$1500 Gaming System Advice

[Lowe5521]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600

nVidia GeForce 8800GTS PCI-E X16

This is the Video card / CPU that I'm planning on building my system around. I've been out of the technological loop for a while so I'm looking for some advice on a good motherboard for this system. I'm not looking for a $400 mobo, prolly something in the $150 - $200 range. This is a system for gaming so I'm gonna be popping Corsair RAM in there unless someone tells me otherwise

Also, I'm not too concerned with it now, but I'm going to be needing to buy a nice flat panel monitor with a glossy, bright display. So if any of ya'll know one off the top of your head, I'd appreciate it

Thanks in advance!

 

[skyguy]

Good choice there on the CPU and GPU so far! One thing to note though.....if you plan on doing overclocking, consider a 6300 instead, as it's much cheaper and can easily overclock past the speed of a 6600 or even a 6800

Mobo: Gigabyte 965P-DS3. Mid range price, very stable, good board layout, lets you upgrade to quad core in the future, overclocks like a champ and especially for OC newbies, and isn't picky about RAM. Nothing really bad to say about it......

Monitor: I've tried quite a few different ones and I have spent ALOT of time on various monitors through working as a designer......Samsungs are GREAT. No ghosting, good response time, excellent clarity and picture quality......generally cost a bit more though. 19" will do just fine. Save yourself the headache and don't buy the cheapest one.....a monitor will last you 2 computer systems, so spend the extra $50 and get a decent one. And don't bother with the 19" widescreens.....they're shorter so they're actually as tall as a 17" LCD *bleck*. Get a standard aspect.........unless you're going up to a 22", then go widescreen for 22" or higher....but that won't fit your budget I'm afraid.

Oh, and believe it or not, Dell actually has great 19" monitors. I believe they're outsourced to Samsung And Dell rebadges them basically. You might get lucky with Dell having a sale........

 

[sweetpants]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600

nVidia GeForce 8800GTS PCI-E X16

This is the Video card / CPU that I'm planning on building my system around. I've been out of the technological loop for a while so I'm looking for some advice on a good motherboard for this system. I'm not looking for a $400 mobo, prolly something in the $150 - $200 range. This is a system for gaming so I'm gonna be popping Corsair RAM in there unless someone tells me otherwise

Also, I'm not too concerned with it now, but I'm going to be needing to buy a nice flat panel monitor with a glossy, bright display. So if any of ya'll know one off the top of your head, I'd appreciate it

Thanks in advance!

I've always heard those "glossy" displays referred to as "true life" displays. My friend has one on his Inspiron 9400. However if you're looking for one that has that kind of display + super high res (beyond 1280x1024 @ 19inch 4:3) expect to pay a lot for it.

I was looking for a 19 inch LCD that could push up to 1600x1200 and it was pretty expensive.

 

[andybird123]

as said above, I'd recommend saving a few dollars, get an e6300 and overclock it

the gigabyte DS3 is a good board, as is the DQ6, both very stable and great for overclocking

I've just done a gaming machine, overclocked e6300 to 3.2ghz with samsung generic DDR2-800, just by relaxing the memory timings to 5-5-5-15 (which is what most of the brand name 1066mhz really expensive sticks come set to anyway)

the GTS is also very overclockable if you use rivatuner to set the fan speed to 100%

 

[sweetpants]

Here's what they have so far in refurbished stock. You can do to dell.com and type in "refurb" and it takes you to the "outlet store"

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh