suggestions on my build

[imported_shader]

i want to emphasize this first, let me explain to you what i am upgrading from. i currently have an old p4 1.8ghz (shortly after when they first came out old). i originally had 256mb ram in it, but have upgraded it to 768. until about 6 months ago my video card was a nvidia geforce mx420 64mb card. i have replaced that with a handmedown from my friend - ati radeon 9200 128mb card. my hdd is very old (slow) as well, ata100 (i think) wd 120 gb.

my goal here is to spend as little as possible but get the best value. my uses - general, mmo gaming, slight stragegy/rts gaming. hdd usage and swapping are very noticable for me (especially in mmo games). i want sataII hdd's for increased speed/throughput w/ 16mb cache. 2gb ram should be a huge improvement for me as well. i do plan on overclocking (not much, it's very hot where i live).

cpu - not sure here now. either an e4300, e4400, e6550 for the 4mb cache. please help me here, i want the processor that is the best value (price/performance).

cooling - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Fan For Intel CPU - $22
ac7 should be good enough, not going for major overclock here. also fan noise does not bother me.

mobo - ABIT IP35-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $117

ram - 4gb hp pc5300 ram

video - BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC 256MB PCI Express $149.99 - $40.00
i don't need an 8800gt or anything like that. for me this is an incredible step up and a very good price. before i found this deal i was thinking of a 7600gs.

case & psu - i just need a cheap case. looks don't matter to me at all. i'll probably grab a 450w fsp psu.

hdd - Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive - OEM $67.99

i'd like an optical drive that can do dual layer + and - (for compatibility). what should i get plextor? lite-on? need suggestions here.

 

[airhendrix13]

CPU: Good choice, but if you wait until the 22nd of this month, you might save some money because Intel is making big price cuts. OEM is just returned merchandise and at Newegg you get a 15 day, non-replaceable guarentee (you can get your money back within 15 days but you cant get a replacement). The product may have a few scratches or dings but is in working condition. Personally, just buy a new one.

Cooling: Fine

Mobo: Fine, may be able to go cheaper and higher revisions can have a slight overclocking bonus.

Video Card: Fine, ATI x1950xt is a little better but the NVIDIA is a good price so go with that.

Case: I would not go cheap on the PSU considering one bad PSU can destroy your whole system.
This one is better: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811119112

Hard Drive: You can do one of two things:
1) Buy one and have two partitions on it, one for the OS and the other for your data.
2) Buy 2 separate hard drives. Smaller capacity HD's don't need as much cache because they have less to address.
Just buy the smallest HD that will support 8mb cache and your capacity preference.

Optical Drive: This is one of the few categories where brand doesn't really matter, but if I had to choose I would go with lite-on.

Memory: Normally I would say that RAM is overkill but considering it's a good price I say go for it. Just beware, OCZ has been known to have compatibility issues.

Hope this helped,

airhendrix13

 

[imported_shader]

about the hdd's, i really want to alleviate the effects of the operating system paging while running programs. have the os & paging file on one drive, and my applications on another drive. that way when the os needs to page, it shouldn't effect (to a great extent) the application. also having much more ram (i.e. 4gb) would make it so the os doesn't need to page as frequently. although now that i think about it, maybe a common mmo doesn't work that way. that is, i thought it would load the zone data file from hdd, and then as it needs them, loads the models for the structures, mobs, other pc's. so that when it needs to load in new models to ram, it first needs to page out stuff from ram to make room, and read in stuff from hdd for models. if both of these hdd requests are on the same physical disk, there will be waiting. however that might not be the way most mmo games work. they could load the zone map, structure models, mob models, and pc models, and not need to go to the hdd again, which means one disk should be good enough for me (perhaps someone can give more of an insight on this). all i know is that right now when i play an mmo (swg) and come to a city, there is a tremendous slowdown (os paging & possibly loading structure models from disk) and continuous hdd activity. when i get to an area with several other pc's, same thing happens but even worse (such as periods longer than one minute where i cannot move).

i'm really thinking now i should just get the 4gb of ram even though it is slightly slower.

please keep any suggestions/criticisms coming

edit: also i was under the impression that the june22 price cuts will not effect the e4300 (since those were cut recently). is this correct?

 

[airhendrix13]

Intel won't effect them directly, but with the e4400 being reduced to $113 (cheaper than the e4300 right now), logically the e4300 will likely go down in price too seeing that having the e4300 at the same price as the e4400 wouldn't make sense.

Here's the price reduction chart: http://www.techpowerup.com/img/07-05-15/Inte.jpg

If you really want fast loading, a higher RPM hard drive will make a MUCH bigger difference than one with more cache, but this option will also cost a lot more.

The slowdowns and even abrupt freezing has very little to do with file paging, but more to do with your processor and RAM.
Although file paging is an issue, it only really causes noticeable problems over a long period of time, and even then this can be fixed with a simple defragmentation.

Also if you are running XP, then it will only address about 3 gigs of it, so if more RAM is what you want, just get 3 gigs.

airhendrix13

 

[imported_shader]

i was also wondering if i should go for the e6450 for $50 more since it has 2 more mb cache

 

[imported_shader]

also any feedback on this mobo:

EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

i have read in a few reviews that some people have had problems with the drivers for the onboard lan

 

[imported_shader]

updated original post. at first i wanted 2x hdds, but i think i will hold off on that (i might pick up another one later.