Ok probley the Last PC I build, make sure it looks good please

[Telon]

I am getting to the point were I need to save more $ so that I can enjoy life later on, but the last PC I built was kinda trash after I got it back from what was going to be my son in-law.

I am playing Vanguard right now and may switch to the Age of Conan when it comes out.
Alan wake looks like a Game I want to play too when it comes out.
I also will continue to take Picture and movie's of my Family to include my new Grandson.

This is what I have picked out so far.

Qty. Product Description Savings Total Price
1

Tuniq Tower 120 P4 & K8 CPU Cooler - Retail
Item #: N82E16835154001
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
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$64.99
2

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail
Item #: N82E16820146565
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
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$546.98
($273.49 each)
1

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813131142
Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
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$132.99
1

Thermalright HR-05-SLI Copper Heatsinks only - Retail
Item #: N82E16835109131
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
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$19.99
1

SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT ATX12V / EPS12V 650W Power Supply - Retail
Item #: N82E16817151028
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
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$159.99
1

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115017
Return Policy: Processors (CPUs) Return Policy
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$846.00
1

XFX PVT80FSHF9 GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16814150205
Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
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$30.00 Mail-in Rebate
$589.99
Grand Total: $2,360.93

I am not positive that the Mother Board is a good choice.
Nor if the ram is good for the MB.
I will do some overclocking

I also need to find a good case that keeps things cool and looks good.
Any suggestions would help a great deal, want to this to last and long time and be stable, will be getting Vista ultimate once Nivida makes good drivers for it.

 

[Telon]

Oh by the way I have been with Anandtech for many years, just moved so many times from when I was in the Military I had a hard time keeping up with passwords after changing ISP's

 

[MegaVovaN]

There is a camp of believers here that you should spend as little as possible on PC and use extra $ to upgrade in future. Buying uber fast rig now IS NOT going to make it very future-proof. This way, you'll have to dedicate time to research (keep current with) what parts are best bang for the buck at the moment, but you'll have fast (current) computer for longer time.
I say, build a PC for about a thousand and keep 2nd thousand for upgrades.

 

[gramboh]

A few comments:

1) Motherboard, if you are going top of the line with a quad-core, 8800GTX, 4GB ram etc, why cheap out on a 650i? If you like the NV chipsets get the 680i from either EVGA or the top of the line Asus Striker. If not I'd get a 975x like the P5W-DH Deluxe or something.

2) The Thermalright Ultra 120 (reviewed on AT recently) performs the same as the Tuniq but is easier to install and you can choose whatever fan you want for it.

3) Hard drives? I'd get the Seagate 7200.10, 2x 320GB. DVDRW? I'd get the LiteOn SATA so you don't have to deal with IDE cables.

 

[jpeyton]

Why not just spring for the Core 2 QX6700? Price difference is $100, but when April comes, your Q6600 is going to drop about $300 in price into the $550 range.

Your choice of RAM is ridiculous. Let's say you want to overclock, and you bump up your FSB to 333MHz (DDR2 667 speed). Your Core 2 Q6600 will be running at 3GHz. If you get a QX6700, it would be running at 3.33GHz. That is near the limit of air-cooling for a Kentsfield with a Tuniq if you want to be able to hear yourself think in the same room as your computer. You can buy 4GB of quality DDR2 667 memory for under $250. The whole 'faster memory timings' thing is a load of crap. Unless you plan on running benchmarks all day, you will never notice the 1-2% difference in performance that faster timings will bring you.

Replace the Seasonic S12 with a Corsair 620HX (which is made by Seasonic); the Corsair is a better PSU hands down.

 

[Telon]

Ok thanks guys very good points as far as the price of the CPU yes prices come down and new things come out. I may just spend another $100 on the CPU thanks.

As far as most getting the best bang for the buck I use to do the same but have not had a lot of luck with overclocking on my last 2 PC's ( room may be too hot to overclock good. The second reason I spending more on the quad core is because I see that it may be better to have 4 cores over 2 in the future.

as far as the Mother board both the EVGA and the Stiker seemed to have a lot of problems was wanting a Badaxe but i don't think it supports Quad core. So I ready don"t no what MB for a quad core

 

[jpeyton]

Get the Gigabyte DS3 from ClubIT; it's the new Rev 3.3 board, which has been updated for quad-core; and the 965 chipset doesn't have FSB issues like the Nvidia motherboards do.

 

[Telon]

And only reason not waiting till the Price drops is because I keep getting the blue screen of death I always heard about but never seen. my first PC was a Tandy 1000 with a 5 1/2" Flopy and no hard drive

 

[Telon]

Ok thanks I will swap out for that I guess I need to find out what ram works good with that MB now

 

[CurseTheSky]

No offense, but this computer will be junk in 2-5 years. Three years ago, I bought a Dell Dimension 8300, with a 3.0GHz Pentium 4, 80GB HDD, 512MB memory, etc. Though it still runs without a problem, I wouldn't want to be stuck with that thing now.

Buy something good but decently cheap, and put the rest of the money away to upgrade later. THAT is the way to future-proof your computer. Spend a good amount on the things that will still be good in a couple of years (power supply, case, speakers, monitor, cooling), and go with fast, cheap components.

