Building a new PC; how does this look for hardware? LF criticism and input please :)

[Noobtech]

My focus is to stay under roughly $2500. I'm buying everything on newegg, and plan on placing my orders this week. This box is going to be used primarily for gaming. I have never built my own PC so any criticism would be appreciated

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ($80 after $40 rebate)

Motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI DDR3 ATX Intel Motherboard ($350).

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 ($254)

RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TW3X4G1333C9DHX ($360)

Hard drive: Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM ($170)

Power supply: Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-1000 ATX12V / EPS12V 1000W Power Supply ($250)

Video card: 3 Geforce 8800gts (i have one in my current box but will be moving it over to the new one.)

Sound card: Any recommendations? I have a nice headset that I normally use, so I don't really need anything special.

One more question; XP, Vista 32 bit, or Vista 64? Thanks!

[Dave21]

Do not adopt DDR3 yet. It is not worth it as rarely any applications will use that much memory. Go with DDR2, so change your board to 780i and get the xms2 ddr2-800 ram.

You really do not need a raptor drive, just get a regular 7200 rpm drive. Look at seagate 7200.11 500 gb 32 mb cache drives.

Do you really need tri-sli? The performance is not that great especially if you don't have a 30" monitor. Performance vs price is also not worth it. Just get a single high end card, look at the new evga 9800 gtx when it is released over the next few days. Or the 8800 GT/GTS will do you wonders.

As for soundcard, take a look at sound blaster.

If you wish to use all 4 gb of ram, get a 64 bit o/s. I suggest vista as it has direct x 10 which will be good for future games.

[Katreat]

Build looks fine but a bit over the top for anything I have ever played around with.

DDR3 is new and expensive. Its big advantage is its speed. Since you are using a 1000 fsb processor you will see very little advantage with your system. You can get DDR2 at 1060 for OCing needs so DDR3 really has little advantange until they come out with faster processors that can utilize faster memory speeds.

Intel has already anounced a new socket for future processors so you will probably not see many faster 775 processors before the chang over. I would personally recommend holding off on DDR3 until building with the new socket.

Running 3 cards in SLI shows very good performance gains on high resolution monitors. Have see tests with 28 and 30 inch monitors that demonstrate how effective SLI can be. However, on monitors 24 inch and below there is very little advantage and a single newer generation 9800 card would likely out perfrom the trio you picked. So, what size monitor are you planning on?

Raptors are fast, but the gap has gotten much smaller with the new 32 mb cache 7200 drive. Persoanlly dont think they are worth the cost but they are faster so if you dont mind paying a huge premium go for it.

If using head phones I would recommend sticking with on-board sound. It is pretty good these days and I would only recommend going with a sound card if you have a kick-ass set of speakers.

Kat

[Noobtech]

Thanks for the input guys! You've already saved me a good $400 .

Here's what I've changed:

Motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard ($249 after $10 rebate)

HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive ($110)

RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 ($84 after $40 rebate)

What do you think? Am I losing a lot of performance here? Also; will ddr2 800 be sufficient? If so; would 8GB of RAM benefit me a large amount?

To answer one of your previous questions about my monitor, I have a 22" Samsung 220WM max res 1680x1050. For now I plan on using the Samsung, but I'll get a better monitor at a later date. I also plan on just using the same keyboard/mouse for a while as well.

[Katreat]

I would run a check on the PSU need from this site once you are sure of the video cards you will use.

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

You probably dont need 1000 w.

If you are mainly looking for gaming I generally now recomend 32 bit OS and 4 GB of ram. 32 bit OS only sees about 3.2 GB of the ram so you are a bit over the top, but ram is pretty reasonable priced right now so not a big loss. If you are going for more (8 GB) then you will need the 64 bit OS to recognize it. Most games are optimized for about 2 GB of ram so 8 is really overkill, although if you use your computer for some ram intensive programs it might help.

DDR2 800 is sufficient for a system which is not being seriouslly OC'ed. It is even fast enough for moderate OC'ing. Your CPU is only 1000 FSB so the ram will step down anyway so there is no reason to go faster. The faster ram that is available is more for the heavy OC'er at the moment since the fastest CPUs on the market are only 1333 which is still under the speed of 800 ram.

Kat

[Noobtech]

So using 1060 ram would give me more OC potential? I forgot to mention that I am going to be running an 8800gt that's in my current box.

