My First Gaming Rig Setup - Advice Appreciated!

[cody99]

Hey guys! I've been planning on building a pc for some time - i've had gaming pc's in the past - but then again those were all dell pcs. I have now decided to go ahead and build my own from custom parts! I have friends who can professionally help me put the system together, but I would love some extra advice. This is my first time with parts - so bare with me lol.

CPU: Now, I figured with the new penryn processors coming out I was debating between the Core 2 Duo E8500 and the Core 2 Quad Q9300 cpu's - here's a link for info. http://www.guru3d.com/article/nforce...li_review/482/ I'm planning on using this system for gaming only - things like Age of Conan, Crysis, Far Cry 2, Spore, Call of Duty 4 are the ones that come to mind and I wasn't sure if should go with the dual core or the quad...

Motherboard: Havn't decided on which manufacture - but since I was hoping on getting a penryn cpu - then gotta get the 780i. Maybe http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813141005?

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811129021

Memory: 2x CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820145034

Video Card setup 1: dualhttp://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814130303 running in SLI

OR

Video Card setup 2: dual http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814130312 running in SLI

Sound Card: Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Serises
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16829102005

PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad (Black) EPS12V 750W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817703009

Hard Drive 1: Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822136012

Hard Drive 2: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822148288

Disk Drive(s): 2x SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16827151153

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16832116204

Other parts included...
-APEVIA CF12SL-UBL 120mm Blue LED Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E
16811998121

ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16835118019

and I figured this would be a solid monitor...
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16824185005

Last Notes
I was making sure the 750 watt power psu would be enough for the system - and the video cards are made by EVGA because I think that with the series 9 geforce cards coming out around Feb I could use the 90 day setup program and upgrade to a newer set - IF i chose to. Before I was looking at the e8650 dual core and the q6600 but with the new 45nm cpu's coming out in less than a month might as well wait for those.

Anyways - I'm open to all opinions on the build and advice - thank you all very much for reading and I appreciate your time Merry Christmas and have a great new year!!

[Masaki 7-11]

Your setup looks pretty well balanced and geared towards gaming. Regarding the penryn cpus, you should figure out if you play any RTS games or multitask with many cpu intesive processes at the same time, if you do either, you should get a quad core, otherwise a dual core will work best with fps games. I would stay away from 64-bit version of windows, if you are not running more than 2GB of ram, it's unneccessary. Vista 64-bit is also a lot slower than 32-bit because all 32-bit code has to be translated into 64-bit code taking up a lot of processing power. Lastly there are a lot of bugs associated with running 32-bit applications on 64-bit operating systems, so stay away from the 64-bit operating systems unless it is crucial you get it (highly unlikely).

[cody99]

Well, I think the majority of my time I spend planning MMO's (such as Age of Conan coming up in late March) with some extra time being split playing some FPS's (Crysis, CoD4, and eventually Far Cry 2) and civilizations / starcraft 2. I was thinking since this is a pure gaming system it might be better off with just a fast oc'd dual core rather than a quad... espeically since games aren't using all 4 cores yet - we're probably see Nehalem intel cpu's before that time I'm guessing, but I'm not sure.

The rig has 4 gig of ram, and ya I have heard alot of horror stories with 64bit Vista... so I might just dual boot with 64 bit XP..

*Edit* - Also another question I have is do you think I should go ahead and just get a larger power supply? I could get a kilowatt PSU for upgradability... but again i'm not sure...

[Masaki 7-11]

An oc'd dual core should work great for gaming. Regarding power supply, 1KW is a good idea if you plan on getting triple sli or a really power hungry cpu like the extreme editions. If the prices are close and it's from a good company, it won't hurt to have extra power for your system.