First time builder attempts a gaming rig.

[GrandSnafu]

Hey all, I've been doing some research into my first build. I figured I would post it so you can give me some advice. My budget is between $1500 and $2000. I have a 22 inch LCD wide screen monitor and will by running in 1680 x 1050 resolution.

Newegg.com - Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS Black Full Tower Case w/ 25CM Fan - Retail

Newegg.com - Thermaltake Toughpower W0172RU ATX12V / EPS12V 850W Power Supply 100 - 240 V CB, CE, FCC, TUV, cUL - Retail

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Dynamic Energy Saver Ultra Durable II Intel Motherboard - Retail

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

Newegg.com - XFX PVT80FSHE9 GeForce 8800GTX Extreme 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Newegg.com - Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner - OEM

Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail

Add in a few fans as necessary and arctic silver thermal paste.

My main questions have to do with the processor and Mother board. I have seen many suggest the E8400. How does it compare to the processor I have listed?

I was also considering

Newegg.com - EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

for my mother board which would allow me to add in a second 8800GTX in the future. But i was not sure that would really be necessary.

Right now I have winXP home for my OS. I was considering moving up to Vista but have heard a lot of negative remarks about it. Is it worth it to go to vista now?

Thanks for taking a look, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Capper]

Make sure you check out our HardwareLogic Recommended Hardware Lists, with your budget, you could definitely put together a top notch system mixed from the Enthusiast and Mainstream lists.

If you want to overclock, I'd definitely recommend the ASUS Maximus Extreme......hands down the best overclocking board available right now.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

ASUS MAXIMUS EXTREME LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard

Patriot Extreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory


SAPPHIRE 100225L Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit Video Card

Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3750330NS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

GIGABYTE 3D Aurora 570 GZ-FA1CA-ASB Black ATX Full Tower Computer Case

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX ATX12V / EPS12V 750W Power Supply

ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 120mm 2-ball UFO Bearing / Transparent CPU Cooler

Sony NEC Optiarc Black 20X DVD Burner with LightScribe


$1697.91 - $55 in rebates = $1642.91

If we have to fit a monitor, mouse/keyboard, etc, we can make some adjustments......this build is safe for quite awhile and allows you to upgrade in any number of ways including a second video card for Crossfire.

[Stormcrow]

For almost the same price as that motherboard alone, you could get the Maximus Formula and 4GB of Ballistix DDR2. One gigs not going to cut it anymore for about any game, I'm hitting the paging file in SupCom and Crysis on 2GBs as it is.

[GrandSnafu]

Yeah i would like to have more than 1 gig of memory.
I was planning on 2, unless I decide to get Vista , then 4 would be what I go for.

Any comments on the build I have made though?

[Capper]

What do I know????

If you are going to upgrade your whole system, theres really no reason not to put together the best system for the next 12-18 months.

That kit was the wrong kit, and the one I'd recommend was out of stock, but this Patriot kit is a very good kit with good speed and latencies.

To be honest, the 780i board honestly suck, and aren't worth the money.

Thermakltake PSUs aren't held in real high regard, but their cases are.

The Raptors are a waste of money.

The 9XXX Series NVIDIA card will be here soon, which means those 8XXX cards are going to drop in price

[garetjax]

LOL Rich. It's cool man. =)

I agree, the 780i motherboards are junk. They are mostly a stop-gap solution for when the 790i's come out, hopefully at the end of this month, or so I've heard.

Any particular reason for choosing the Raptor 150? With hard drives offering more capacity these days, the speed of the Raptors become less of a feature due to the larger capacity HDD's having more cache and more areal density on their disks for storage. For the price you are paying for that Raptor 150, you could get a monster 750GB hard drive that will perform just about on par with a Raptor, but with five times the storage capacity.

As a side note, if you are willing to wait a month, the new 98xx series of nVidia cards are coming out. Personally, if I am going to throw good money at a videocard, I'd rather be paitient and wait for the 9800GTX to come out rather than spend money on a 8800 series card.

[GrandSnafu]

I didn't mean to offend. Like I said, I am new to building and came here for advice and to learn.

I had considered waiting on the 9800 series cards to come out, and still might do so. Thanks for your suggestions, I'll make some modifications to my prospective build, and repost later.

[Parker]

Nice, join here and within a couple hours already have Rich mad

Jk....
I think you should listen to capper, don't get a 780i board, wait for the 9xxx nVidia series to come out, get 4GB's Crucial RAM (credit of Stormy! ), as for the CPU get E8400, or for a more future proof system check out a Q6600 (or wait for the new quads to come), and on top of that you should watercool the whole thing!

That would be an awesome, awesome gaming rig right there!
Just me 2 cents....

Oh, BTW don't get a raptor. There a waste of money, there loud and annoying, and don't have enough space. Get a a bigger drive like Garet said, like a 750 or 500GB with 32MB cache.

[Stormcrow]

I'd definitely stick with a E8*00 over a Q6600, by the time quads are truly useful and worthwhile there will be bigger and better ones out. Not knocking ya at all Rich, no worries. Just with DDR2 cheap as it is, its hard for me to recommend DDR3 despite the brute performance increase in bandwidth. Thats not to say you should skim his motherboard suggestion by, he gets to play with all the cool toys and knows which one overclocks the best.

[garetjax]

Originally Posted by Parker

Oh, BTW don't get a raptor. There a waste of money, there loud and annoying, and don't have enough space. Get a a bigger drive like Garet said, like a 750 or 500GB with 32MB cache.

That's odd. I don't find the four 74GB Raptors I own to be loud. They are actually quieter than the 500GB HDD that I have for my digital music and movies...