New system before college, could use some help

[bryanf445]

Well its been awhile but I've made some decent money this summer working and its time to get a new comp before college starts. So here goes. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Motherboard- $150 Currently I am looking at this. But I would love if someone can suggest and show me a 680i motherboard for around ~150. If not Ill probably just end up getting this
MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU ~$300- With the price cuts coming july 22nd I am fairly confident I want to stick with the Q6600. For the 300 dollar range I feel that this is a good choice. The E6850 caught my eye since its at 3ghz but I'm fairly confident I'll be able to overclock my 2.4ghz Q6600 to the 3ghz+ range with my nice heatsink (see below)

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562Q6600

Heatsink ~$50 from various sites- Thermal Right 120-ultra. Pretty simple choice here. One of the best air coolers on the market. Says I should be able to hit 3.4ghz fairly easy

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler

Memory $125- I'm going for the patriot because it got great reviews, its pretty cheap, and people say that it overclocks well. If anyone else has a better suggestion for the close price range let me know. Thanks.

Patriot eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Hard drive $75- Not much to say here.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Video Card $280- Decided to go with the 320 MB 8800gts. I liked what I say in benchmarks and it seems like it will fit me well.

EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card

PSU $140- Not really sure what I should get but I hear OCZ are good.

OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply

Estimated Total- ~$1200

Ill eventually find a case I like, so no worries about that yet. So thats pretty much it. If anyone can help me out that would be great.

 

[gators1223]

this evga is an ok 680i mobo for $150, it has sli, none of the little features like onboard firewire though http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188019

make sure you get a 1333fsb and g0 stepping q6600 after 7/22

if you get that heat sink you also have to get a 120 mm fan, also look into the tuniq tower http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835154001

also look at crucial ballistix, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565

for the psu look at the silverstone strider 750w, a very nice psu, with modular cabling, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256009&Tpk=st75f

i like the sunbeam transformer case, but case is really a matter of personal taste, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811166004

 

[bryanf445]

Thanks for the help. I am going to switch the the ballistix, and the psu. Would it be wise to get that motherboard? I hear the 680i is more future proof and warrants better overclocks. Is that true?

Also, what is g0 stepping?

 

[gators1223]

G0 - its the newest revision of the intel processors, fewer bugs and much faster than the previous revisions and it overclocks much better than previous core 2 duo's

680i mobos are generally know for their overclocking abilities, i don't know about this one in particular, a good "future proof" motherboard would be the gigabyte ga-p35-ds3r, it is known for its overclocking ability and will support penryn and nahelm processors when they come out, because it uses the intel p35 chipset

 

[ben72227]

I agree with gators1223 - you're obviously going for a budget build, and IMHO getting an SLI mobo is silly for a $1200 computer.

The P35 mobos will be able to run DDR3 RAM as well as the Penryn processors from Intel - much more upgradable and 'future proof' than an 680i mobo IMHO.

 

[bryanf445]

Ok I'm going with that p35 motherboard. Looks pretty nice and the people who bought it said it overclocks nicely which I'm looking forward to. Thanks for all the great help. If anyone else sees anything else that they think could be improved upon just let me know thanks.