Help to spend $3,000 - game/audio PC

[SGasan116]

My budget around $3,000 but actually it could be less or more - depends on configuration.
Mainly I want sysytem for future games (Crysis etc.) and audio recording/listening (some guitar and CDs) and also DVD dubbing - so I do need very good sounding audiocard. Also don’t need to overclock or do watercooling or SLI . Good aircooling will be sufficient. Only best parts and best performance and reliability, so system will be good and stable at least for 2-3 years.

So far I came with this list:

1.Case: Silverstone TJ10-BW black aluminium ATX mid tower

or : Silverstone TJ09-BW Black Aluminum ATX Mid tower

btw – what the difference between them?

2. Power supply: PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR, also

Thermaltake Toughpower 850W W0131RU – NVIDIA QUAD-SLI
or Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V 700W Power Supply
or SILVERSTONE OP650 ATX12V / EPS12V 650W Power Supply
or may be I need less powerful, like 750wt or less? or another brand?

3. Motherboard: ASUS P5K3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

4. Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 Kentsfield 2.66GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775

5. Memory:

CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail $260

CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail $360

CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail $470

Perhaps 2-nd choice will be the best in price/frequency ratio?

I'm pretty confused here, because of all these specs and options etc. But I prefer a manufacturer with reputation.


6. Sound card: Creative Creative X-Fi Elite ProSound card
other choices are:
E-MU 1616M-PCI or 1212M-PCI or
M_Audio Revolution 7.1 or
Edirol FA-66
Any other suggestions for quality soundcard?


7. Video card

BFG Tech BFGR88768GTXOC2E GeForce 8800GTX 768MB $580

BFG Tech BFGR88768GTXOCE GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 OC HDCP Video Card - Retail $530

EVGA 768-P2-N837-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO HDCP Video Card – Retail $650

EVGA 768-P2-N835-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SUPERCLOCKED HDCP Video Card $610

EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card – Retail $535

Which one is better or faster or more reliable?

8. Hard Drive 1 - Western Digital Raptor 150Gb or 75Gb will be more stable?
Hard Drive 2 - Seagate Barracuda(perpendicular) 750Gb or 500Gb
or Hard Drive 2 - HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000 HDS721010KLA330 (0A34915) 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

(no need for RAID) Any other suggestions?

9. CD/DVD drives:

2 x Lite-On 20X DVD Burner w/ Lightscribe – or should go with Sony or NEC or ASUS?
I want to listen, watch and burn DVD and CDs and have second drive for copying DVD..
Any recommendations?

10. Monitor:

SAMSUNG 244t-BK Black 24" 6ms
or
NEC Display Solutions LCD2470WNX-BK Black 24" 6ms

also their 22" monitor cost almost two times less. May be extra 2" not important, so I can save?
I didn't have experience with big widescreen monitors, so please advice on this.

11. Network card: Killer NIC discrete card

12. Processor cooling:
Scythe Infinite, Tunis Tower, Thermalight Ultra?
Thermaltake CL-P0114 120mm CPU Cooler
Thermalright HR-01-K8 CPU Heatsink
ZALMAN CNPS 9700 NT 110mm 2 Ball Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler
Scythe SCASM-1000 120mm Sleeve Andy Samurai Master CPU Cooler
VIGOR GAMING CLT-M2I 92mm Thermal Electric CPU Cooler
too many choices – and I don’t know which one fit to ASUS P5K3 DELUXE
And also do i need some glue for this installation?

13. Kb/mouse: Logitech G15/G5
also what about these keyboards:
ENERMAX Aurora Black 104 Normal Keys USB Mini Keyboard
Saitek PZ30AU Black 104 Normal Keys - seems Saitek is a better choice.

Hope I didn't miss anything?

Thank you in advance and sorry my mistakes (English is my second language).

