Advice on building a computer...

I realize I'm going over my $900 budget. Oh wells, crap happens.

Really need some good advice from "in the know" people. I still need a few parts though to complete my system and still need help and advice on which way I should go. So far these are the components I've picked out.

1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

ENCORE ENLWI-N IEEE 802.11b/g, IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 PCI 2.3 Wireless Adapter Up to 300Mbps Data Rates 64/128-bits WEP Encryption WPA, WPA2 WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180052

LITE-ON Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache IDE 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106269

EVGA 132-YW-E179-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188040

Needed:

Video Card (Nvidia)
RAM (DDR3) (Pending approval)
PSU (Pending approval)
Cooling

After all is said and done, I will need help on OC'ing the processor and perhaps the GPU. So keep that in mind when suggesting cooling units. I won't be going overboard on the OC'ing, just slight tweaks to get a little more power.

Possible Parts:

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009

OCZ ReaperX HPC 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227276

 

Ouch, a good few problems there.
First, if you have a limited budget, a Twelve Hundred is outrageous. This case does the same job for barely more than half the price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047

Second, an Nforce 7 motherbord. Bad idea, very bad.
OCZ memory isn't that great, and that PSU is overkill, not to mention expensive for what you get (They're also not very quiet, despite the Silencer name)

Recommended parts:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128359
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145214
(Yes, DDR2, trust me, that's fine)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608002

 

Well, I wanted a full tower for expandability. I'm most likely going to dual SLi in the future and need all the space I can get. Nice tower though, looks almost exactly the same as the 1200 full tower! Only smaller...

Hm, well seeing as I have no experience with nforce 7 motherboards, what's wrong with them?

Well, I mainly wanted a future proof (3-5 years) PC, which is why I chose some of the components I did. My original plan, and I'd still like to stick to it, is to have a quad core, ddr3, dual sli set-up. That's why I picked out that motherboard. But if that series is no good, could you recommend something similar but better built?

 

A mid tower can still support dual graphics or more. There is no difference in what they can support hardware-wise, only things like more hard disks and (arguably) better cooling. The cooling on the Tempest is superfluous anyway.
I don't really see dual graphics as futureproof, I see them as an excuse to get the best performance now rather than later, as typically they're more enthusiast-grade, than high end home user.
The problem with nforce boards is partly due to the SLI configuration. The only way you will get SLI without one is Core i7, which isn't really suited to gamers.
DDR3 also has no futureproofing whatsoever, think of it as the same as DDR2 but running on a faster bus. No performance gain, just compatibility with different CPUs.
Your best bet to get a fast PC is to get a better processor.
Swap the Q6600 for this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041
This is a good 40% faster.
If you want dual graphics, why not use this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131116

 

Ok, well I most likely will only ever have 2 HDD's in my system. So I suppose I should look for a really spacious mid-tower case. Thanks for the tip!

I'm pretty sure I can get a lot out of a single card now and hook another one up, or upgrade again to 1 or 2 later. Right now I can only afford one card, so 2 is definitely out of the picture.

Confused?

No performance gain at all? Even more confused now...

I actually selected that one first, but it was much too expensive so i took the next step down. The Q6600 seems okay for now and I will be overclocking it a little to get more speed. I'll probably go with the Q9550 in a few years when it's dirt cheap, or maybe another, better 755 processor.

Lol! Wayyy out of my price range! Is a beast though, but ATi isn't my cup o' tea.

 

For reference, the NZXT Tempest fits 8 hard drives.
If you can only afford one card now, only ever buy one. By the time you need another technology will have changed so much that just buying a newer single card will do you far more good.

The only way to use SLI without a crap motherboard is to use a Core i7 CPU (1366) not Core 2 (775). Does that help?
You are right, DDR3 has ZERO effect on gaming performance, and very minor gains for video encoding / calculations.
The Q9550 is by far the better chip, but suit yourself.

If you don't want an HD4870X2 then try this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161247
I suggest ATI because right now, they destroy nvidia for value-for-money. That's not fanboyism, that's just the truth. A $220 HD4870 1GB generally matches or beats a $260 GTX260 216 core, and the $450 HD4870X2 compares to the GTX295 which is far more expensive.

 

Ok, I've sat down, looked through all the parts you've listed and really thought hard about what I will be doing with this PC for the next 5+ years. I've actually decided to take nearly all of it, except the GPU. Adding everything up, it's the one thing that is easily upgradable in the future and doesn't need to be the best right now. I like nvidia, but I'm probably gonna go with ATi this time around. Now to find a cheaper GPU...

