I have a $1600 budget for my new build and I have some $ left over. I plan on buying all of the parts next week once the ATI 2900XTs come out but I wanted to submit my plans to you experts here on the TG forums. I will be using the system mainly for gaming and as a multimedia center for my dorm. I am willing to OC as much as I can.

My build plan
Case:
Antec P182 ($160) - inc shipping (excaliberpc.com)
PSU:
CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX ($125)
Mobo:
GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 ($130)
CPU:
e6600 ($226)
RAM:
2gb G.SKILL F2-6400CL4D-2GBHK ($115)
HDDs:
74gb Raptor ($160)
Seagate 7200.10 320gb ($80)
Optical drive:
Sony/NEC Optiarc AD-7170S ($32)
CPU cooler:
Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme ($62)
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E ($15)
Paste:
Shin-Etsu X23-7762 Thermal Compound ($10)

With $400 budgeted for a graphics card, the total comes to $1515.
I do not need an OS as I can get Vista Enterprise 32 or 64-bit from school.
As I have approx. $100 left over, I was wondering what i should improve, if anything. Among my ideas were:
-get another 2gb of ram
-get rid of the raptor and buy a Q6600.
-get an X-fi
-upgrade to a GTX

Finally, my parents have agreed to purchase me a monitor. Would I be better served by getting the BenQ FP241W (which gives me the option to use the display as an HDDVD/bluray viewer down the road) or two 22"" monitors?
Any and all input is appreciated. Thx in advance.

First of all, it's obvious you are getting components designed for low noise...good work 8) On that note, the Scythe Ninja comes with a fan that is quieter than the SilentX you mentioned, and considering that the Ninja is designed to be used in low airflow situations, the CFM produced by the SilentX is unnessesary.

The P182 is a great case, but the P180b is almost as good, and can save you quite a bit of cash, there are some great deals on it right now if you look around.

As for the video card, I would probably not make the decision until the R600 is released and we see official numbers. But most likely, I would recommend going with the GTX (plus I'm guessing price might drop a little after the R600 is released).

I've not seen any evidance supporting that thermal grease, unless you have some reason to beleive it's better. I, like most others, would recommend the Zalman STG1.

On your question concerning displays...I would most definitely go with the single 24"...two reasons, you said you plan to use it for gaming, and you said you'll be living in a dorm room. You'll appriceate the resolution for gaming, plus two monitors will not help you in the slightest for most games. I'm not sure if you know the specific size of your dorm room, but those I've lived in were no where near large enough to comfortably fit 2 22" displays (one 24" will be tight enough 8O ).

Good luck, the rest looks great!

I'd get another 2 GB of RAM (because of Vista) and the 8800 GTX.

You can always add the X-Fi later, if you pick a mobo with onboard audio. You may even be happy with the onboard audio. The X-Fi will add 5 fps in some games, and people with very good ears and speakers may notice better sound quality, but I don't know if this is worth $100 to you.

You don't really need a Q6600 for gaming and watching movies, the software is not ready to use cores #3 and #4 yet.

I'd ditch the Raptor, it's expensive and small and noisy and not really that big a speed improvement.

Actually, I don't know about the 8800 cards. Vista drivers for them are still buggy. I would also not expect ATI's brand new cards to have decent drivers right away - maybe in 6 months or so. If you can get Windows XP and a coupon for upgrade to Vista you'll probably be better off. Personally I'll move to Vista after Vista SP1 is out and nVidia's drivers are fixed.

Like the previous user had said, I would get rid of the Raptor, not much benefit in games. I would also go with Arctic Sliver thermal paste instead of what you have. Also be careful with Vista (for now) there are few graphics bugs with the 8800's.

I'd say go for E4300 and overclock that with using DDR1066 sticks. And for the cooler, either get the Tower 120, Ultra 120 or Ultra 120 Extreme to get the best of cooling.

Why would you use 1066 RAM on a e4300 build?

If you get the Raptor you are letting the man stick it to you.. Not a good bang
for your gaming buck. Same with upgrading to vista..Keep XP for now as we know the drivers work in it. The SB X-Fi is an excellent card for the price and I can sure hear a difference over the onboard audio.Other than that happy gaming.

Stick it to the man by only upgrading what you need.

If I don't get the Raptor, should I still get a 2nd HDD for a system drive? or should I just partition the 320gig?

I like the list as it is. If the main use is for gaming, then get the best vga card you can afford; that likely will be the 8800gtx. As to monitors, I vote for two. Most games will only use one, but it is very handy to be able to keep other stuff(e-mail, performance monitors, etc) open on the other.

You can overclock the E4300 and would outperform the stock X6800 on gaming. $125 cpu can become the fastest cpu for gaming when proper overclocking is achieve.

Why will the scythe fan be quieter than the SilenX when the scythe is rated at 20dBa and the SilenX is rated at 18?

Please feel free to correct me in my potential ignorance. I am basing all of my choices on heatsink and fan from anandtech's series of reviews, notably this one (http://anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2965) which says that the silenX fan cooled a lot more effectively than the stock scythe fan.

And about the thermal grease, I was basing my decision off of DaSickNinja's reveiw here, but I misunderstood which Shin-etsu he was talking about. According to his review, the x23 is the best. (orig post edited to reflect)

The noise was the same on either fan. The silex fan did cool a couple degrees better. If you needed those degrees, remember those are standard fans and you can use the stock ninja as case fans.

For the same reason you are willing to pay $125 for a 520W PSU when you can get a 600W for only $20!....RATINGS DON'T MEAN SQUAT! I'm not saying the SilenX is loud, but it is most definitely louder!

The problem with a strong fan and the Ninja is you are missing the point. If you don't mind the noise of a srong fan, it would be much better put to use on a cooler that needs the CFM....the Ninja does not. Yes, it may bennefit from more airflow, but not to the degree of a Thermaltake 120 Ultra for example. The fins are closer together on the Ultra, and the extra CFM is needed to force air through. The Ninja is designed with very wide fin spacing so that you don't need a lot of CFM to move air through the cooler. See my point?

On the anandtech article, take their noise measurements with a grain of salt, they are not very picky...at all! silentpcreview's Ninja review should give you much more reliable information.

They tested it with a P4 2.8GHz with a TDP of 69W. The ambient room temp was 21C and at full tilt the CPU temp rose ONLY 14C with a 120mm fan blowing 42 CFM over the HSF (similar airflow to the Scythe fan). That's pretty darn good, much better results than anandtech got.

For the same reason you are willing to pay $125 for a 520W PSU when you can get a 600W for only $20!....RATINGS DON'T MEAN SQUAT! I'm not saying the SilenX is loud, but it is most definitely louder!

That bit about the psu is completely wrong, you are better off with a high quality 520w than a cheap 600w psu. You should check out the sticky in the psu forum by mpilchfamily, that will show you why.

that psu listed on the list of parts has 40 amps across the 12v rails, which is very good for a 520w psu

For the same reason you are willing to pay $125 for a 520W PSU when you can get a 600W for only $20!....RATINGS DON'T MEAN SQUAT! I'm not saying the SilenX is loud, but it is most definitely louder!

That bit about the psu is completely wrong, you are better off with a high quality 520w than a cheap 600w psu. Yo