[DSCHIEF]

For a 2nd. choice on the sound card, look at the M-Audio Audiophile 2496

it has RCA jacks for Analog I/O ( I use the analog inputs to copy old Vinyl Lp's onto my P/C )

It also comes with a break out cable to provide S/PDIF & MIDI I/O to the card via a 15 pin D-sub connector

BTW, the sound is terrific. you will need powered speakers
I'm using an AudioSource AmpOne /A to drive a pair if Infinity Primus 150's

[blue60007]

1) Not sure, but a case willl be a personal preference
2) Unless you are running two high end video cards you won't need a 1000W power supply. A 620W Corsair unit would work or perhaps the Silverstone unit.
3 + 5) I would stick with DDR2 until DDR3 becomes more mainstream. Right now it doesn't offer much in the way of performance boost and it's more expensive
4) Looks like a good choice
6) From what I've heard both the Creative and M Audio are good choices.
7) I would take the cheapest eVGA card.
8) I would take the Seagate
9) LITE-ON is fine - make sure you get a SATA flavor.
10) Check out the difference in resolution - if there isn't one, I'd go for the 22".
11) Motherboard has a NIC onboard (probably 2 of them)
12) You might try the stock cooling first. Glue? Do you mean thermal paste? The stock comes with a thermal pad applied to the cooler, and generally the others come with some. But, generally Artic Silver is recommended for the 3rd party coolers.
13) Don't have any experience with the KB's, but I have the G5 and like it very much.

[LeftyAce]

$3000 is overkill; to spend that much just isn't efficient. You're probably looking at closer to $1500-$2000 (probably closer to $2000).

That said, here are my thoughts:

That processor is a solid choice, and quad core should keep you current for a few years.

I would get the regular P5K (deluxe wifi if you want it): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131182
DDR3 memory is very much cutting edge technology, so you pay more for uncertain stability, etc. Also, your processor FSB is 1033, so it won't access ram at more than 667MHz anyway. DDR2 667 is fine since you aren't overclocking. I'd get Corsair ValueSelect: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%2bvalueselect

Corsair is very reliable, and their customer support/warranty coverage is quite good. I've had 1 of the 10 sticks I used in the past year die, and they overnighted me a replacement!

For the video card, I'd go with eVGA. They're good quality; they make the prototype boards for nVidia.
The regular 8800GTX is so much power right now that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense spending the extra $$ for a superclocked version. Save that money and plan to upgrade to the 9800 when it comes out in 6 months to a year. The 8800GTX will kill any game out there right now, and should handle crysis when it comes out.

For harddrives, the Seagate 7200.10 series with the 16MB cache is only negligibly slower than a 10K raptor, and much cheaper per GB. The 320GB version is the sweet spot for $/GB, but for audio/video editing you may want the 500 or 750GB version.
You might consider getting a smaller harddrive for the OS and programs, and keep a bigger one for data so that if you have to reinstall windows you won't lose your data. I'm not sure how much sound/video data you'll be keeping on the computer at any given time, so this may or may not be worth it.

Powersupply. For the quad core plus an 8800GTX I'd get the Corsair 620HX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...orsair%2b620hx
That'll give you some headroom if you decide to upgrade the video card or add harddrives, etc.

LiteOn is a solid manufacturer (and actually makes the Sony opticals). Make sure to get SATA Retail drives, as the P5K motherboard doesn't have good IDE support, and LiteOn retail drives come with burning software: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106072

I'm not very experienced with monitors, but I can tell you I just bought a Hanns-G 19" monitor (I was going for the 2ms response time for gaming; widescreen isn't of interest to me right now). It's a somewhat unknown brand (And is a bit cheaper than Samsung, etc) and so far I'm quite impressed with the quality of the monitor. That said, from what I've heard Samsung is the best as far as monitors. I'll let someone else comment further on that area.

You don't need a dedicated network card. The P5K supports up to 1Gb/s speeds, so you won't gain anything from a dedicated card (other than reduced airflow around your video card, which is not a gain at all :-)

You don't need additional cooling for the CPU; retail Intel processors come with cooling that's totally sufficient unless you're doing major overclocking. You MUST use the Intel heatsink/fan to preserve the 3 year warranty.

I'm not sure what the difference is between the two silverstone cases, but they're both way more expensive than I'd ever pay for a case. The Antec P180 or P182 are good quality.

*EDIT* Sorry for the long post. Blue was a little more efficient :-)