Take one last look at my rig before I spend the tax return?

[yasher]

Hey guys. About to blow some tax return cash on a new machine. I'm a semi-hardcore gamer, and I'd like to be able to play the latest games at decent resolutions, but I can't bring myself to buy an 8800GTS right now, when it's the only player out there. Instead, I opted for the x1950xt for like 215 and i'll plan to invest in a new dx10 card in a year or whatever.

he biggest hangup I'm having so far is whether or not to get an e4300. It seems like the e6400 would more reliably get me above 3.2, but with a good chip, the e4300 seems to have a lot of potential. I'm a newbie to overclocking, so I decided I wanted the P5-B Deluxe, because it has a reputation for producing rock solid overclocks. Any advice on processor and motherboard (DS-3 for the e4300, or the much-lauded Biostar?) would be greatly appreciated. Also, any suggestions on coolers would be nice; I am planning to buy a Tuniq Tower, but that's simply based on some reviews, Anandtech's especially. I'm not so thrilled with the possibility of shearing the mounting screws in half, however.

e6400
Asus P5-B Deluxe
Buffalo Firestix 2x1GB DDR800 - These are still confirmed as D9GMH right?
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB OEM
Silverstone ST50EF-Plus 500W
Sapphire Radeon x1950XT 256mb
Arctic Silver 5
XP MCE 2005 w/Vista upgrade
Antec 900
Floppy drive

What DVDRW is worthwhile? I had heard great things about NECs, but I've recently read that then quality of the drives has fallen... What's the word on these?

I've got about $1500 to spend on this machine. This is like a $1200 build, but I don't mind spending a couple extra hundred dollars here or there if the performance boost is noticeable. I don't need a monitor or keyboard or mouse.

Thanks!

 

[yasher]

This is really that uninteresting?

 

[mcurphy]

It looks like a pretty solid build :thumbsup:

The NEC drives have been very loud recently in my own experience. I'm still in the process of RMA'ing mine and haven't had a chance to research other brands as a replacement. Maybe check out newegg reviews and try to find one that has consitent comments for quietness. If you don't mind the noise, I think a Sony, NEC, or Lite-On would be fine as far as performance goes. It's the jet engine noise that turns me off, lol.

If you have some extra room in your budget, maybe consider upgrading your cpu to an E6600. You'll get the extra 2MB on cache and have great performance without OC'ing. If you do decide to OC, then you will have that much more room to go. You're set up looks like it will be very OC'ing friendly

Your mobo is an excellent choice. I would go with that one over the Biostar or DS3. I ended buying the S3 for my build, but the Asus would've been my choice if I wanted more bells and whistles. I just needed a cheap board with OC ability for my build.

Maybe another choice for adding components would be a second hdd. You will have Raid capability with your mobo, and mirroring is always a ncie option if you can splurge on it.

Other than that, it looks like you have all your bases covered pretty well and I think you'll be happy with what you have there.

 

[moosey]

Someone on here mentioned that the Firestix aren't necessarily Micron ICs anymore, if you check the list, I don't think it's guaranteed
http://ramlist.ath.cx/ddr2/
I think you're still good with these though (nicer price too)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220144

Overall, like mcurphy siad, your build looks good. One sugggestion, is if you really want to push o/c (I don't know how serious you'll be since you're starting out) is the Abit Quad-GT.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127019
Difference here is that you can run the 1066 strap over 500FSB whereas other boards will change straps on you over 400FSB decreasing performance b/c it loosens the chipset timings.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2911

Either way though, you'll be good, the Asus is a great board regardless.

Any reason you're getting MCE with the Vista upgrade rather than just Vista OEM by itself?

EDIT: If you can swing it, depending on how much you game and at what resoultions, also if you're going Vista for DX10 soon, a GF 8800GTS might not be a bad idea at $360
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130071

 

[Skott]

Pretty solid build looks like. Not really familiar with that RAM though. I'm more of a Crucial and Corsair user myself. Most of your choices are of a personal choice type of thing but all good quality. nVidia or ATI? Depends. Waiting on cheaper or better than G80 isnt a bad thing really. The 1950XTX is a very good card. Okay, here's the deal on the E4300/E6300 debate. At stock the E6300 definetely outperforms. OCing both puts the E6300 just slightly ahead. Its pretty close actually. Almost a tie. So here's the thing I would reccomend. If you plan to *not* OC get the E6300. If you *do* plan to OC get whichever chip is cheapest to your door. The E4300 chips are suppose to be cheaper in price and their prices will drop as time goes on. Once supply gets going anyway.

My only real caution flag to your submittal would be the O/S. Alot of complaints about VISTA. Rumor is alot of games wont run on it and the ones that do run slow. Security problems too supposedly but nothing suprising there. Hard to beat hackers. Personally, I'd wait for them to get a service pack out first before getting VISTA but thats just me. As far as I'm concerned XP Pro is still best choice for gamers. At least until they can fix VISTA.