Been out of the game lately...build question

[IneedanewPCguy]

Thanks for reading this.

I'm going to be building a PC soon and would like some general advice. I'll say what I'm looking for and would appreciate any comments/advice you may have for each component.

Vid Card....thinking of ATI-currently whats better than my 9800 pro?

Sound Card.....new creative Labs Xfi card....heard they're good

Processor....AMD...duel core, but any suggestions? and why duel core? ..told ya its been a while.

Motherboard.....ASUS something...I like ASUS...any recommendations?

For hard drives im going the 10k western digital

Any other suggestions/advice?

Thanks!

[blue60007]

For us to be more specific, we need to know what your budget on the system is...that'll dictate most of the parts. Also, what will you be doing with the computer?

Top of the line ATI is the X1900XTX and the X1900XT. Further down are the X1800's which are pretty cheap now and not a bad deal.

Yes, the X-fi's are good.

CPU, the 3800+ X2 is a good choice to start with. Next up is the 4200+ X2. Many games and other apps are starting to take advantage of mutli-cores. Mutli-cores will probably be the way of the future...

Yes, ASUS is a good choice. A8N-E or the A85NX are good choices.

Don't forget a good power supply. Make sure you get a good quality unit from Antec, FSP (Forton Source), Sparkle...there are more in the General Hardware forum - there's a sticky at the top of the page with lots of good brands. Don't cheap out on the power supply.

[IneedanewPCguy]

My purpose is gaming 100%. Budget.....around 1200-1500 w/o a monitor

Thanks again blue!

[blue60007]

Antec Sonata II w/ 450W Antec PSU - $100
ASUS A8N-E - $90
AMD 3800+ X2 - $300
X1900XTX - $470
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) - $150
73GB Raptor - $160
WD SE16 250GB - $90
Win XP Home OEM - $90
DVD-RW - $40

That's about $1490, barely in budget...you could cut costs by dropping the Raptor; a larger hard drive with a 16MB cache, I feel, is more cost effective. You could also drop to a X1900XT, but that would hurt gaming peformance more than dropping the Raptor. In some cases its just as fast (if it has a 16MB cache).