New Build: Need some advice...

[Benjamonous]

Here's what I'm looking at putting together for a new build for school:

Shuttle SD39P2 Case

Intel Quad Core Q6600 CPU

nVidia 8800GTS 320MB GPU

Patriot DDR2 800 RAM

2 Seagate 320GB Hard Drives in RAID 0

ASUS DVD Burner

Also, I'm planning on using it with a Dell 2407 display that has a 1920x1200 resolution. I'll definitely be gaming on this thing!

While cost is a bit of an issue, my biggest concern is making sure I eliminate all bottlenecks when it comes to system performance.

Any feedback/advice would be freakin' sweet!

Thanks!

 

[gattsuru]

You may want to consider waiting til the 22nd, when Intel is planning to drop prices significantly. Of course, you might already be aware of that, so sorry if I'm being monotonous.

Also, for gaming at high resolutions, you <i>will</i> be finding the graphics card to be the bottleneck in this system, so it may be worthwhile to upgrade to the 640 MB version of the 8800GTS. That's about the top of the price/performance chain right now, and with the extra texture space new games are going to want, the difference may be very significant.

 

[Benjamonous]

So, should I go for the 800MHz RAM, or just for 533MHz RAM which will match the CPU FSB at 1066MHz when it does Dual Channel?

 

[darksidedragon]

If you're not going to overclock, then 533MHz RAM is fine. That said, 800MHz RAM is pretty cheap, so you could get that anyways to give you scope for overclocking or upgrading later. What CPU intensive programs are you going to be using? In terms of gaming, the Q6600 is overkill - you'd be better off getting an E6600 and using the money saved to get an 8800GTX (although I'm not sure if it will fit in the Shuttle case). Perhaps consider getting a couple of Samsung SpinPoint drives in RAID 0 - they're uber quiet, which is always nice.