If you haven't had much luck with overclocking, and this is your first time seeing a BSOD, I suggest the following:

Core 2 Duo (NOT QUAD) E4300, E6300, E6400, or E6600
2GB or 4GB of your favorite flavor memory (2GB for Windows XP, 4GB for Vista)
650i, 680i, or P965-based motherboard
eVGA 8800GTS, 320MB
Seagate 7200.10 HDD (whatever size suits you best)
Other components as needed

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
No offense, but this computer will be junk in 2-5 years. Three years ago, I bought a Dell Dimension 8300, with a 3.0GHz Pentium 4, 80GB HDD, 512MB memory, etc. Though it still runs without a problem, I wouldn't want to be stuck with that thing now.

Buy something good but decently cheap, and put the rest of the money away to upgrade later. THAT is the way to future-proof your computer. Spend a good amount on the things that will still be good in a couple of years (power supply, case, speakers, monitor, cooling), and go with fast, cheap components.

vouch and 444 post

 

[Telon]

I may drop the quad and go with a Dual core

 

[gramboh]

Get a dual core E6600 or something and as long as your mb is quad core compatible you can drop one in later. There is zero reason to have quad core for gaming now.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I agree with the others a core 2 duo dual core is more than enough for anything the next couple of years and you can always plop in a quad core later when prices are much cheaper and it might actually be useful by then. And unless your going with 64bit Vista I would also stick with 2gb of ram (32bit OS can only use 3.25 gig the rest will be wasted), and same as with the CPU you can always drop in another couple of sticks when you need it and its much cheaper.

Here is what I would suggest

Asus P5B-E $150.99 I just built using this one and love it, one of the top overclockers also
E6600 $313 Will easily overclock past any of the quads
2gb Buffalo firestix DDR2-800 $189.99 Cheapest micron D9 chips, best overclocking
Thermalright Ultra-120 $48.99 As good as the Tuniq but cheaper and easier to install
Sythe Flex 120mm fan $14.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320gb $89.99 As many as you need
Antec P180 case $129.99
Evga 8800GTS 320mb $269.99 AR All you need unless your going to use a 24"or larger and must have insane FPS
Corsair 620w $154.99 AR

Add a couple optical drives and the HR-05 chipset cooler you listed and shipping and your around $1450 bucks

 

[CurseTheSky]

^^^

Excellent setup. The only change I'd make personally is a P5B-Deluxe. I've heard of people having more like with the deluxe model than the P5B-E. I'm not 100% sure how much truth this holds, but it seems to be the general idea.

If you were going to drop $3,000 originally, change it to $1,500 and save the extra cash for upgrades in the future. A year from now, that will buy you a faster processor (possibly quad core), a better graphics card, and possibly new memory and / or motherboard.

 

[Telon]

ok again many many thanks on all the recomendations, I the MB is were I worry about I have seen so many complaints about the newer MB's that it makes me wonder why the company's through them out so fast with so many problems and it seems to take a long time before they get the Bios fixed to were it is runs right. I also don't understand why over the years it seems you need to be real careful with what you buy, the MB may say it supports ddr2 800 (pc6400) and that is what you get but it wont post. Some one is not making something right years ago we just worried which ram seems to be the fastest.

 

[Roguestar]

Buffalo Firestix have stopped using Micron D9 since January IIRC...

 

[KayKay]

Originally posted by: gramboh
A few comments:

1) Motherboard, if you are going top of the line with a quad-core, 8800GTX, 4GB ram etc, why cheap out on a 650i? If you like the NV chipsets get the 680i from either EVGA or the top of the line Asus Striker. If not I'd get a 975x like the P5W-DH Deluxe or something.

Most reviews and personal experience with both chipsets give me the idea that the 680i chipset does not justify the huge price difference. The 650i is a more than decent chipset at this point in time

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: Telon
ok again many many thanks on all the recomendations, I the MB is were I worry about I have seen so many complaints about the newer MB's that it makes me wonder why the company's through them out so fast with so many problems and it seems to take a long time before they get the Bios fixed to were it is runs right. I also don't understand why over the years it seems you need to be real careful with what you buy, the MB may say it supports ddr2 800 (pc6400) and that is what you get but it wont post. Some one is not making something right years ago we just worried which ram seems to be the fastest.

I totally agree on the motherboard situation, I was an early adopter a couple of years ago when I built an AMD system based on the first nforce4 motherboard that became available and it eventually turned out to be a fine system after umpteen bios releases but the first few months was one problem after another. They certainly seem to rush things to market these days well before they are fully tested and all the bugs and incompatabilites are worked out.

For this very reason I waited to make the jump to C2D until just a few weeks ago because the same thing appeared to happen with the early C2D motherboards especially the P965 chipset boards that were designed for C2D and released last autumn. It appears now that finally most all the bugs have been worked out of the P965 chipset and most any of the P965 boards from the major manufacturers are good stable boards. I'm not as certain about the 650i or 680i boards as they are a newer tech thats still growing, hence the reason I chose a P965 board. And I agree with the previous poster that the 680i boards are not worth the premium over the 650i boards.

One thing I would recommend is that which ever format you go with:
1. Immediately update to the latest bios available
2. Search out the latest device drivers for all you critical hardware (GPU, IDE controller, RAID controller, soundcard, etc..) from the manufacurer of the devices and don't rely on what comes on the motherboard CD. Things are changing so quickly the the drivers supplied on the mobo CD are usually well out of date.