Advice needed on my new build plans. :D

[Peter Venkman]

Hello I am a first time poster and soon to be a first time PC builder and I was hoping that some of you guys would analyze the parts that I plan to use for my first build and answer a few questions that I had about PC building.
The purpose of this build is to create a powerful bang-for-buck gaming rig on a budget of 1000 USD not including the monitor. Bellow I have listed my parts that I plan on using as well as a few questions that I have about them.

Thanks in advance for any help, information, or comments that I receive.

CPU – Intel E8400 - $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

Motherboard – ASUS P5Q-E LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail – $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131296

I chose this motherboard because of the high front side bus speeds that it supports, its DDR2 1200/1066 support, PCI-E 2.0 slot, and its great price. I do have two questions about this board. Will DDR2 1066 ram (I plan to get DDR2 1066) work as well on this board as DDR2 1200 or will I see a performance loss? I also wonder if this board will be a good one for over clocking my CPU. Chose this over the P5Q because the dual gigabit Marvell LAN controllers on the P5Q-E seem like they might be better (higher quality) than the single PCIe gigabit LAN controller on the P5Q, am I right?

RAM - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $59.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231144

Here is where I need some real help. As I understand my real front side bus on my CPU is 333 (1333/4) and I need to make sure that my ram speed can match or exceed that. My ram speed is 533 (1066/2), well above 333 but allowing plenty of room to over clock the CPU to 4.0GHz. Is my understanding correct or am I wrong as can be? If I am correct will I see a performance loss compared to using DDR2 800 or DDR2 1200? I just don’t know much about how the FSB, RAM and CPU should be set up to get maximum performance. Please help me out and explain this to me guys, this is my biggest problem going forward with this build.

PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CE, CB, TUV, FCC, CCC – Retail – $109.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005

The newegg write up on this product says that it has a 52amp 12 volt rail. The 750watt PSU has a 60amp rail according to newegg, is that a big difference? I didn’t see any info about the amps on the rails on the corsair site. Is 650W enough power for my system?

GPU- VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card – Retail - $284.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129113
I am not sure which brand of ATI card to get so I chose the one with the highest percentage of five egg reviews. The Sapphire brand would have been my other choice but its stats were slightly lower. If anyone knows what the best ATI brands are let me know incase I should pick a different one.

HDD - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS 250GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive – OEM - $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148309

I chose this drive because of its 32mb cache size. I’m not really sure if 7200RPM is good enough or if it even matters but I was under the impression that it was more reliable in the long run than 10000RPM.

Heat sink - XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail - $36.99 (also getting the $6.99 retention bracket)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835233003

This heat sink received some good reviews from various sites and is nice and cheap. The heat pipes on this model are actually touching the CPU so I’m not sure how mounting will go. If anyone has any experiences with that type tell me about it.

Case - Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail – $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129021

DVD Burner - LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner - Retail – $28.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106057

Is Light-On any good? Are they super noisy?

Total cost $1057.90 just a tad over 1k

Another question I have is does anyone have a good gaming LCD to recommend. Preferably one with a 2ms response time. These are the two that I am looking at on new egg right now. Any info or suggestions would be great.

ViewSonic X Series VX2240W Black-Silver 22" 2msDVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1000:1, 4000:1 (DC) – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824116096

SAMSUNG T220 Rose-Black 22" 2ms GTG Touch of Color series Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 DC 20,000:1 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001273

Thanks again to everyone who took the time and effort to read, review, explain, comment, laugh, and get assaulted by my tower of text. I really appreciate it.

[vtfanmv5]

Looks pretty great overall.

Originally Posted by Peter Venkman I chose this motherboard because of the high front side bus speeds that it supports, its DDR2 1200/1066 support, PCI-E 2.0 slot, and its great price. I do have two questions about this board. Will DDR2 1066 ram (I plan to get DDR2 1066) work as well on this board as DDR2 1200 or will I see a performance loss? I also wonder if this board will be a good one for over clocking my CPU. Chose this over the P5Q because the dual gigabit Marvell LAN controllers on the P5Q-E seem like they might be better (higher quality) than the single PCIe gigabit LAN controller on the P5Q, am I right?

Anything below DDR2 1200 will work fine on that board. It overclocks well.

