years- time to bring it out, hey?

5) Beefy PSUs- Big systems need big power. I'm thinking along the lines of a quality 650w-800w- I'd like to not underpower this build but at the same time avoid overkill. I favour Corsair BTW- like a TX or whatever replaced it is called, maybe a modular AX? Would this be enough for 2 sticks a' ram, a quaddie, stock vcore mild o'cing, 2 hard disks in raid 0 and SLI'ed/ crossfired 8800/ 4870s or similar?

6) Case- almost forgot. No one mentioned what case they used.

This is my setup at the moment:

ASUS P5E
Core 2 Quad Q6600
OCZ Platinum rev.2 DDR2 PC-6400 2x2GB
ASUS GeForce 9800GT
Chieftec PSU 400W
Auzen X-Fi Prelude

after 3 years it still runs great 😀

Find a Q6600 with the SLACR stepping. They overclock like mad.

My current PC is a C2D. Bought it in January 2008 with the following:

Core2Duo 6550 (2.33GHz)
2GB Ram DDR2 800
Gigabyte P35-DS3L
GeForce 7800GTX 256mb

The graphics card wasn't up to it, but I got it really cheap at the time. ATi released their 4850 and 4870 cards that summer and I got a 4850 (probably some of the best money I've spent on computer hardware, it's still going strong!) and also got a couple more Gigabytes of RAM a few months later. I ran into some complications with my motherboard (which in the end was found innocent, I think the problem was something entirely different), so I got a used Asus P5K in early 2009 for 30 euro from a stockhouse. Fantastic board, it has never failed me!
I'm thinking of getting a new machine once I finish my exams this summer and go to university, but I decided against it as of now. I think I'm going to wait until the system reaches 5 years old at minimum, there's really little need to get a new machine.
And frankly, I hope computers never get to the point they were only a few years ago, when graphics card were considered old and could only play games at the lowest settings after 2-2.5 years.
It's fine now, most stuff just works!

For me I never owned one, built some and repaired some but never owned a Core 2.

My builds were around the AMD Athlon CPU's then the Phenom I and II.

Somebody did give my an old Dual-Core with motherboard, one of the E series CPU's not sure if this counts as a Core 2 however because I think Intel made this from their older Pentium D designs.

My present rig...

Core2Duo E8500 @ 3.8ghz (400FSB 1.28 V-core) w/thermalright ultra 120 extreme and AS5
ASUS P5E BIOS 1201 with a subsequent microcode update I did myself.
8GB Corsair DDR2-1066
EVGA 3GB GTX580 (originally an 8800GT which died, then a 9800GX2 which also died, lame coolers...)
PCP&C Silencer 750 power supply
2*Samsung 2TB HD's
Plextor px-716A
Plextor px-w5224A
ANTEC P-182SE case

in june this system will be 4 years old, I will upgrade this year when the new intel procs hit the market and i7 prices go down a bit. Most of the machine will stay the same, just proc, motherboard, and ram change.

Is this for your main rig, or a "retro" build? Or you just want to build a C2D?

The Wolfdale's C2D are a little over priced, you can get a i5 for just a few more bucks. You can however get a Wolfdale Pentuim DC like the E5200 and clock it up to 4.0ghz and can keep up with my i5 2500K. You can find a used E5200 for around $40-50 on ebay.

I was a little disappointed when I upgraded from that E5200 to an i5 2500k and I saw no improvement in gaming at all, with a single GTX 460 anyway.

Here is my old system from 2010:
Intel E5200 775 w/ Arctic Freezer 7 Pro (O/C 3.9ghz)
Abit IP35-E socket 775 (P35)
Patriot Viper II 2x 2gb DDR2 PC2-8500 5-5-5-15 (PV224G8500ELKB)
PNY GeForce GTX 460 OC 1GB [VCGGTX4601XPB-OC]
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Samsung Black 20X DVD SH-S203N
Rosewill RX630-S-B 630W power supply
Antec Nine Hundred case

Thanks for the superb input everyone ! I've been doing plenty of research myself and thinking real hard about what I want to build. Last thing I wanna do is change stuff 600 different times cause of wrong or lousy hardware choices, incompatibilities, etc.

bushwack wrote:

Is this for your main rig, or a "retro" build? Or you just want to build a C2D?

You could say this is a "retro" build for my little collection.

bushwack wrote:

I was a little disappointed when I upgraded from that E5200 to an i5 2500k and I saw no improvement in gaming at all, with a single GTX 460 anyway.

Good to hear! For the time being looks like we're out of the crazy hardware cycle where you needed to upgrade yearly to play games at decent settings. We have the current console gen to thank for that.

My Core 2 rig is completed! For those who want to see what my interpretation of Core 2 is: http://www.techpowerup.com/gallery/3278.html