Help me with my build for an Overclocked Pentium D 805

[Sargon]

This is my first build and I'm nervous about what to buy so I am turning to you guys for help. I am hoping for under 600$ and at max 700$ as my parents are giving me 500$ towards it.

Here are the parts/options but feel free to recommend others:

Processor: Pentium D 805 112$

Motherboard:
ECS C19-A SLI Motherboard 78$
or
Asus P5ND2 SLI 88$
or
Gigabyte GA8N SLI 66$

Graphics Card:
XFX 6800 sli 100$
or
evga 7600GT 135$
or
PNY 7600GT 140$

RAM:
pqi 1GB DDR2 667 RAM 53$
or
pqi Turbo 2x1GB DDR2 667 RAM 117$

Hard Drive:
Hitachi Deskstar 160GB SATA 3.0 OEM 58$
or
Samsung Spinpoint P 160GB SATA 3.0 60$


The two biggest questions I have are for the PSU and the case. I will only be running one hard drive and one CDRW drive and I can't decide whether the overclocked D 805 will need 450 or 500 watts, especially if I end up going SLI later. And for the case I want something with good cooling but a low price point and I'm leaning towards the centurion. So here is what I have found:

PSU:
Rosewill RV-450 w/2 fans 33A dual 12v 30$
or
Xclio 450W PSU 32A dual 12v 40$
or
Xclio 500W SLI-Certified 32A dual 12V 49$
or
ePower 500W not-SLI certified but 40A dual 12V 48$


Case:
Thermaltake Mambo 1x120mm fan 10$
or
XION Solaris windowed 2x80mm fans 30$
or
Spire Blackfin 80mm, Duct, & 120mm 32$
or
Centurion 5 120mm & Side Duct 50$
or
Antec Sonata II w/450W PSU, 120mm, & Duct 100$

And the build should be ordered by tomorrow night so I'm in a hurry, but having browsed newegg and forums all week I have the right idea. I'm gonna order fans and arctic silver 5 later based on my temps. I just can't decide for myself what parts to buy. Thanks in advance!

Edit: One more question. Newegg seems to have ridiculous shipping rates and I'm not sure how much I will save by ordering all at once. Should I buy from ZipZoomFly or elsewhere?

 

[dougie_boy]

save money by not buying the SLi board. lots of good single slot boards and the amount of people who buy an SLi board and never get the second GPU is astounding.

graphics. dont get the 6800. its old technology and vista and directx 10 is out soon. the 7600 is very overclockable aswell. and its newer. so if you must get a SLi MBoard you will have the chance to buy the second card at a later date where as the 6800 will prob be discontinued by the end of the year to make way for the 8XXX seires cards.

hardrive. the samsung is nice and quiet.

get a freezerpro heatsink so out can overclock your pentium. its also near silent. get it at the same time as the CPU. dont put the bundled HSF near ur CPU. the rubbish on the bundled pentuim HSF is rot. get some actic silver and save your self the hassle of removing it from the top of ur CPU at a later date.

also a GPU cooler like a zalaman or arctic cooling accelero x1 will alow you to OC ur graphics. and its quiet.

and DONT scrimp on the case. u have to work with it and look at it all the time. cheap cases can be noisy and have poor air circulation. the Aska case range are pretty near perfect. the are lovley to work with.

 

[Sargon]

Thanks for the advice. The SLI board I am buying most likely (ECS C-19A) is cheaper than most other motherboards and supports SLI, 16GB of RAM and has all sorts of other good features for overclocking. I am also sure that I will go SLI because I want to buy another video card for DX10 which will then SLI with the one I buy now.

Anyone else have clear cut favorites among the parts I listed?

 

[dougie_boy]

I am also sure that I will go SLI because I want to buy another video card for DX10 which will then SLI with the one I buy now.

there are no DX10 cards on the market so thats not a possablity at the moment. u cannot pair a DX9 card with a DX10 card. they will be different GPUs. if u want DX10 SLi then your going to have to wait for a while.

the best you could have if you bought a DX9 card would be a a DX9 setup unless you scraped the other GPU aswell which negates the point off buying a SLi board. also you will need a better PSU than those listed. seasonics do a 600w psu which will give you enough juice but if u choose a budget PSU ur going to have to buy another later. most buget PSU dont live upto their name. ive seen 500w models become unstable at about 370w. esp with things like SLi.

 

[Sargon]

Anyone else have a preference case, graphics card, or PSU (or anything else) wise?

I'm in a hurry and probably need to order tonight so please respond... 8O

I'm pretty sure that 500W will handle my build easily as I checked it with a power usage calculator and it came to 442W with SLI and tons of fans.

 

[chewbenator]

I would go with either the Coolermaster or the Sonata. If you want ultra silent with good airflow go with the Sonata because thats what it was built for. But I am partial towards CM, the designs look "smoother", and they also sell for about half the price.

Oh and if you want a good PSU take a look at the Hiper PSUs on newegg. Toms did a review and rated them highly, and the modular cabling is done very well. 580w so decent amount of power.