Building primarily for gaming, photoshop, and media streaming to my living room. Here is what I have so far:

ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131182

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115037

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146565

EVGA 640-P2-N829-A3 GeForce 8800GTS SSC 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130305

OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI ATX12V 600W Power Supply 100 - 240 V CB/CE/CSA/UL/FCC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341001

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835186134

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136131

SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache PATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151155

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119137

Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support 300 cd/m2 700:1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009094

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 w/SP2B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116049

Suggestions on better or more cost effective alternatives would be greatly appreciated. As I stated, this is my first build, so I have tried to do my research, but I have no experience behind my choices. I have also considered the 8800GT, but the slant seems to be towards the 8800GTS for cooling reasons.

The monitor seems almost too good to be true, in terms of price, so any feedback on that would be great. Resolution is 1680x1050, and I am concerned I may outgrow my videocard too quickly as new games come out. I could go with a 19" instead (res 1440x900), but bigger is always better if I can get away with it.

I am torn on the operating system as well. It seems like a lot of people are running Vista, which up until this
point I have heard to avoid like the plague. The only reason I see to choose Vista is DX10, and I am just not sure it is worth it for that. If I did go Vista I would go 64-bit, but once again, I think I would probably be better off upgrading the OS later once some more of the bugs get worked out.

I had considered a 780i chipset, but I don't intend to add another card anytime soon, and by the time I do I figure I will probably be better off just replacing the card rather than going SLI. Correct me if I am wrong here.

Let me know. Thanks.

I would go with many drives than one big drive. Maybe one 250GB drive for OS, games and photoshop and another 500GB for media streaming.

I had considered going with a 500GB RAID array, would that be fast enough, or am I still better off going with a 250 or smaller for the OS?

No RAID, one drive for OS and apps, one drive for data and paging file. 250/500 should be fine. Get XP Pro. You can skip the Artic Cooler unless you are going to be seriously overclocking. For the video card you want the 8800 G92, either the GT or GTS. Your link was to a discontinued card. You could save a little on the ram.

I don't think RAID is better.

Thank you. I was going to be severely saddened if no one suggested against the G80 640MB GTS. >_<

To OP: As nhobo said, change the graphics card to an 8800GTS 512MB (G92). It's cheaper than the 640MB / 320MB older, G80 card, and will leave it in the dust in terms of performance.

I'll also say that I don't think RAID is worth the trouble. Unless you need RAID 1 for redundancy, avoid it all together.

The monitor seems good on paper, but I can't say anything for certain about Acer. I just haven't heard enough about them to formulate an opinion yet.

Ok, if you have XP already, then just stay with it and upgrade later. Vista doesn't really offer up anything fantastic besides DX10 (but even this has it's downfalls - ex. HUGE performance hits). 64bit is only going to cause trouble w/o really providing any notable performance increase... (It will allow your PC to full see 4GB of RAM, but you're only going with 2... so this doesn't immediately benefit you)

To sum things up: Stay with XP if you've got it. If not, go for Vista 32 bit Home Premium (or Ultimate) and change to 64 bit once the driver / software support gets up-to-par. I believe the 64 bit upgrade for Vista is like $10, so it's not really going to cost much when you want to upgrade.

Yeah, just avoid Nvidia chipsets. Some of the chipsets are really annoying w/ Sata optical drives atm... it will cause some to be able to write but not read... read but no write... etc. Also, at the 1680x1050 res... you're borderline high resolution, so I would agree that a card replacement would probably give you a better boost than an extra card.

Thanks for the feedback, it sounds like my hard drive decision is made. Why XP Pro vs Media Center? I am still fuzzy on the difference between XP Pro and XP Home. I believe the current version of Media Center is based on XP Home, correct me if I am wrong.

Any thoughts on the monitor or whether or not to worry about getting an SLI motherboard?

media center is for home users, ie home premium of vista, while xp pro has better networking and business features...

