Yet another building a PC thread, any advice much appriciated

[Jzeidenb]

Hey everyone, Im a lurker and don't post much but I thought I could use the experts advice here.

This will be my first rig I'm building by myself, my old computer just died.

Anyway, I picked this out myself and did as much checking that everything is compatible with itself and windows vista, but i'm not an expert and may have overlooked something.

In addition, the rig is currently priced out at over $1000, id love to be able to trim down the price some without sacrificing too much performance. I am an online poker player and have as much as 10 tables open at once on two monitors sometimes so I need a computer that opens and runs applications blazingly fast.


Here we go! UPDATED 8/19 530PM EDT (* = CHANGED)

*Case $49.99
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel , SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Power Supply $79.99 - $10rebate = $69.99
CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply 90 - 264 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick

Motherboard $114.99 - $40 rebate = $74.99
ABIT IP35-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor $211.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail

Ram $239.99 - $20 rebate = $219.99
Patriot eXtreme Performance 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

Video Card $159.99 - $15rebate = $144.99
EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Hdd $74.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

DVD/Writer $33.99
SAMSUNG Black 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology - OEM


I think thats it, the total cost is: $880.92

 

[Cheaptrixta]

Well for the hard drive you could get this seagate which is plenty fast for me at $79.

Also I really don't think you need 4gb of ram. Something like this corsair ram would do you just fine for $67

As for the case I personally like this cooler master case.

Also not sure if the micro atx board is that great maybe a similar board like this or if you don't want raid this board is about $30 cheaper

 

[Compnewbie01]

Here is another good board that is even cheaper because of the rebate!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?item=N82E16813127031

You could also consider dropping the processor down to a E6550 and I doubt you would see much of a performance decrease.

 

[Aznguy1872]

I would highly recommend getting a higher quality brand PSU. Rosewill is not very good with power supplies, you really want to stay away from them as well as Coolermaster. I recommend the Cosair 520HX, not too expensive, can be found at around 80 dollars at Buy.com.

 

[oynaz]

And the video card is overkill if you just want to play poker. An onboard solution will do fine.

 

[Jzeidenb]

I plan on pc gaming as well, probably should have mentioned that. I am on my way to the airport to go back home. I'll look over all these suggestions and post a revise build tonight. Thanks!

 

[Jzeidenb]

that case is excellent,im definately switching to that.
I dont like seagate hds, had 3 bad experiences in 3 attempts. But I really dont need alot of space, I'll never fill more than 100gb, I saw a western digital hd for even cheaper on the same newegg page. It was the caviar model 160gb 7200 rpm I believe. I can't link it right now because I'm traveling and typing this on my iPhone.

Now as for that corsair ram, that's one helluva deal, by are you sure I won't benefit from the 4gb of ram on windows vista running 10 poker tables, aim, iTunes, firefox on vista simultaneously?

finally, all the motherboad suggestions are all really sweet but here is where I need themost help, mobos I dont know jack about, I can really use some direction here. I can't really see why one is a better buy than another.

Thais for the warning about rosewill psu's I will definately replace that.

I will post a revised spec later tonight after hopefully more comments on this latest post and hopefully order the parts tonight so that it'll get here before the end of the week.


Thanks again, you guys are awesome

 

[Jzeidenb]

hey guys i updated the OP.. changed the case, harddrive, motherboard and PSU..

i think its ready to go unless anyone has any last minute improvements. thanks for the help again

 

[engiNURD]

What resolution do you game at, and what games do you play? The 8600GTS is overpriced for the performance you get out of it. You'd be better off with a $110AR X1950GT instead, since it costs less and performs nearly the same in DX9. Most new games will be DX9 compatible anyways.

The performance gains from the raptor aren't worth the price premium of the drive, either. My raptor does around 78MB/s, while my 'cuda does 65MB/s -- not bad for double the capacity and less than half the price. The 'cuda I'm referring to is the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA300. I'd definately go for that instead of the raptor, if I didn't want to waste money.

The Centurion 532 is on sale at newegg for $50 and free shipping with coupon code EMC814CASE01, and it also has a $20MIR. It uses 120mm fans instead of an 80mm intake (on the Centurion 5), but it only comes with the intake fan. So, pickup a 120mm Yate Loon for $3.50 from jab-tech.com for the exhaust.