The time has come for a new build to replace the old one in my sig. Since a fair amount of research went into choosing the parts, I thought I'd present them here - to get some input on whether there are things I should pay special attention to when putting the parts together, and to maybe serve as inspiration for others looking for a similar build (my priorities being gaming, stability and quiet operation).
Sitting on my desk so far are:
An Antec P150 case with the Antec Neo HE 430W PSU
A Conroe E6600 2.4GHz CPU with stock cooler
An eVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card
Already ordered (and hopefully being shipped tomorrow) are:
An ASUS P5B-E Plus motherboard
2x1GB of Corsair TWIN2X2084-6400C4
A Western Digital WD3200KS hard drive (320GB, 16MB buffer)
A Plextor PX-760SA DVD burner
A Soundblaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer
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Comments:
Case: I've always liked Antec, and I especially like the white P150 design as well as the noise dampening features. That it also comes with a quality PSU (made by Seasonic AFAIK) is just an added bonus (great review @ SPCR).
CPU: Since I first read about Conroe more than a year ago, I knew that it would be at the center of my next rig.
Graphics: At the start of my reasearch I was planning for a 7900 GTX, but as G80 was just around the corner I waited for the reviews - which made me want to up the budget for a 8800 GTS. Cards by eVGA are usually really expensive here in Denmark, but when I saw one at a price similar to the other brands, I grapped it (it was the shops only one and one of the very few my country has seen so far).
Motherboard: I don't know much about the P5B-E Plus board (see it here), but the Solid State Capacitors sound interesting and the black PCB looks nice. And the other P5B-E boards seem to be popular.
RAM: Corsair gets good press and 2GB seems to be the right amount (review @ XbitLabs and the RAM of choice for Sharky Extreme's 'November Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide').
Hard drive: Initially I was planning on a Seagate 7200.10 drive, but it seems the WD is just as fast and according to several reviews, more quiet. From Anandtech: 'The WD3200KS is overall the quietest drive we have tested to date.' Not mentioned in that article, is the problems some users have with the Seagates and noise. There's a thread about it @ Storage Review.)
DVD burner: Some may find Plextor overpriced (and I'm pretty sure that you can get similar performance for half the price), but I like their build quality, the Plextools to slow down the drive for quiet operation, and I don't mind paying a premium to get a build without IDE cables
Soundcard: I wanted an X-Fi but wasn't sure about which to get so I made a thread about it here. The new Xtreme Gamer is reasonably priced and should perform like the Xtreme Music.
-----
Now, if the parts would just get here
Thoughts?
Sitting on my desk so far are:
An Antec P150 case with the Antec Neo HE 430W PSU
A Conroe E6600 2.4GHz CPU with stock cooler
An eVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card
Already ordered (and hopefully being shipped tomorrow) are:
An ASUS P5B-E Plus motherboard
2x1GB of Corsair TWIN2X2084-6400C4
A Western Digital WD3200KS hard drive (320GB, 16MB buffer)
A Plextor PX-760SA DVD burner
A Soundblaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer
-----
Comments:
Case: I've always liked Antec, and I especially like the white P150 design as well as the noise dampening features. That it also comes with a quality PSU (made by Seasonic AFAIK) is just an added bonus (great review @ SPCR).
CPU: Since I first read about Conroe more than a year ago, I knew that it would be at the center of my next rig.
Graphics: At the start of my reasearch I was planning for a 7900 GTX, but as G80 was just around the corner I waited for the reviews - which made me want to up the budget for a 8800 GTS. Cards by eVGA are usually really expensive here in Denmark, but when I saw one at a price similar to the other brands, I grapped it (it was the shops only one and one of the very few my country has seen so far).
Motherboard: I don't know much about the P5B-E Plus board (see it here), but the Solid State Capacitors sound interesting and the black PCB looks nice. And the other P5B-E boards seem to be popular.
RAM: Corsair gets good press and 2GB seems to be the right amount (review @ XbitLabs and the RAM of choice for Sharky Extreme's 'November Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide').
Hard drive: Initially I was planning on a Seagate 7200.10 drive, but it seems the WD is just as fast and according to several reviews, more quiet. From Anandtech: 'The WD3200KS is overall the quietest drive we have tested to date.' Not mentioned in that article, is the problems some users have with the Seagates and noise. There's a thread about it @ Storage Review.)
DVD burner: Some may find Plextor overpriced (and I'm pretty sure that you can get similar performance for half the price), but I like their build quality, the Plextools to slow down the drive for quiet operation, and I don't mind paying a premium to get a build without IDE cables
Soundcard: I wanted an X-Fi but wasn't sure about which to get so I made a thread about it here. The new Xtreme Gamer is reasonably priced and should perform like the Xtreme Music.
-----
Now, if the parts would just get here
Thoughts?
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