Help with new system for 1/4 gaming and 3/4 the rest

[asintu]

I am building a new system with the purpose of mostly (say 3/4) office/ programming/ multimedia applications and also 1/4 of the time I will probably game.
I will keep my current 19'' monitor and add another 22" along side it for a dual setup with gaming done only on the 22".
Budget wise, I dunno...I just wanted something that's currently considered a good bang for the buck and will last about 3 years (with maybe, MAYBE, little tweaks (ie: upgrades and/or overclocking) after 1.5-2 years. OS will probably be Vista 64.

Based on the notes above, here's what I came up with so far:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Processor: Q6600
Memory: 2x2GB DDR2-1000 (probably g.skill)
Video: 8800GTS-512 (probably EVGA)
Mobo: ??? (needs: stable, fairly overclockable, good onboard sound)
Case: ??? (needs: silent, includes power supply)
HDD: ??? (needs: silent)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are my choices good so far? If not, what else do you recommend? Also, what do you recommend for the ones that I had no idea for?

Thank you.

EDIT

On a second thought, I'll be getting a ps3 for gaming purposes so only need the computer for the rest. So the 8800GTS drops in favour of the HD3450 or HD3650 (10.1 directx, silent, cheap). Would this be a fair video card choice?

EDIT

 

[chinaman1472]

Gigabyte P35-DS3L or Abit IP35-E. Step up to next versions if you need more features.
Antec Sonata III for a good case/PSU combo
Western Digital 640GB or Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB are the good hard drives on the market right now.
You'll only need DDR2-800 for the Q6600 for overclocking. Anything more is wasted considering most Q6600s hit the wall around 333MHz FSB I think. Save yourself a few bucks.

 

[Roguestar]

Do you really need the Q6600? For office/programming/multimedia (for the sake of argument; stuff like media centre)/gaming would be happy with a dual-core. Think of the money saved by getting an E2160 and overclocking it to 3GHz.

 

[Jessica69]

Originally posted by: chinaman1472
Anything more is wasted considering most Q6600s hit the wall around 333MHz FSB I think.

And to that comment I'd say you are almost 700Mhz short. Most of the Q6600's I've seen, including two I've had, hit 400 FSB without much of an increase in vcore..my current Q6600 does 400FSB w/ 1.35V all day long, and is stable on OCCT for hours.

Given the pricing of Q6600 cpus these days, I'd figure why not invest in one. At worst, you'd probably get an OC of around 3.4GHz on air with good temps......and you'd be somewhat ready for more and more software that becomes multi-core capable as time progresses.

Of course, if you plan on constantly upgrading every couple of months, as some around do, buy cheap right now and wait.......and wait......and wait.....for that "perfect" cpu. But one can wait forever because there's always a better choice just around the bend......

 

[chinaman1472]

Gah, I stand corrected.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: asintu
Budget wise, I dunno...I just wanted something that's currently considered a good bang for the buck and will last about 3 years

Originally posted by: Roguestar
Do you really need the Q6600? For office/programming/multimedia (for the sake of argument; stuff like media centre)/gaming would be happy with a dual-core. Think of the money saved by getting an E2160 and overclocking it to 3GHz.

How true!
"Bang for the buck" ISN'T a Q6600.

 

[asintu]

Originally posted by: chinaman1472
Gigabyte P35-DS3L or Abit IP35-E. Step up to next versions if you need more features.
Antec Sonata III for a good case/PSU combo
Western Digital 640GB or Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB are the good hard drives on the market right now.
You'll only need DDR2-800 for the Q6600 for overclocking. Anything more is wasted considering most Q6600s hit the wall around 333MHz FSB I think. Save yourself a few bucks.

Thanx for the mobo/hdd/case recommendations. I will look into it.
As far as cpu/memory is concerned...I thought a q6600/DDR2-1000 would be appropriate since I will use 2 monitors..and probably leave something "working" on the second monitor while doing my stuff on the main one. I also don't wanna overlock the processor right away, so I want some decent speed to begin with. The memory choice of 1000 instead of 800 is that in the future I might overclock it or even get a better 1333 fsb cpu and don't wanna limit myself and instead have the memory a bit "future-proof". That's my take on it anyways. I might be wrong.

 

[Roguestar]

You certainly don't need four cores to run two programs on two different monitors.

DDR2-800 is already more than fast enough for a 1333FSB processor unless you're overclocking that really far.

 

[asintu]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
You certainly don't need four cores to run two programs on two different monitors.

DDR2-800 is already more than fast enough for a 1333FSB processor unless you're overclocking that really far.

say i'm getting another quad upgrade in the future that runs at 1333fsb and say 333mhz compared to the 266mhz for the q6600. Say for example the e6400, with ddr2-800 you could only take it to 3.6ghz.

 

[heymrdj]

Get the quad. I don't understand people's choice of duals when they're not gaming. Seriously, this is where software's going people, dual is already becoming a thing of the past (if phenom wasn't lacking so much). If ur not gaming, get the quad, you'll be future proofed.

 

[asintu]

Originally posted by: asintu
I am building a new system with the purpose of mostly (say 3/4) office/ programming/ multimedia applications and also 1/4 of the time I will probably game.
I will keep my current 19'' monitor and add another 22" along side it for a dual setup with gaming done only on the 22".
Budget wise, I dunno...I just wanted something that's currently considered a good bang for the buck and will last about 3 years (with maybe, MAYBE, little tweaks (ie: upgrades and/or overclocking) after 1.5-2 years. OS will probably be Vista 64.

Based on the notes above, here's what I came up with so far:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Processor: Q6600
Memory: 2x2GB DDR2-1000 (probably g.skill)
Video: 8800GTS-512 (probably EVGA)
Mobo: ??? (needs: stable, fairly overclockable, good onboard sound)
Case: ??? (needs: silent, includes power supply)
HDD: ??? (needs: silent)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are my choices good so far? If not, what else do you recommend? Also, what do you recommend for the ones that I had no idea for?

Thank you.

EDIT

On a second thought, I'll be getting a ps3 for gaming purposes so only need the computer for the rest. So the 8800GTS drops in favour of the HD3450 or HD3650 (10.1 directx, silent, cheap). Would this be a fair video card choice?

EDIT

See EDIT section

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: heymrdj
Get the quad. I don't understand people's choice of duals when they're not gaming. Seriously, this is where software's going people, dual is already becoming a thing of the past (if phenom wasn't lacking so much). If ur not gaming, get the quad, you'll be future proofed.

You should be an intel marketing rep with that attitude, you'd do well.

Most people only do office/internet/downloaded movie watching/torrents on their computers. Nobody needs a quad core for that; I don't see any mainstream multi-threaded browsers, and MS Word still runs fine on a pentium 3.