About to build for the first time, parts are in the mail.

[Whimper]

Hi everyone- first time posting here. Inspired by the new building guide on Tomshardware, I decided to stop giving my money to Dell and HP and try it out myself. I ordered all my parts from www.NCIX.com here in Canada.

My aim was to build a desktop for gaming and to manage my CD collection, without breaking the bank. I wanted a small, relatively quiet box that would be open for future upgradability. So I got SLI-ready PSU, MoBo, etc, even though I'm only putting in one graphics card right now.

I was wondering if anybody had any experience with any of these parts, alone or in combination with the others. Will I have any problems assembling them? How's the case? Is the motherboard any good? Did I get fleeced on the CPU or GPU prices? Also, I've heard that onboard sound is much improved these days, and that I might not even need a soundcard. (The onboard chip on the nforce 570 mobo is 6-channel surround capable).


Here's what I ordered (prices are in CDN$)- it's all on its way in the mail.

CASE: Antec Solo Quiet ATX Mini Tower $98.77
PSU: Enermax All in One 535W ATX12V V2.0 20/24 Pin W/ PCI-E SLI $105.80
MoBo: ASUS P5NSLI ATX LGA775 Conroe Nforce 570 SLI DDR2 2PCI-E16 3PCI-E 2PCI SATA RAID GBLAN $138.00

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 2.13GHZ 1066FSB 2MB Retail $259.00
Bonus: 1 x Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC Game) **Intel Promo Bundle**
GPU: EVGA E-GEFORCE 7950 GT PCI-E 550MHZ 256MB 1.4GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out $234.99
RAM: Corsair Value Select PC2-5300 2X1GB DDR2-667 240PIN Dual Channel $279.30

HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ $129.40
ODD: Samsung SH-S182 DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL-8X IDE Lightscribe OEM W/ Software $48.25
INPUT: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 Keyboard USB OEM $30.64

DISPLAY: Viewsonic VX922 19IN TFT LCD 1280X1024 650:1 2MS VGA DVI-D $340.03

OS: : Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with SP2 OEM English W/ Vista Upgrade Coupon $132.69

Total price: ~ CDN $1800 (US $1555), + $7.99 shipping.

Is there anything important that I left out? Is it worth a 20% increase in overall price to slap in another video card immediately, instead of waiting to see how well it performs first? And lastly, what are some good eye-candy games that will look nice on this (I haven't played any games at all released since 2004).

 

[AMDThunder]

Looks like a pretty nice rig overall. If you plan to OC, you probably won't get much out of that board. It's a good board, just not great to OC with. (Just from what I've heard) The ram may hold you back on the OC front as well. Again, it's good ram, but I've heard mixed stories about it's OC potential. Personally I wouldn't SLI. That vid card should give you everything you need, and then some for at least a couple of years. If you find it lacking down the road, by that time you could probably pick up a 2nd one pretty cheap to boost performance.

If you don't plan to OC, then you're all set! You e-penis is bigger than mine! :twisted: So feel good about what you ordered. It will serve you well.

 

[Whimper]

I've never overclocked anything before, but wasn't ruling it out. The motherboard supports overclocking the CPU and RAM (it says so in the manual), but I wouldn't know where to start.

I was thinking about overclocking the graphics card a bit, if only because nVidia makes it pretty easy with their software...