Please comment on my build

[Fei169]

My college laptop is a two year old Compaq and takes 5 minutes to open Matlab 7 and VS 2005 (two programs I need), so I decided to get a new computer. I was looking at Dells at first but decided to build my own rig after advice from some friends...and it looked like fun! Frankly, being a college student I needed to stay at a budget so it isn't as "extreme" as some of your rigs. The PC will be used for mostly college work and light gaming. So no Crysis...sigh. And I do not plan to overclock. Here goes:

- ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
- Kingston 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)
- XFX 8600GT XXX 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI
- Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC ATX 430W Power Supply
- COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black Aluminum & Mesh bezel / SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower
- SAMSUNG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black PATA Model SH-S202G

The total cost is around $570 after MIR...which falls under my budget. I still need a LCD monitor and will probably go for a Samsung 19".

 

[DSF]

So what is your budget, and exactly what games do you want to play?

 

[Fei169]

My budget is around $650 and I plan to do moderate gaming...COD4, Gears of War etc. I know that I can't play Crysis on this build...sigh.

 

[palladium]

Go for 256MB 8800GT I'd say. The 8600s are underpowered and overpriced ( said many times in the forum already). Don't know the price difference in US, but in NZ it's about 20% extra for the 8800GT - well worth it IMO.

You can take some cash off by using a non-SLI mobo, don't think you'd need that since you're not playing crysis.