mainly concerned about the motherboard, it should work with a bios flash but this one pc needs to last a while and a might as well get a good board with everything else so can anyone suggest a good board under about $300? and a good monitor under $400?
I used that PSU in my build and I think it's older than the VX, and just because it's modular doesn't mean it's better Corsair also admits the single 12V rail design on the VX which is much better. The 550VX also has a rebate on it bringing it down to $85 after MIR and buy.com has better deals on PSUs anyway but it's easier to buy from the same place.
Seperate drives offers more performance but first off those are Seagates which in synthetics do rather well but from what I have seen in real world benchmarks they are slower, just read a review on a 7200.11 they slowed down in some cases. Both of those drives together only total 640GB or about ~600GB after format and the 7500AAKS has loads of performance as it should be the PMR drive released by Western Digital.
A case is more by the tastes of the end user and I have one as well.. a little fun with the fans and it gets plenty of airflow and is also cheaper and runs pretty quiet 24/7 I know for sure.
Excellent build, almost the same as mine. I used the GIGABYTE P35 DS3L motherboard. You need to flash it in order for it to work with the E8400 though.
It looks like a great build, but i have some recomendations:
1-Thermal Compund:I prefer this thermal compund:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835186020 It worked great for me, it is not conductive, and doesn't need a break in
No SLi is too much cost and not enough performance to make up for it. Went with a 24" Acer 1920X1200 and this is just about making it last a while.. my friend doesn't buy parts often so just one that will last a while that is sorta cheap. Also got an OEM 2005 Media Center (it's not Vista so it's fine) and I have a question about it.. will we need SATA drivers on install of XP?
