Building mah rig, PPO Gaming and gneral purpose :D

[ilikepure]

hi, fellow forum gurus. i just graduated, and going off to work starting in july. and my desktop is a p4 2.6G about 4 years old, therefore i am getting a new one. i don't really have a hard budget limit, but i am not buying high-end products coz i am broke. perhaps you can call my build mid-range.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Gaming, MS office, Visual studio, watching anime, movies, playing good quality music.
2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
1000$+/- 200$
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Mother Russia, j/k, USA of course.
4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.
Nvidia cards, and Intel CPU.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I reuse my monitor, input devices. (i got 19" acer, saitek II eclipse and razer copperhead)
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
somewhat.
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Yes, I intend to OC.
8. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Nowwwwww or never.

CPU - E8400
I was thinking about Q9450, but that piece is out of stock almost everywhere, and a little pricey at he moment. Considering I am a gamer, the major games being released today don't really get benefited by Quad cores. So I think E8400 is a wise choice, it has 1333 fsb too.

RAM - 4x2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC6400 @ Fry's/Outpost
Some forum member told me a very good deal @ Fry's, only 20$ per 2GB, I dunno if that sticks have good OC capabilities, but in the worst case, i will just run 1:1 ratio, and fix my cpu from 3.0G to 3.6G.

Do I really need 8GB though? what do you guys think?

Gfx card - 8800GTS(G92)
This is the easy choice for gamer, it has very high performance to cost ratio. I don't plan to Sli or anything.


Motherboard - ABIT IP35 Pro
It won the newegg customer choice award, and i heard it's really good at overclocking, so maybe I can push my E8400 over 3.6G?

another popular choice is GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L, so my question is, which one to get if you are in my situation. thx.

Harddrive - (Undecided)
First I was thinking about a SSD, but then I checked capacity and price, it's just nuts. I guess it's not a feasible choice, so I probably should get a SATA drive?

but what brand, and model? need your help on this.

Case and PSU (Undecided)
I am very confused when it comes to buying a case and psu. Should I get a case that comes with psu, or should I buy them separately? my budget on these two pieces are 200$. but in the past i've always bought antec case with psu inside.

help me out on this ~

Fan/Cooler (Undecided)
Im going to OC E8400 from 3G to 3.6G, is it safe to use the the boxed fan?

Speakers (Undecided)
I listen to music a lot, and I care so much about gaming sound too. I am leaning towards buying a 7.1 speakers, you guys got any good suggestions?


Hmm, that's what I can think of at the moment, my ears are open, thanks in advance.

 

[Soldat]

bump because I'm looking at a similar build.

 

[chinaman1472]

E8400 > Q9450 for gaming. No need to drop the extra cash for cores you won't use.
It's most likely 2x1GB kit for $20 if I'm not mistaken. So that means you can only have 4GB because the motherboard you picked out only has 4 ram slots.
Abit IP35-Pro is good, but look at the Abit IP35-E or Gigabyte P35-DS3L if you want to save some cash, it has less features but if you don't need the extras, don't pay for them.
Western Digital 640 GB or Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB are the best hard drive choices, in terms of price/performance and price/space.
If you want separate PSU and case, go for a Corsair, Seasonic, or Antec Earthwatts, somewhere in the mid-400 to mid-500 range; run you about $60-100.
I personally like the Antec P182, runs about $130. If you choose to just get a PSU/case combo, Antec Sonata III is probably the best bet.
If you can fit in your budget, get a heatsink fan. Xigmatek HDT-S1283 is banging for $37 from Newegg.
Can't help ya much on speaker though.

 

[ilikepure]

Originally posted by: chinaman1472
I personally like the Antec P182, runs about $130.
Can't help ya much on speaker though.

yea, chinaman, i like that case so much, gonna get that one for sure.

I was looking at the corsair/antec PSU, the popular choices are 100+$, i think that's very expensive isn't it? (that said, I can still buy one, it's just that compare to my older case+psu combo it costs a lot more) I need a psu in 500~600W range, is there any cheaper and reliable pick?

edit: Antec earthwatts EA500 is actually a lil chaper than corsairs ones, but still 85$.

edit 2: for the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 heatsink/fan you suggested, does it come with thermal grease? if not, what's a good one to buy, thx.

 

[Urtho]

For thermal grease, the usual recommendation is a tube of Arctic Silver 5 for $6.

If you're still looking for a good quality PSU, there's a great Corsair 520W modular cable unit that just got mentioned over in Hot Deals for $80 shipped over on Buy.com here.

 

[angry hampster]

How much space do you have for speakers? If you're in a small room, 7.1 is pointless IMHO.

I say check ebay for a pair of Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers. I got mine for $50 (they retail for $150) and they're unbelievable. 200w, THX-certified.