Applications will work just as well on XP Home as on XP Pro.
Updates and patches should work equally on both.
XP Pro mainly offers business level networking / security services. (Domains, IIS, web servers, better NTFS security properities, remote desktop, etc.)

I think you get a longer support period on XP Pro as well, but other than that they are almost identical. /shrug

rgeist554, thanks for the thorough reply. I think I will stay with XP, just one less thing to deal with since this is my first build. It sounds like RAID is definately out, which also just makes my life easier. I have read elsewhere that the Nvidia chipsets seem to have...issues, but it sounds like I can avoid that as well.

On the videocard, are there any brands that I should watch out for or is really just a matter of personal preference? There is at a least a $50 spread between manufacturers, although some of that is whether or not the card is overclocked.

I had thought to overclock, but that is something else I haven't done before, so I don't know if I am going with way overkill on these parts or not. With things like the CPU cooler, I had thought that the worst case would be a cooler case, which couldn't hurt. Although, it is nice to know that I may not need that if I want to trim the budget down some.

That's a very nice setup.

The Asus motherboard, at $200, doesn't sound so tempting. aBit IP35Pro at $150 and GA-P35-DS4 at $180 look better to me. They also get better user ratings. (57% love the P5K Deluxe at newegg, 70% the IP35Pro, 73% the DS4). Of course, if WiFi matters to you, the Asus may be worth it. Why don't you compare features at newegg and see.

Excellent choice of CPU, RAM, HDD (WD7500AAKS ), cooler, case.

I'd get a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610W for $130 instead of the GameXStream for $109 (both prices after rebates and shipping), but the GameXStream is pretty good too.

Get a SATA burner, e.g. SH-S203N (or SH-S203B if you don't need LightScribe).

If you play Flight Simulator X get a Q6600. For all other games E8400 is perfect.

Media Center is OK, especially if you add a TV tuner. I use it myself. There are some issues with nVidia's drivers for it, but minor. For example PowerDVD can't play a movie on a monitor while I play a DirectX game full-screen on another. You probably won't care, of course.

Right, forget SLI, it's not worth it. If you really want two video cards use ATI cards and an X38 mobo, because at least Crossfire is more efficient than SLI. Also, I'm not happy with 780i mobos and Penryn, bad combo for now AFAIK.

Video card: the 8800GTS G92 512MB, HD 3870X2, 8800GTX are your best choices. The eVGA 8800GTX at newegg is only $420 after rebate, which makes it a good deal IMO. The HD3870X2 beats the 8800GTX in most games, but not all, and it costs more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814143119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130072
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161224

I'm rather torn between the 8800GTS G92 at $280 and the 8800GTX at $420. At lower resolutions paying $140 more for the GTX is a waste. At higher resolutions you'd benefit a lot in games like Crysis for example. The HD 3870X2 is the best of these 3 very often, but in some games it will be the worst because those games don't support Crossfire properly (yet) and the X2 is internally made of two 3870s in Crossfire.

I'm not a big fan of Acer monitors (I use LG, Samsung and Viewsonic these days and love them all) but that particular model gets good ratings. I like that they included the DVI cable too. Good price. Yeah, go for it.

XFX and EVGA are my personal favorites. They've both got lifetime warranties for people in the US and offer bonuses. XFX allows for overclocking and modding of the stock HSF, while EVGA lets you "step up". That means you can upgrade to a better card within 90 days of the original purchase.

From what I heard, the C2D's are very OC'er friendly and that stock cooling can handle moderate overclocks while keeping everything cool.

aevm, thanks for the feedback. WiFi doesn't matter to me on this PC, so I will check out those other motherboards. Is the PC Power & Cooling Silencer quieter, or just better quality, or both? The only reason I hadn't chosen the SATA burner was because I thought it might cause problems with the RAID setup, but now that I don't plan to do RAID, I wll definately go with it. I had been looking at a 19" Samsung monitor that was supposed to be of good quality, but then I found this Acer for the same price at 22". It is very tempting, especially since it does get such good reviews.

I had heard about the "step up" option, but hadn't heard who exactly offered it. Good information once again, thanks.