need advice on my build

[garu]

hello all
i am a long time reader first time poster. I will be building a new PC sometime in the second quarter of 2007 depending on price of hardware.
I live in Czech republic(central Europe) so the prices are quite more expensive than in US.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, procesor, socket 775(pretty much set on this proc)
Arctic-Cooling Freezer 7 Pro,(price is good if anyone used it can you tell me how noisy and how effective it is)
ASUS EN8800GTX /HTDP ( depending on price and performence of ATI's R600)
DDR2 Kingston HyperX 2048MB (kit 2x1GB), PC800,( i am not sure about this corsair ram is a lot more expensive here, does it overclock ok?)
Gigabyte s.775 965P-DS3,(not sure heard a lot of good things about it lately, but i want a future proof motherboard this comp has to last at least 4 years with minor upgrades)
Seagate Barracuda 3.5" SATAII300 320GB
600W Zalman ZM600-HP,( anyone used this? there are quite a few FOXTRON psu available)
Thermaltake VA3000BNA Tsunami,( or something in this price range, mainly worried about size the GF cards are BIG , and it has to be quiet)
Samsung 22" SM 225BW, monitor LCD,

This is the site where i am choosing my hardware http://www.alfacomp.cz/php/zbozi.php?akc=2
but it is in czech so it will not help. The problem is that sometimes the choises are limited as in you cannot find some products in shops here and getting it sent in mail is not an option because it would most likely get stolen or destroyed. The POST here SUX.
Thanks for any suggestions .

 

[John_C]

CPU - Great choice. Excellent price/performance ratio.

Cooling - Reasonable choice as long as you aren't going to overclock to the extreme. The stock fan is fairly quiet, but not world class for a silent system. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article285-page1.html

GPU - You're smart to wait and compare the R600. If you are trying to keep costs down, many will suggest to buy a $200 card now and save the other $400 for an upgrade down the road when your current card starts to lag. If you do want to buy a DX10 card, wait till at least March/April and you'll get more for your money.

Memory - depends on how extreme you want to go with overclocking. If you are staying around 3GHz or below, you should be fine. If you want to start pushing above 3.2, then these choices start making more of a difference. I hjaven't heard of problems with these Kingstons but P965 can be picky about memory so keep your eyes open for this (especially if you are waiting for the R600 as things do change.

MB - It really is hard to be "future proof". I really think you are better off concentrating on what you need now instead of spending a lot on "just in case" features that you likely will never use. Personally, I think you made a solid choice.

HD - Good choice. That's the best value out there in terms of what you get for your money right now.

Case, PSU & Monitor - No real opinions here.

Good Luck.

 

[garu]

thanks for the review of the cooling. great info.

yes the memory - motherboard combo is causing me headaches

i am planing to overclock to around 3,2 gig.
dont need SLI but i would like to leave an upgrade path open for new procesor, graphics, memory in couple years. Problem is i dont know much about motherboards and i am having realy hard time choosing one.

 

[John_C]

The DS3 is a reasonable choice. It doesn't support SLI though so that path wouldn't be open. I am less concerned about that as I suspect newer better cards supporting some newer standard will come out by the time I want an upgrade and I'll end up replacing my card instead. On the DS3, I also didn't like them pairing the P965 with the cheaper ICH8 Southbridge (as opposed to the ICH8R). Nothing wrong with the DS3 as it is a great board for the price. But if those types of things are important to you, you might take a look at the ASUS P5B Deluxe as a potential alternative.

 

[garu]

SLI is not a concern for me.
I looked at the Asus P5B deluxe but there is almost $100 diference from the DS3 which is quite a lot.
I would like a newer motherboard but the prices are quite high over here.

Will there be any new boards released which might cause the prices to go down a bit by the second quarter of 2007?

Also i read a few reviews of the RAM i planned to get(kingston) and it seems it is not a very good overclocker so my other options would be
RAM 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC6400 800MHz Ultra (4-4-4-12) GEIL
or
RAM 2048MB KIT (2x1024)DDR2 240pin PC6400 800MHz GOODRAM PRO

any opinions on this?