first build help

[tommullie]

Hey. Starting my first build and looking for advice. the pre-list of components is below. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks

computer specs

Processor: intel core 2 duo E6850
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R w/ DualDDR2 1066, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, PCI-E x16
Corsair 2GB XMS2-6400C4 TWIN2X Dual Channel DDR2 Kit (2 x 1GB)
EVGA 8800GTX 768MB PCI-E HDCP D-DVI
Seagate 320GB Barracuda 7200.10 SATA II w/ NCQ, 16MB Cache (two in RAID0)

Altec Lansing VS3251 Powered 5.1 Audio System
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad Power Supply
Samsung SyncMaster 226BW 22in Widescreen LCD w/ DVI, 2ms, 3000:1, Glossy Black
Samsung SH-S183L Lightscribe 18x18 Dual Layer DVD+/-RW, SATA, Black
Mitsumi 1.44MB Floppy Drive, Black

Saitek PC Gaming Keyboard, USB
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium x86 (32-bit) DVD

 

[bamacre]

Processor:
Go with the Q6600 over the E6850

If you are not going to OC the cpu, you can get some DDR2-667 if you find it is cheaper (check Hot Deals maybe)

Hard drives probably cheaper here...
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/5296757

Power supply is WAAAAY overkill. Corsair 520W is plenty, and very good. Buy.com has it for 100 shipped.

 

[tommullie]

I looked at the quad core CPU. But this rig is almost exclusively for gaming. and general/gaming benchmarks favor the e6850 even over the QX6850 extreme edition. so without the media encoding or 3D rendering advantages of quad, its not worth it. Besides, at this point, probably worth waiting for Penryn and 3.33GHZ clocks. Thanks for the power supply and HDD advice.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: tommullie
I looked at the quad core CPU. But this rig is almost exclusively for gaming. and general/gaming benchmarks favor the e6850 even over the QX6850 extreme edition. so without the media encoding or 3D rendering advantages of quad, its not worth it. Besides, at this point, probably worth waiting for Penryn and 3.33GHZ clocks. Thanks for the power supply and HDD advice.

But those benchmarks are for older games that are single-threaded. The 2.4Ghz clock is fast enough for those. The newer games coming out, like Crysis, are multi-threaded, and will be faster with the quad core cpu.