Originally Posted by Peter Venkman Here is where I need some real help. As I understand my real front side bus on my CPU is 333 (1333/4) and I need to make sure that my ram speed can match or exceed that. My ram speed is 533 (1066/2), well above 333 but allowing plenty of room to over clock the CPU to 4.0GHz. Is my understanding correct or am I wrong as can be? If I am correct will I see a performance loss compared to using DDR2 800 or DDR2 1200? I just don’t know much about how the FSB, RAM and CPU should be set up to get maximum performance. Please help me out and explain this to me guys, this is my biggest problem going forward with this build.

If you overclock to 4GHz, your FSB would be 444Mhz (x9 = 4.0GHz). I would recommend getting DDR2 800 RAM for this. The 800 RAM should clock up to 444MHz with no problems. I would also recommend going ahead and getting 4GB. Most people here will recommend these G.SKILL or Corsair sticks. You won't see a performance loss using 800.

Originally Posted by Peter Venkman I am not sure which brand of ATI card to get so I chose the one with the highest percentage of five egg reviews. The Sapphire brand would have been my other choice but its stats were slightly lower. If anyone knows what the best ATI brands are let me know incase I should pick a different one.

Any brand is fine. Either of those brands are good and both come with a free game too .

Everything else looks good to me.

Oh, just noticed, your mobo has a combo deal with an E8500 for a total of $5 more. Might as well go for that instead of the E8400.

[Peter Venkman]

Thanks for the help especially the ram issue as that is one of the hardest ones that I have been dealing with. I am still wondering though if it is safer to go with 1066 instead to be guaranteed that it will run at ddr2 1000+ speeds?

Do you feel that a 650w PSU is more than enough for my build or is 750w a much safer alternative?

Great find on that combo deal I didnt even notice it!

Thanks for the help vtfanmv5

[shadowpr]

You should be fine with the 1066 ram if overclocking.

And 650 should be enough. 750 won't hurt, but you pay more.

[Peter Venkman]

Thanks for the reply shadowpr. I am leaning towards the Corsair 750W unit just for the 100W saftey barrier compaired to the 650W unit. I am also thinking of going with the ASUS P5Q instead of the P5Q-E becaus,e I don't plan on crossfiring, but still betting the E8500 because of its higher multiplyer which might help my over clock. What do you guys think?
Also, I noticed that the specs of the gigabit LAN controllers are different between the P5Q and P5Q-E do you think there is a quality/performance differance there?

[Peter Venkman]

Thanks a lot guys for all the help, I really appretiate it. This build is really starting to move along
I am going to turn in for this night I will check back tomorrow

[shadowpr]

You should be fine with the p5q instead of the e version. If there is a difference, I doubt you would be able to tell, and I haven't seen any complaints about that board yet.

[Peter Venkman]

Unless I hear otherwise I think I would like to save the $30 and go with the P5Q. I have been getting some good sudgetions so I am going to tweak these build specs and post back

[Peter Venkman]

OK its been a while but I have finally finished my build plans, unless something here needs changing this is what will be in my new comp.

ASUS P5Q I like saving $30 over the P5Q-E.

Intel E8400 Best bang for buck that I have found.

G.Skill 2x2Gb 1066 Went with 1066 just to be sure that I can get that speed, yes I am paranoid :P

WD 6400AAKS 640Gb 16mb cache This was sudgested to me by someone else. It seemed to perform well based off of the Anandtech review. but I still wonder if I should stick with my earlier pick of either the 250Gb Seagate or the 500Gb Seagate with 32mb cache. I had a hard time finding good HDD rankings so does anyone know which I should pick for best performance?

Corsair 750W PSU Ya I want some overkill here :P

Xigmatek HDT-S1283

Visiontek HD4870 Seamed good enough.

Can't hardly wait for this new comp :P

[Alaron]

Looks great to me. I don't think you would notice a major difference between hard drives.

[12twelve12]

I purchased 2 of the WD6400AAKS and I couldn't be happier. Fastest 7200 RMP drive I have owned. I did a lot of research for my last build and most everything I found led to this drive outperforming the Seagate's 32mb cache drives. Also something I learned is that there isn't any real world performance difference between the 32mb cache over the 16mb. Some even believe that the 32mb cache is just a marketing thing since it doesn't do anything to increase performance. I don't know about all that.