My current build: Comments? Suggestions?

[penguinx0r]

I've been looking to build a fairly high performance gaming rig, and, after a fair bit of research, this is the setup I've come up with.

Newegg Wishlist

I would appreciate any suggestions, criticisms, or other pieces of information that those more knowledgeable than I can provide. The one thing I'm still not at all sure about is the mobo. If someone could kindly tell me whether or not it's a piece of crap, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[lostandwandering]

You need to make the wish list public so that we can see it. I made the same mistake and someone fixed it for me.

 

[penguinx0r]

Unfortunately, it is "shared."

Methinks the bloody newegg servers are on the fritz again.

 

[penguinx0r]

COOLER MASTER Stacker 830 RC-830-SSN2-GP Silver Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case

MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card


Thermaltake Toughpower 850W W0131RU

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600


G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA

SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology Black SATA

Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1Gaming Soundcard

Tuniq Tower 120 P4 & K8 CPU Cooler

 

[skyguy]

Nice setup, nothing really wrong there if you got the cash.

 

[azeari]

get a e4300 and OC.. saves you quite abit, and u could use the extra cash for another hdd possibly for storage purposes

 

[lostandwandering]

Nice setup, nothing really wrong there if you got the cash.

Agreed. One thought, that Stacker 830 is MAD expensive. Have you looked at some other cases? Antec P180 comes to mind, it has more cooling and cost about 100 less without rebates. Maybe also the Antec nine hundred. Just a suggestion.

A second thought, what monitor and res are you gaming on/at? Not trying to change your mind, but the GTX may be over-kill on any res under 1600x1200.

 

[penguinx0r]

I'm currently using a Syncmaster 204b at 1600x1200, and if things go right financially in the next few months, I'll be upgrading to at least a 24 incher.


Oh, and regarding the 4300 comment, I've never OC'd anything. Ever. Building a system around my imagined facility to do something I've not yet attempted may not be the best idea. I'm interested in OCing, but I'd almost rather have something that runs somewhat quickly straight out of the box.

Obviously, in order to learn to OC, I'd have to, well, try, but I'm just not sure if I'm comfortable doing so right now.


Regarding my choice of the Stacker: I'm a freak about having space in the case, and was getting to like the idea of having a full-tower. Still, the price is a bit of a b***, so I'll have another look at cases.

 

[lostandwandering]

If you plan to upgrade then stick with the GTX and ignore my comment. As far as OCing, you could always give it a shot on your current PC. Unless of course it's a Dell of HP. They lock the multipliers to prevent OCing.

 

[Omegavirus]

Looks good to me.

Very similar to the one I just built. I wish I got a Tuniq Tower, I like my zalman 9700 but no only is the Tuniq I think it looks sweet.

The only think I would get is the one thing that mad a big difference for me was putting a hr-03 plus on my 8800, dropped the temps big time, but didn't raise my case temps at all.

 

[azeari]

alrighty, if u dun wanna OC the setup is more or less perfect.

though, OCing the 4300 on that board is a simple matter of increasing the FSB speeds. increasing voltages isn't even necessary if you aren't planning to hit 3ghz and above. to give you an idea, i spent 5min OCing my friend's e4300 to 2.66ghz(e6600 speeds) and its solid as a rock. you might spend a lil more time due to inexperience though

 

[Nossy]

Pretty solid. Although at this point, I'd wait to see price drops and Kuma and R600. I'd stick with the E6600, anything beyond that is not worth it. A E4300 is a good overclocker, but you won't go beyond 3.0GHz Ocing with air cooling, while you can achieve around 3.6 - 4.0GHz + good HSF with the E6600.

The Geforce 8800 is causing alot of headaces around the web with BSODs and basically everybody I know who owns a 8800GTX/GTS. Sure it runs great when it's working, but it's crap when it doesn't. It's been almost 6 months and they haven't figure out how to write a solid driver for Vista (It also BSOD in XP, just worse in Vista).

The 830 Stacker Case is solid and will hold anything you throw at it (Except alot of HDD). Another cheaper case would be the Thermaltake Armor, for about half the price of a 830 Stacer.

By the way if you don't plan to overclock, why the heck are you getting the Tuniq Tower HSF?? The stock HSF fan handle anything fairly well up to 3.0GHz. If you don't overclock you're basically wasting money.

 

[penguinx0r]

The tuniq was mostly added to that list out of fear. I'm not perfect, and I'll probably end up dropping it.

I've just seen too many good friends go through component overheating hell.

EDIT:

And yes, I currently have a sad, sad HP; no OC practice for me. On the plus side, the lack of flexibility, poor support, and cheap parts are what finally led me to get the guts to build my own.