Thinking to buy this system, tell me what u think...

Here's what I think, and I'm by no means an expert.

Try out this Video Card and see what you think... I think it's very nice for slightly more money.

If you can wait until July to buy this system, and scare up an extra $40-45 in the process... you can get a Q6600 for $266 and won't need to upgrade that for a very long time.

As for a hard drive, I really like the look of this Seagate Barracuda It's 320GB 7200 RPM 3.0Gb/s SATA. Not sure how crucial the 10k rpm was to you... but at $79.99 this should be hard to say no to. For $159.98 you could have two and RAID them. (I think) Here are a few more specs on this hard drive: Cache = 16MB // Average Seek Time = 8.5ms // Average Write Time = 10ms // Average Latency = 4.16ms

Other than that, if you want to cut a little more cost you could look at this case it's not as pretty necessarily, but looks like it would get the job done nicely.

Keep in mind like I said, I'm by no means an expert... I just felt the need to throw in my $0.02

Happy hunting ^_^

I suggest waiting for the processor until July, pricing being what it is and such. As for future upgrades, me I am going for the 8800 GTX Card but the GTS is not bad either, I am figuring it would be better to put the money on the Graphics card at this time because with a board like that you can go SLI and buy a second graphics card later, when the come down in price, and get a whole lot of bang for your buck. This way you will make use of your current card purchase now and not lose the money, with a CPU when you replace you pretty much lose the money on, that is unless you resell it. As for CPU, major changes over the next 12 - 18 months, in terms of pricing and such, I would bet you are going to upgrade later for sure, put the money on the graphics card, or at least that is my bet.

You really out to get 2 gigs of ram, especially since you don't appear to be skimping on this build

July 22, Q6600, P5N32-E SLI Plus, 2 GB of RAM, 8800 GTS 320 MB.

Ditch the Raptor, your money is much better spent on a better CPU or GPU or more RAM. Get a 500 GB Seagate 7200.10 instead, it's cheaper and 3 times bigger and less noisy and not that much slower. The Raptors make a lot more sense in RAID anyway, not alone.

I hadn't really thought much on the harddrive but I have read that running two of the 500G drives in RAID 0 can get you almost the same exact, if not better in some cases, performance. Check out the article done in Jan 06 on THG.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/16/2007-hdd-rundown...

On the other hand, if you don't like using a RAID 0 on your OS then I don't see a problem with just going with a 500 drive anyway, the performance gains on the Raptor aren't bad, but at the current HD drive costs and the cost per Gbites anymore, buying a Raptor is becoming harder and harder to justify.

Oh boy, where to start........you're showing a Striker and a RaptorX, but then you show 2x512 of RAM and a 7900GS?!?! Dude, I don't know where to begin.  

Ok, here's the nutshell version:

-Get a cheaper mobo
-get 2 x 1024 RAM
-get an 8800GTS 320
-get 2 Barracudas in RAID 0, or a single regular Raptor (I'd do RAID 0 plus a storage drive for data security because you'll be bawling your eyes out when a drive craps out and you lost ALL your data, never to be retrieved. Trust me, been there done that)
-and if budget is tight, drop the 6600 down to a 4300 if you have to, you won't notice any serious differences unless you do alot of video encoding, Photoshop, 3D rendering, and so forth.

Your money will be much better placed in a balanced system. Otherwise, you'll cry when you see that the Striker and 6600 does NOTHING for your gaming and you could got a kickA$$ vid card instead and have more fun overall.

Skyguy = correct. 2gig of ram is a must nowadays. Striker Extreme = overpriced, especially since there are better mobo's for much less!. Check out any of the new P35 series motherboards.

As a matter of fact, Tom's just released a comparison on some of them. P35 DDR-2 Motherboards compared Do yourself a favor and get one of these, and save the $ for better HD or an 8800GTS 320mb.

My advice would be to get a p35 mobo, one HDD (get another later), and spend what you saved on the 8800GTS 320mb.  

I would echo most of what is said, I have to second getting the better graphics card, and certainly change MoBos, for what you are going for I suggest getting something a little less high end, here is a board, good ratings, almost 100.00 less. (I am considering this myself)

Link for EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

As stated earlier, you may want to drop the raptor, the cost to justify it is hard if you can put it into a good graphics card.

Remember, in the end though you have to be happy with what you buy.

Would go with G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit $104.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

As others have mention, its better to go with 2 Segate 320gb Sata HD in Raid 0 then a single Raptor. Performace is about the same, for lower costs and more capacity.

There are better mobo's out there for lower price, Evga 680i is one.

Would also go for a better graphic card, but if you are on a budget the 7900 would do for now, but would suggest going with EVGA card. Since they have Lifetime warranty and also they have a Step-Up program for their graphic cards from 90 days of when you purchase it.

Hope this helped out some.

Okay, Step-Up program, I must admit I didn't know about this, can you elaborate on the details.

Otherwise, in light of not understanding the Step-Up program, push for the 8800GTS or 8800GTX if possible....

http://www.evga.com/stepup/default.asp

Buy an EVGA card. Register it. Within 90 days of purchase, you can step-up to a better card and just pay the difference. Return your original card, and get a newer, better one.

 

Thanks,

Not a bad program, in short, it sounds like they give me the current retail value of my card, the one I would be trading in, and applies that to the new card I would like to step up to. Not bad, saves me the hassle of reselling my card for ideally less money. A good program for sure.