Building New Gaming Rig. Looking for Input/Advice

[Oldswole]

Looking to build a computer before WoW expansion launch Jan.16th. My budget is around $1400.00. I don't care about upgradability just looking for most bang for my buck right now.

Don't need the following:
Monitor- Using 65' Mitsubishi DLP
DVD Burner- Have Plextor DVD burner
Speakers- Running through Theatre system I allready have

Now I've put together a list of items I've been looking into and if anyone has any advice or suggests different brand let me know. I'm also gonna show AMD/ Intel builds too see which you reccomend. AM2 5k+ shows it out benchmarks the Core2Duo E6600 but i've heard otherwise.

Processor- (Will probally slightly overclock as well)
Athlond 64 X2 5000+ Toms FPS shows - 1:56
or
Core 2 Duo E6600 FPS- 2:02

Processor cooling-
Zalman CNPS9700LED

Motherboard-
Athlon build- MSI k9N Diamond
Core 2 Duo- Foxconn P9657AA

Video card- (Will try and match Mobo/Vid Card from same company due to overcloking) This is tough because the market changes so fast, but prices tend to drop not rise.
Radeon x1950 Pro
Radeon x1900XT
Radeon x1900XTX

Hard Drive- ( is a second drive noticeable for performance?)
**Possibly Raptor drive as well depending if it's worth it.**
Seagate Barracuda 320GB

Ram-
Corsair TWIN XMS2 6400 -2 gig

Power supply-
Coolermaster extreme power 600w

Case- (Will this case hold what i'm trying to build?)
ATX Viper black case(no powersupply)
W Depth H
10.2 21.3 16.5
6 front bays
4 internal bays

Keyboard/Mouse/headphones-
Logitech gaming keyboard
Logitech revolution mouse
Medusa USB 5.1 headphones

Grand total is around 1600 right now. Keep in mind I have 2 months to buy this computer so I can wait for prices to change more into my budget which they should. If any1 knows about anything better coming out or suggestions on what I can skimp on and what I should change let me know. Any modifications or suggestions can also be sent to Stiffmiester8504@yahoo.com.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[MU_Engineer]

Processor: Either would be good as they perform similarly at stock speeds. The E6600 will OC higher than the 5000+ but you can't drop the multiplier on the E6600. The 5000+ won't overclock much past 3.0 GHz but it's almost trivial to OC a K8 as you can alter the lower multipliers at will.

Cooling: sounds fine.

Motherboard: I have no experience with either of these boards. I have had good luck with ABIT, maybe you should give one of their boards a look at.

GPU: The x1950 Pro is the best bang for the buck. I have a 1900GT which is pretty similar and it's very fast and a great deal.

HDD: A Raptor for the OS and a regular 7200 rpm drive for your files is a great idea. I run this and it's not only fast but you can reinstall the OS and not wipe your files. That's a big plus.

RAM: Sounds fine for an AM2 setup, but I'd get DDR2-667 for a Core 2 Duo as all the Core 2 Duo's FSB can handle at stock settings is DDR2-533. Since you want to OC, DDR2-667 will likely be fine unless you want to have a hugely-high FSB overclock. The FSB can't handle the bandwidth from a pair of DDR2-667 modules until it hits 1333 MHz (core speed = 333 x 9 = 3.00 GHz) and DDR2-800 doesn't get full usage until your FSB is 1600 MHz and you'd have overclocked your processor to 3.6 GHz by that point, which you probably won't reach.

PSU: Probably okay. I generally recommend Antec, Seasonic, Fortron/Sparkle, PC Power and Cooling (ueber $$$ though!) PSUs.

 

[snaill]

If your going to build a gaming rig, i dont know why you would want to use anything other than an nvidia chipset. I would go with the MSI P6N Diamond when it comes out.

I had the evga 680i board and graphically, my games never looked so good! But the SATA and instability issues were to annoying so I returned it.
I'm using the Asus P5N-E right now and its almost as nice and has none of the problems! The only thing really is, the graphics arent quite as detailed. But, I'll buy the MSI board when it comes out.