Looking for advice....

[Algeva]

HI all. I'm looking a building a new machine to be ready for a LAN i'm going to at the end of Feb. Traditionally I have the worst PC there so would be nice to have the best performing one for a change!!

What I'm after is some advice of what I should be looking at getting. I'm aiming to order stuff towards the end of the Jan (or before if I find a good deal) to give time for stuff to arrive and to build.

Use: Mainly going to be a gaming machine (Supreme Commander, Crysis, COD4, UT, EVE, GuildWars, plus new stuff) will do some media stuff with it as well but nothing a decent machine won't be able to handle... I'm looking for some future proofing as I'll want it to last for at least 3 years with minimal upgrades...
Possibly looking to do some simple OC'ing on CPU and graphics but nothing extreme as I've never OC'd before!

Monitor: Samsung SM2032MW 20" LCD TV/Monitor - gaming at 1680 x 1050 - currently have a separate TV which I want to get rid of.

Mobo: ??? Have been reading up and am really confused on what I should get here!! (something to help with idiot proof OCing!! )

CPU: Thinking of q6600

CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS 9700 LED

RAM: 2gb or 4gb ??

Graphics: thinking of 8800GTS g92 512mb (would love to go SLI but don't think I can afford it)

Case: Not bothered about it looking flash just solid (for LAN's) with good thermals... any recommendations?

Sound Card: Is it worth it or should I just use onboard sound? Mainly play/listen via headphones

PSU: Currently have a 500W Ultra PSU but not sure if i'll need to upgrade this based on possible spec

OS: should I go with 32/64bit? XP or Vista?

Budget for this is in the region of £1000


All comments/suggestion/ideas most gratefully excepted.

 

[rgeist554]

Motherboard: GA-P35-DS3L (If you're on a tight budget) go with a GA-P35-DS4 if you need firewire or some more features.

CPU: Q6600 is fine if you want a quad, just make sure you find a G0 stepping (sometimes called "Power Efficient" version or something) so you can OC it a little easier.

CPU Cooler: Fine. Other good ones are the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro or the TR120 Extreme.

RAM: If you're going for a 64 bit OS, then you may as well go with 4GB. (Go with 2 sticks of 2GB so you save space on your motherboard)

Graphics: Just go with a single 8800GTS 512MB. It will be more than enough to handle your 1680x1050 resolution.

Case: I usually recommend the Antec 900, but it's like 50lbs when loaded... so it wouldn't be very easy to carry around to LANs... (I guess it would give you some exercise lugging it around though ) Maybe take a look at the Coolermaster Stacker - It's all aluminum with plenty of cooling options.

Sound Card: Depends on your tastes / sound system. If you just have cheapy headphones / speakers. Don't bother... If you have some decent speakers, then it is really cool playing a gaming with sounds you never new it had before. (You can try an Creative X-Fi Gamer card if you're interested - I think I got mine for under $70)

PSU: Assuming you go with a single graphics card setup, then you'll only need 450-550W with decent Amperes on the +12v rail. (Quality brands are: OCZ, Seasonic, Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, and others tier 3 and up on this list: http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Tiered+PSU+Listings?t=anon )

OS: Vista is about the same price as XP, but XP is more stable and compatible. That being said... if you don't need the extra features in Vista (which is mainly eye candy) then just stick with XP. As for 32bit vs. 64 bit - 64 bit will support 4GB+ of RAM and be a little more speedy in 64 bit applications, but it sometimes runs into compatibility issues and requires all hardware to have 64 bit drivers. If you want a no fuss computer, then just go 32 bit for now and upgrade when more software becomes designed for it.

 

[Algeva]

Would it be worth waiting and going for one of the new wolfdale chips like the E8400?

I was thinking about the quad core really from a future proof aspect. But since there's not loads of stuff that fully utilises all 4 core I could wait until next year and then up grade to the new 45nm quad cores...