Gaming Pc Help Greately Aprecieated

Hi, im planing to build a new pc(mostly for gaming, my first build) before the end of next month, i was wondering wheather the parts I selected would be able to play games like Crysis, Haze, Project Offset, Unreal Tournament 2007, Battlefield 2142 (with 64 players online)and the ones that will come out in the next year or so in max quality all visuals turned on (on a 17.1 inch monitor that suports max 1280 by 1024 resolution), in regards to cpu, and gpu I prefare to stay with ATI, and intel products(for now), or atleast mid to high quality(later on), I wanted the build to "enabel" me to not wory about the "min specs" on games for a while.

Here are the parts that im considering to get:

-motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
-CPU : Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz)

-RAM : 2 Gigs of DDR2 677 ram (probably kingston, or corsair)

-GPU : i have no idea, i need the cheapest one thats an pciexpress, then ill get a ATI's dx10 card (something for not more than $400, I asume that any midrange dx10 card will outpreform the 1900xt, so lets say for now that this pc will have that 1900xt or beter dx10 card in it ) but if i would be buing the card now i would get the ATI Radeon X1300 All-In-Wonder 2006 just to wait out till the dx10 cards come out (that was the cheepest one i could find)

-PSU : thermaltake purepower 480W(i rail, 18A on it, i know that his is not enough, thats why i was planing to get this, in addition oto the first psu:
-Thermaltake W0099RU 250 Watts (Peak Load: 300Watts) Graphic Card power supply (250W, (Peak Load: 300Watts), i think it supplies 21 Amps to the gpu alone)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817153037 )
so combined it would be 480+250 W=730W with (18+21A)=39Amps

- ATI Theatre 650 Tv Tuner (its not yet out , i think, might be wrong)

some of other parts that im curently using, and im planing to use later on:
- 2 Hard Drives (IDE)
- 2 optical drives (Pioneer dvd drive, Yamaha F1 CD-RW drive)
-hard canoo fan controler bay (its in my thermaltake Xaser x III series case, with 7 80mm fans)
-logitech wireles mouse and keyboard
-Windows XP Home Edition OEM (in about a year or 2 ill swich to vista, when it will be stable, and without bugs )


And here my questions in regards to the build, that im not shoor of:

-how long would i be able to play games with max visual setings(with the resolution given above) looking at the changes in the gaming industry, would it be around 2 years? 3, and then medium quality?

-Is the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe beter of the P5B Deluxe(im not planing to go xfire, but i might go with an aditional physix card)

-I heard that the P5W DH Deluxe does mpt work "out of the box" with the core 2 duo's , I do not have a 775 socket cpu, so I wil have problems with it, is there a way to get the bios flashed (i know i can use a flash drive, but i think i need a older cpu in the socket), i cant get a older cpu from anyone, nor buy one just to flash the mobo.

-Will the mentioned 480W psu be sufficient to power everything else except the gpu which im planing to supply power from the mini psu(250W, (Peak Load: 300Watts))

- or is it beter to get a new psu 650W or even a 700W one, im a bit budget presed, and the aditional 250W costs just $50, and i dont realy want to throw away my old psu, or will both of these psu's be insuficient?

- will i be able to use just my curent 480W psu for now with a "whatever" cheepest gpu, until i get a good gpu(and then the aditional psu)?

-will the P5w dh Deluxe be able to support new(er) cpus the quad core ones when they come out? so i could upgrade teh cpu itselfe in that 3 or 4 years or so? it states on the asus's site that the mobo is : "LGA775 socket for Intel Core2 Duo, Core2 Extreme and next generation Mulit-Core CPU"
so does that mean yes?

-which memory is beter ECC or nnon ECC does it really mater?

-will this build last me that atleast 4years of high/midrange "power" visual and procesing wise for gaming? (given that i wont get a new LCD monitor, and will use that max resolution or a bit less than the max resolution)considered ill get a shader model 4.0 , dx10 gpu, and that core 2 duo, which seams quite nice by toways standards, im interested in "plesently playable" framerates(averaging anything above that 30 or 40). I might add a second card (low end one) for physics in about a year or whenever that will be needed. I will certainly ad more ram along the way (the mobo suports max 4 gb for regular non 64 bit os and 8 gigs for 64bit), so in 2 years or so ill ad another 2 gigs.

-How many years would i be able to use this system before i would have to look at the "minimum required specs" on game boxes?

-is there anything that i should change, any suggestions?

Sorry about the lenghty post, but i wanted to make shoor that all parts would be "compatible", and besides this will be my first build

Thank You very much for all thoughts, and suggestions on the build, greately aprecieated

arent the DDR2-800 more expencive than the DDR2-677's? by about 100 or so maby im wrong

biget psu ...hm..i like my current one, and if there is no need for it "real need" i dont c why whould i pay the extra 100/130 or so if i can spend that 50 (and save the rest on somthirng else)


"You might need some IDE-to-SATA connectors for all those IDE devices"

would You ming explaning that thought , please, i looked at the mobo and thought that it has those 3 ide conectors (for primary/secondary/slave, and master)and a floppy one.

thx for the info i was thinking of the 800 one but i gues its just too expensive, is the difference worth that extra $100?


actualy i was considering geting that x1300 all in wonder, for $119 and then in december or so swich to a midrange to high dx10 card(atleast something on par or beter than 1900xt) i would waste that 120 now but the longevity would be streched by quite a bit, wouldnt it?

hers the one i was considering crapy one but way beter than what i have now anyway :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102661

thx, so i gues ill stick with the "older" ram

x1600 for 105 thats a good price, where could i find that card/for that price? im more into ati than nvidia , the less i spend on a gpu now the beter, that 4 or 5 month wait is not so long (ok it is...but ), i just dont want to spend much now to throw away the card in couple of months later on (usualy the old card just ends up lying in a box somewere in my hous ...thats what hapened with my oldie, that originaly came with my sony vaio in 2001 tnt2 32mb card lol )

thx for the info will check it out, aprecieate it, btw how much powerd will those cards use? would i need to get the other psu or the 480W 18A(1 rail) will be enough to power the entire system?

That is four IDE devices. I believe the Gigabyte only has one IDE connector so a max of two, then.

~Ibrahim~

lol i was actualy thinking about a "way" to use my present tt480W psu, thats why i was thinking of geting that other 250W "mini"psu, otherwise i would just fo for 1 huge(650 or even a 700W) psu, btw thx for the Graphic Power Supply linq, will check it out

i checked that mini psu and i think it only suplies 150W to a single gpu card, and 300 totall, which is quite odd, is that true?