New System Build - Few Questions

[jorico]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to do my first system build since January 2003. I'm looking for a system which will do a little bit of everything - I do a bit of video editing, not professionally or that much and I play games occasionally, not enough to warrant a gamer's PC though.

I've managed to make my current Athlon XP 2400+, Radion 9600 Pro based machine last since January 2003 to now with only memory upgrades and I was still able to play Half Life 2 albeit with low specs. I would be looking for a shelf life of around 4 years with this machine. I know it will be struggling at the end just like this one is now but ideally it should play games at medium-high for 2 years then chugg along for the next 2 whilst still being a pretty decent machine.

I've come up with this list of components and prices which comes to £611.11 in total. I don't have a budget as such but just want good value for money. I don't want to overclock it.
Do you have any thoughts on how I could improve this build. My few thoughts so far are:

Would it be worth stepping down to a E6400 or E6300 which will still give good performance for a lot cheaper.

What kind of power supply will I need - I have a 500W supply at the moment.

Is the 8800GTS worth it for the future-proofability it will give me and whether it is worth going for 640MB or 320MB?

Graphics Card - INNO3D GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB DDR3 - £185.66 - eBuyer
Hard Drive - Maxtor 250GB SATA2 7200RPM 8MB Cache - £42.29 - eBuyer
Memory - eBuyer 2 x 1GB DDR2 533MHz - £75.98 - eBuyer
Motherboard - Asus P5B - £74.55 - Microdirect
Operating System - Windows Vista Business Edition - £0.00 - MSDNAA
Processor - Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo Retail - £190.34 - Microdirect
TV Card - Hauppauge WinTV NOVA-T USB2 - £42.29 - eBuyer

Thanks for looking.

 

[Cruton]

Looks like a pretty good build. Having the pricing in Euros make your system look so inexpensive!

I would recommend going with a P5B deluxe or better for the MoBo. I have heard that the regular P5B has raid problems.

For the powersupply, make sure that it has a 6-pin PCI-E connector for the video card. I found this like that will calculate how many Watts you will need:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
It is always good to go at least 50 Watts above what was calculated.

 

[akhilles]

8800GTS needs 400W 26A whereas 8800GTX 450W 30A. You're from UK, you're no stranger to Hiper:

HIPER HPU-4K580-MS 580W 30A

Or anything that meets GTX's requirements so you won't have to upgrade psu again when you upgrade video:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088

If you're not overclocking, 6400/6600. If you do, 4300 with cheap ram or 6300 with decent ram + o/c mobo. P5B-E, GA-965P-S3 would be minimal for o/c'ing.