[Khalil]

If you are gaming spend more money on the GPU than the CPU. Quad core is a waste of time in my opinion, get the E6850 CPU and the 8800Ultra. SLI does not work well at all with Intel rigs. Evga makes good graphics cards but they need to stick to graphics cards, I highly recommend you go with an Asus motherboard. DDR2 is the way to go.
Good luck.

[Noobtech]

It seems like the quad core is $20 cheaper on new egg than the E6850. What's the difference between the two? I would think the quad core would be better??

[Dave21]

If you want to look at a asus board like khalil mentioned, check out asus p5k. That'll save you some dough too and maybe you can use that to purchase a better card.

[Noobtech]

how much performance am i losing with a ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard vs the 780i?

[Khalil]

You will lose no performance with P5K but gain quality, reliability and excellent product support.

Even the E6550 will more than do the job for gaming. Like I said before gaming is all about the GPU.
The E6850 with the 8800 Ultra should fit in the 2500 budget you set for youself.
The only people currently benefiting from Quad Cores are those who render and do CG.

[Katreat]

At this time there are few if any games that take advantage of a quad core. So the faster C2Ds are often recommened. Personally I usually recomend the new E8400 for gamers because it is faster than the current quads in the price range. However, the q6600 is a very nice processor and perhaps more future proof. As Khalil mentions, gaming is really all about the GPU so the Q6600 wont slow you down much.

As for performance differneces between a P35 board and a 780i it would be hard to meassure. The 780i is really an upgrade of the 680i archetecture so it does not offer alot of new stuff and still retains the heating problems associated with that chip set. The P35 is an intel chipset and intels seems to be a bit more problem free on intel chipset boards. But overall the difference between the boards probably comes down to the fact that the 780i allows you to run SLI.

So there is not a lot of performance difference between the two boards but the 780i has a performance gain if you run SLI. That is hard to measure because if you spent the same amount of money on the build you could aford a better single GPU for the P35 board and would have to go with a couple cheaper GPUs for the SLI board. So it is very difficult to compair them.

With the arrival of the new ATI 3870X2 and the Nvidia 9800X2 you might be able to get SLI performance on a single slot board cheaper than equal performance from an SLI set up.

Kat

[Khalil]

Well said Katreat, I love my new 3870X2 and I am planing on selling my 2 3870s in my other machines and get a single 3870X2, it is awesome.

[Noobtech]

Ok, I've purchased everything but the mobo and processor... I think I'm gonna go ahead and buy the E8400 with the p5k, but newegg is all out of the e8400's. Checked tiger and they also don't have any available. Any other sites you guys recommend? Also, aside from what's noted, will i need anything else to assemble this PC? THANKS FOR ALL THE INPUT GUYS you've saved me a bunch of money!

[Katreat]

A screwdriver is about all you will need. Pretty much everything will come with the case and MB for putting it together. As long as you buy a retail CPU it will come with a heatsink and thermal pad. The MB will have SATA cables for your HD and Burner. Did you stick with the 1000 W PSU or downsize? With a single card set up you can get by with 500 w or so. I like a little head room for possible futre upgrades so if you have not bought yet you could save a few dollars looking at something around 550 - 650 watts. Corsair makes some nice units in that range.

Kat

Edit: As for the CPU, they have been getting them back in pretty fast so just put yourself on the notify list. I think there is another shop, ZipZoomFly which you can check also, but they have the same problem keeping them in stock.... It is a very popular item.

[Noobtech]

I ended up sticking with the 1000w @ $200. I figured I wouldn't have to buy one for a while with this one. What's your opinion on the Asus motherboard I chose, Kat?

[Jimmy0]

The ASUS P5K is a very reliable, solid board, so it is a great choice.

[blue60007]

P5K boards are an excellent choice. I've always had good luck with ASUS boards.

[Dave21]

Now if you go with a asus p5k board, you can't go sli so i don't see why you need a 1000 W PSU. I think a 700 W+ will be fair game.

I would get the Q6600 and overclock it to 3.0 ghz to match the e8400.

[Khalil]

I highly recommend you do not over clock. Whetever Core2Duo CPU you buy will meet and exceed everything you dish out at them without the need to OC. OCing is risky business, specialy to those new to building and repairing computers.

[Katreat]

I used the P5K in my current build and was very happy with it. Easy to build with and easy to set up. Asus is a primium MB maker and I have always heard they have good support. Personally, I have never had an Asus fail so have no idea how good there support is and thats the way I like it.

Kat