Building new machine - please comment

I'm building a new system for myself and would appreciate any comments, concerns etc. This machine will be for gaming primarily. Note: must cost less than $2800 total cause that's all I have between 2 credit cards.


LIAN LI PC-65B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Model #: PC-65B $129.99

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard $249.99

EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card $629.99

Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W Power Supply $155.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 $309.99

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA1005 $307.99

Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $189.99

SONY Black IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1615/B2s $18.99

SONY Combo Drive Black IDE Model CRX320EE/B2S Model #: CRX320EE/B2S $24.20

Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series $145.99

Microsoft Windows XP Professional with SP2 $279.99


Grand total: $2,579.09 + $150.58 shipping (UPS to Hawaii) = $2,729.67

The only thing that I see that I would Change is the video card. Most if not all games will not use the memory that the card you chose has on it. In saying that most games don't utilize a card with 512 megs of memory onboard either. The reason is the bottleneck between the video card and the cpu, the data can only go as fast as the frontside bus (I am unsure how AMD take cares of this as I am an Intel fan). My suggestion is to go with a better card that has 512 megs of ram. Both ATI and Nvidea both offer very nice ones, ATI has the new X1950XTX and Nvidea Has their 7950, both in the same price range if not cheaper than the one you chose. Personaly I would look at those 2 over the other one. Everything else looks spot on to me.

Mega Mouse

$2500 Intel System:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz 775-Pin $470
Motherboard: Gigabyte 965P-DS3 i965 $243
RAM: 2 x 1GB Corsair DDR2-667 $332
HDD: Seagate 160GB SATA $76
Case: Antec P160 $185
PSU: Antec TruePower 2.0 480W $127
GPU: 256MB ASUS 7900GS $305
Optical Drive: Pioneer 111D Black/Silver $48
Monitor: 22" Benq FP222W 5ms DVI Widescreen $549
Speakers: Logitech X530 5.1 $89
K/B & Mouse: Logitech Cordless Desktop S510 $69

Total: $2493

This to me is a much better bang for buck system. I got it last month and it performs great.

Note: Prices are in Australian Dollars so the approximate price in US$ is $2000, since your putting it on credit I highly suggest you lower your costs.
Also you can get a OEM version of Windows XP with a Vista coupon since you are buying a new PC.

Future games 'will' most certainly use the power of the new cards. However I'd only bother getting the 8800gtx if you game at 1920 x 1200 and up. Anything at and below will not push the 8800gts too hard for the next 6-12 months (Crysis withstanding). I'd suggest that as a better bet. (Incidentally, if you want to get the 'older' 7950 gx2, you'd pay more or less the same amount as you would for a 8800gts).

Also the Evga board is nice and high-end but a few people I know have had problems with it. The Gigabyte boards are more or less flawless though (DS3/DS4). I use one at home and we have a few at work. Almost perfect synergy. Everything just 'works' (which is rare).

Use the extra cash to get a better processor, though honestly, anything above an E6400 for general usage will not yield much. Unless you need the power for work like rendering, video editing etc. If it's just a gaming rig, I'd go for an E6400 and upgrade later to the Quad-Core's in about 6-8 months.

In light of that, save yourself some cash and go out drinking with your buddies ^_^.

To me the e6600 is worth it since it overclocks extremely well and has a 4mb cache, opposed to the 2mb of the e6400 and we are talking about gaming which in most instances are CPU limited.

I would only go the e6400 if your really strapped for cash.

No talk of downloading O/S, AND YOU CANNOT BUY A VERSION OF WINDOWS XP FOR 50$

CANNONFODDER
Anyway I read something about Processor and Memory synergy. You should balance the two out that, otherwise you'll end up buying high end memory/processor without using them to the fullest effect. There was a rule with dividing the clockspeed of the processor by the speed of the memory and it should result in a whole number. The article is in dutch and was in a magazine, but I guess its common knowledge on google/wikipedia.

You could get in a 2nd disk drive, low volume high readout, like the "Razorstone' or a name with Razor in it, I think. Because its only about 80 gig, but can read and write very fast, its the perfect HD to install games on. Store music/videos/porn on the 500GB hard disc.

Umm.. the 8800GTX is the BEST card on the market right now. You can't get a better card. It may not have the best bang for buck, but it wipes the floor with everything by about 30%. It is an AWESOME card. It has the extra RAM because it's DX10 and is mean't for use with VISTA. VISTA's DX9 Aero effects require 256mb of video RAM. Why I don't know, but they do.

So if he can get the 8800GTX, he should get it.

Well, maybe not 50$, but I bought an OEM version of XP Home for 60$...