Think this will do for a while?

SAPPHIRE 100259L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102810

It's the same model as the one you listed, only half the memory. I haven't played a PC game in quite a few years, do they really need 1GB on the GPU?

Still need to find a way to trim $100 off this...

 

The 512MB version is fine if you only use a 22" monitor, or don't use Anti-Aliasing on your graphics.
Areas you can cut back (don't necessarily need to use all):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128347
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115131
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218

 

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319

Would that be a better choice seeing as it has twice the cache size for $5.00? I just looked at that 1TB HDD I chose and it isn't even available anymore, so regardless I'm going with the 640GB drive. I don't see a need for any more space then that for a long time anyways.

I was looking through some of the specs of the new PSU you recommended, some things I didn't understand. Is the original one you recommended better/more stable?

I'm planning on using a 24" monitor with all this, will 2" be much of a difference in terms of RAM usage? The monitor I chose is 1920 x 1200, so that would be the max I will put my games up to. No 1080P HD TV for me yet...

Acer X243Wbd Black 24" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 400 cd/m2 3000:1 ACM with HDCP support
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009152

 

They are both powerful, stable units, but the HX520 is quieter (neither unit is loud), and has modular cabling, so you needn't clutter your case up with the cables you don't need.
As for the drive, there tends not to be too much of a difference between the Blue and Black drives in terms of performance, for $5 it doesn't seem much to ask, but on the other hand, I'm not sure you'll gain much either.
1920x1200 is quite stressful on graphics cards compared to 1680x1050. To use full graphics settings at that resolution I strongly recommend sticking with the 1GB card.
Oh, and 1080p is 1920x1080, so a slightly lower resolution than a 24" monitor offers.

 

Hmm, well... $5 isn't much, better safe then sorry I guess. I'm most likely going to stick with the HX520 seeing as it has modular cabling. Less mess and better air flow.

Gotcha. Have you seen much of a difference between 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 on a 24" monitor?

 

Cooler link still works fine for me.
I'd strongly recommend using the correct resolution for your monitor, it has a big impact on image quality.

 

Took my tax return another week to arrive, so I'm still looking at parts, but thanks to sammorris I've pretty much been able to decide on every single part. Just hoping things drop in price soon (buying it all on Friday/Saturday). I was wondering what OS I should load up for this PC?

XP
Vista
???

I'm very experienced with XP, but know little of vista except from what I hear (and it's all bad). Nothing lately of course, but I'm still a bit wary. I hear a new M$ OS is coming out soon, Windows 7 I think? I hope that's a good successor to XP. But anyways, should I still stick with XP for the time being or upgrade to Vista Ultimate?

 

Up to you really. Vista is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but it's still got plenty of issues. Windows 7 will probably be a good bet when it's released. For now, you may as well stick with XP.

 

I figured, just wanted to hear it from the man. I would figure since games are still XP compatible (and even if they're not, it's not hard to get them there), XP would be the better OS to load games on since it doesn't take up nearly the amount of system resources that Vista does.

 

That's correct. Vista uses about double the RAM of XP.

 

Ok, strange... I'm receiving mixed messages here. I contacted a group at a forum I frequent often and asked them if there was any way to trim a few dollars off the PC I built based off the suggestions you gave me. For some strange reason one of them mentioned this combo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.155233

He's pretty insistent that AMD is the better way to go right now and for the near future. Now looking at specs and everything, it does seem like the AMD chip is better then a 775 QXXXX chip except for the L2 Cache, which looks like it sucks compared to Intel, is that relevant? I'm confused...

 

Not really, I still stand by the build I stated being the better deal.

 

Well, after listening to my girlfriends advice (when it comes to technology, I usually go with the opposite suggestion she has), I chose AMD. So upon further research I discovered AMD sucks compared to the Intel Quad Cores, so I chose Intel. Wasn't able to buy a 9550 at this time, but I will get one later. I did get the 1GB ATi card though. Total was close to $1,300 for everything. I'll post specs later. Thank you!

 

ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR 20000:1) Built in Speakers w/ SPDIF out
Logitech S-220 17 Watts 2.1 Multimedia Speaker System
SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD Burner
ENCORE ENLWI-N IEEE 802.11b/g, IEEE 802.11n Draft 2.0 PCI 2.3 Wireless Adapter Up to 300Mbps Data Rates 64/128-bits WEP Encryption WPA, WPA2 WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
CPU Cooler - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166
PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004
MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128359
CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319
Wi-Fi - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833180052
DVD Drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151171
GPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801
Speakers - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121014
Monitor - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052