Thanks for all the input. I'm going to stick to a basic core of E6600 + EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR + EVGA 8800GTX.

1) Regarding 8800GTX....in 6 months, dx10 games will be all over the place. This is what interests me more than the onboard memory. I assume most people have seen the demo videos at Nvidia. Amazing stuff....

2) Conroe E6600 is not ideal. Tom's Hardware ran some tests that show the 8800GTX requires a monster CPU to perform up to spec (unlike ATI1950 technology which performs well regardless). Unfortunately, I don't have the dough to buy the faster model Conroe (let alone the xtreme). So I will just have to tune up my E6600 with some aggressive overclocking.


WD vs. Seagate

One thing that I am still undecided about is HDDs.

I know most gamers go with Raptors, but the seed of doubt has been planted in my mind. I've heard some people whom I consider smart who say that 7200rpm Seagate or WD drives are nearly as fast IF you buy them in smaller formats....

Regarding larger format HDDs, does anyone have a strong perference for one brand rather than another. I have used Western Digital in the past. But I've also nice things about Seagate Barracudas. I've seen benchmarks but they are very inconclusive. Any input would be helpful.

You can easily take the e6600 to 2.8 or higher, and will handle anything you can currently throw at it. (May need a HSF upgrade though)

oh.. and I'm currently running a WD 320 SATA II 16mb cache... and working perfectly for me so far (about 2 months old)

So that does beg the question as why you're willing to shell out £142 ($280) on XP Professional. If you want to enjoy all the gaming eye candy that DX10 is going to provide then you need Vista Home premium at least. Preferably go for Vista Ultimate and disable the crap you don't want like the Media Centre, RDP and such.

Having a 8800GTX and then making it run under DX9 in XP is a crime against all PC gaming enthusiasts. Hell, why not wait a few months for the price of the QX6700 CPU's will come down a bit.

No, it's not really begging the question. I appreciate you asking it, cause this is something I had to think about. I'll be using Vista as soon as there is 8800 driver support for it. There are none right now, even in beta from what I understand. So if you want to run an 8800GTX today, it means you have to use XP like it or not. But of course I'll be upgrading the OS to Vista Home Premium as soon as I'm able to do that.

Just to finish the thought. You are right. I could pick up an OEM version of XP Pro for a little more than $100, with the free Vista coupon too. But I didn't bother to check the price when I was making up my specs, so I just put down the retail box price, which I happened to remember. So actually, I guess, my computer will be less than $2500 with the shipping to Hawaii.

Incidentally, the cost of shipping is a major hurdle here in Honolulu. I ordered the case over the weekend. Shipping was $78.00 just for the case (18lbs). UPS ground from Newegg's warehouse in Baldwin Park, CA, shipped 12/4/06 and estimated time of arrival 12/7/06. Pretty fast considering it's travelling 3000 miles, but expensive

It would almost be cheaper to just have Digital Storm build the machine for me, since they have free shipping deals etc or an instant $200 off Twisters (which is like getting the shipping free). Oh well. Half the fun is putting a machine together, right?

Putting a machine together is the reason I game. I've been building PC's for longer than I care to remember. I'm lucky though, just 1 mile up the road from me is this place -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

The best specialist PC store in Europe, and seen as it's within say a 5 minute drive (traffic depending) I don't have to pay postage for my parts.

I'll tell you what the other half of the fun is. After you've loving put all the parts together, wired everything in and double checked it all. You switch it on and nothing happens, that's when the other half the fun starts.

I think that you've made good choices, although when ati releases their new line-up you're going to see some price dropping. Currently one 8800 (either model) only slightly outperforms a crossfire (1800 1900 or 1950) setup using the ati chipset mobos. And by slightly i mean at best about 10-20% and it costs over 300 more. I've been running vista beta with some dx10 betas and I've gotten very similar results (almost user transparent) between the new nvidias and an 1800 x-fire machine. I also have a lot more graphical glitches with the 8800's along with getting a DOA card first try. This not to mention the power req's with the 8800 and some time to wait for software to catch up with the hardware. Unfortunatly again for nvidia, i think ati's new line is going to run circles around nvidia new line-up again, especially with lower CPU overhead and power req's.

I have Raptors and cudas at home and by far the raptors wipe the table over any of the 7200's i have used (including IBM and Tosh). Running in either RAID or single's the speed boost (especially with loads) is at least 40% faster overall. Although the 150 raptors are hefty priced, they are that way since they are wicked fast. A seagate drive for a large storage device is a good stable choice.

Lots of power, lots of future expansion and will play 1st gen dx10 games nicely and current games at near max or max.

One of my fears would be the newer DX10 cards would have worse DX9 support.

After reading about the design of the new nvidia 8 series cards and dx9 performance, had not more fear (Nvidia 8 series has more "generic" gpu's with a software layer on top so dx9 and dx10 use full power).

I think the 700w is important as dx10 cards, especially SLI/Crossfire look to be very power hungry.

I would go with Windows XP Media Center 2005.

Thanks for all the feedback. I took what everyone said into consideration before filling out the final order with Newegg. Got the first package Friday, and I should get the last one 12/19/06...just in time for Xmas.

Here's the final build:


LIAN LI PC-65 USB B2 Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $119.99 (they were temporarily out of the black case, so I got the silver one instead, but it's essentially the same thing. Already have a problem here - front panel Power LED is a 3-pin; motherboard header wants a 2-pin. Not a biggy but I jacked up the header cable trying to make my 3-pin into a 2-pin).

Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W Power Supply - Retail $159.99 (modular cabling...nice; really tight fit in PSU bay...not so nice)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail $309.99 (on order)

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $249.99 (woulda looked great in the black case; okay in the silver I guess)

EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail $629.99

Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail $309.99

Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM $224.99 (boot disk & games...Raptor X 150GB was only $5 more, but I heard the X is a lot louder so I got the enterprise version instead)

2 X Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s - OEM $94.99 (volume storage; will the onboard HDD controller allow me to set just these 2 up JBOD? Can't see any advantage to RAID 0)

ASUS Silver ATAPI/E-IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E616A2 SV - Retail $19.99 (silver to match the case)

ASUS Combo Drive Silver E-IDE/ATAPI Model CB-5216AG SV - Retail $26.99 (same as above)

Thermaltake CL-P0310 CPU Cooling Fan - Retail $55.99 (shoulda bought OEM CPU since I was buying fan separately....my mistake).

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2b w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista - OEM $109.99 (came around to EternalTempest's view that XP Media Center Edition was the best buy cause it upgrades to Vista Home Premium).

COOLMAX 18" SATA ( SERIAL ATA 150 ) Cable, 2-Head Model SATA 18" 2H BLUE - OEM $3.49 (Raptor is OEM and the motherboard only comes with SATA2 cables; no idea if SATA2 cabling is backwards compatible, so I got this crappy cable just to be safe).

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM $5.99

Final thoughts: NO sound card! Ran out of money (Onboard audio will have to do for now...oh well.)


That's all. Can't wait to fire it up.

EasyG

I think you've built a good system there. I do have a couple suggestions, however.

For the optical drives, I would steer clear of Sony. I own a Sony DVD-RW, and while it's very fast at burning and reading movies, it sucks for reading copy-protected discs. I would go for Lite-On or (if you can fit it in your budget) Plextor. Plextor is, bar none, the best optical drive maker out there. My advice is to get a single drive, so you can get a quality DVD-RW. You won't know the uses of such a drive until you get one. Backups are so much easier, and DVD media is just as cheap as CD media these days.

For the sound card, do you really need 7.1 surround? You could shave a lot of money off by going for a 5.1 card with the same capabilities. If you're using a 2.1 speaker set with that sound card, all that money is essentially wasted, since you can do just as good by using your motherboard's onboard sound.

For the case, I have heard good about Lian-Li. I would suggest, however, that you look outside the name and consider some of the less exciting cases. Antec makes some incredible cases, provided you don't plan to move the computer much. Coolermaster is also a good brand to check out, as they generally have very similar cases to Lian-Li, but for half the price. But that's a personal thing. I have a preference for steel cases.

As for the hard drive, I have had nothing but bad experiences with WD. I would seriously suggest looking at a Seagate or a Samsung. Granted, they're a bit more expensive, but in my experience they have a much better track record. One thing to consider is that Seagate has a 5 year warranty on all of their retail drives, while everybody else only offers 3 years.

One last thing to consider is shipping cost. That's always the deal killer for me when building a system for a customer. I can build a wonderful little computer for $300, but when it comes to the shipping part of the process, I am forced to downgrade a lot of things to offset the $40 shipping cost. With the number of components you're buying, I expect your shipping to be over $100.

The advantages to RAID 0 are: faster transfer rates

The disadvantages to RAID 0 are: chance for data loss is doubled

Steer clear of RAID 0.

Windows XP has an option to enable disk spanning (or JBOD as you call it) in the volume creation options. Windows calls it Dynamic Disk. However, it's only an option in XP Pro or Server 2003. I can't find any reference to it being part of XP MCE. If you've already bought MCE, you're most likely going to be stuck with D: and E: