ohk so the thread title was a little lame, but i wanted to get your attention. Ive been posting on a forum that i usually post on and havnt got much of a reply. I go on Tom's site everyday so i thought i should post on the forum everyone here seems to help out pretty quickly
 
Ive had a laptop for the past year (Asus F3Jv) and its not bad but a bit slow gaming which i've finally had enough of, that and my dad has offered to buy my laptop for $1000. So new rig time.
This is what i had in mind.
 
Budget roughly AU$2500, would like to spend less if possible
 
Useage; gaming, music, web, normal stuff
 
Australian $$
 
Case: Antec Nine Hundred $157
PSU: Corsair HX 620W $159
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P $169
CPU: Q6600 $295
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 $79
RAM: Patriot 2x2GB PDC24G6400LLK $189
GFX Card: Gainward 8800GT 512Mb $319
Hard Drives: 2x Samsung 500GB HD501LJ $240
Sound card: Creative X-fi Extreme gamer $125
Speakers: Logitech z5500 $407
Optical Drive: Sony AD7200S0B DVD burner $44
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit $155
 
Total with shipping ~~ $2400
 
What do you think?
Few questions...
 
1.  Is there a great real world performance gain from Raid0?
 
2.  Should i go for the q6600 or for a 8400? i do game alot but i was really thinking ahead because i want this build to last a while its not as if the q6600 will be bottlenecking the game performace at 1680x1050 will it?
where i am both processors cost about the same
 
3.  if i scrap the second hard drive i will be able to afford the 8800GTS
Would this be a better option???
 
Thank you for your help.
 
edit: oh and i already have a 22" 1680x1050 monitor and a keyboard and mouse

How much is AU$ per 1 US$ btw?
 
Anyway:
 
1. Raid0, for gaming I think no. TBH I didnn't try it myself. Actually I'm thinking to do Raid0, but some people said it won't benefit much unless I'm doing such HDD extensive things, like rendering, ripping, conversion etc. So I cancel out ..
 
2. OK, here's my thought: Q6600 is quad core (yeah) but E8400 have more speed. If I'm thinking to upgrade in one year time, E8400 is better. But if not, Q6600 is more future seeing
 
3. Yes, 8800GTS is better if you can afford it I think it will suite your 22" better. And IMO 1 500GB is enough, unless back to question no 1 (Raid0?)
 
anyway, your speaker is really expensive .. Is it 7.1? Why not ALTEC? Altec is better, hehehe . Nevermind, I'm an ALTEC fanboy ..

Scrap the second hard drive for sure and get another for your birthday...  
 
I just went thru the same delimma over purchasing the Q6600 or the E8400.  I went back and forth debating the pros and cons of both.  
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] 6600-e8400
 
The facts seem to be that you can get more from the E8400 now in most appliations but those that can actually utilize more than two cores the the Q6600 literally obliterates the E8400.  I would hate to purchase a chip and a few months or so down the road have the other chip anhialating mine due to multi core support so I decided to stay with the Q6600.
 
It seems this is what you have to ask yourself:
 
Do you want top performance now with the mindset to upgrade in the not so near future anyway?  Answer: E8400
 
Do you want to try and hold out due to possible budget constraints and the idea to use your quite powerful cpu until multi core programs are release?  Answer: Q6600
 
Both are great chips and will do you great service no doubt.  If you are a gamer, Half Life 2 Episode 2 is coming out this year and will utilize the quad core architecture.  A few more titles will follow.
 
You may be upgrading again before any of the cons are an issue and if thats so then flip a coin if you cant decide yourself.  
 
Hope that helps!

i was just reading you thread actually, what did you decide in the end??
I think ill go for the q6600, i dont think it is really going to hamper my gaming at all and should last a while
 
Yeah i think ill just get the single 500GB and get the 8800GTS
 
The Logitech Z5500's are nice speakers (5.1), ive seen and heard them set up before. They are 505W RMS very powerful. I used to have the z2300 which is basically the 2.1 version of these, i loved them.... until they blew up when i was overseas just 1 week out of warranty.....but still im sure that was just a freak accident..... i think i left them plugged in and there was a surge or something.
 
Well thanks for your comments (much quicker than the other unnamed forum..... its still a great forum though)
 
does anyone have any other recomendations/changes i should make????

I went with the Q6600.  It was best for me in regards to seeing some interesting games coming out and I think in the long run it will pay off.  The E8400 would still be a nice choice and most likely would have served well.
 
After seeing some of the benchmarks between these two chips when using multi core software made the decision for me.  There was no comparrison.
 
I am unfamilliar with the conversion rate between AU and US.  I also think there are different markets that AU is limited to as far as local shops.  I dont know this for sure but have read some other posts that implied that.
 
You definitely will have a sweet rig when you are done.
 
I have the Logitech Z-5300 series speakers and they rock!  I can only imagine how those will sound...

505W RMS? Hell yeah, that's powerfull. Dunno what my Altec wattage though? Mine is Altec 5100, 5.1, and I'm realy satisfied with it. Already use it for 3 years now. It seems to me that speaker is more personal favor/taste. Somebody can say X is better, and the other can say Y is better
 
I like this forum since we can throw all noob question without being flamed and have a good response, unlike some other forum. Hope it will stay like this
 
For processor, yeah go for 6600 . . It will be fine
 
GL with your new system then ...

The Altec 5100 is 73W RMS
 
ohk well ill probably go ahead swap out the 8800GT for a GTS get rid of one of the 500GB and buy the thing

There is generally no real world(vs. synthetic transfer rate benchmarks) performance advantage to raid of any kind.    
Go to www.storagereview.com  at this link:  http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki- [...] iveVsRaid0
  There are some specific applications that will benefit, but
gaming is not one of them.   Even if you have an application which reads one input file sequentially, and writes
it out, you will perform about as well by putting the input on one drive, and the output on the other.
Start with one good hard drive, and just add another when it fills up.
 
At the level of Q6600 or E8400, the vga card power is the critical gaming factor, not the cpu.  
With few exceptions, current games can't take advantage of more than two cores.  
flight simulator X is an exception).
For the same price, about $270, you can get a Q6600 2.4 or a E8400 3.00 for $240.  
It makes more sense to me to take advantage of the higher clock speed of the duo cpu.  
In addition, the new Exxx cpu's are  supposed to be 10% faster in games clock for clock than their predecessors.
They will take less power, and run cooler.   Indications are that they will overclock higher and easier.
 
Onboard sound is very good these days.  I would try it first,  It is easy to add a sound card later.  I think it would be better to spend those $ on a better vga card.  
 
---good luck---

Wow 505W RMS is >>>> 73W RMS (that's owning ...). Hell yeah, my Altec is really not in the same class as yours  
 
Geofelt >> nice post, nice info. Been looking for some info on it. I'm bookmarking your link. Thanks. Overall, I agree with your opinion, esp. on onboard sound. Well, he's going for high end 5.1 speaker tho So why not high end sound card as well But yeah, it's better to give it a try for onboard first. If you're unsastisfied, then add separate card later on. I did this, and I say that I'm pretty satisfied with onboard.

go with q6600 as stated before CPU isn't going to make the difference video card is for gaming. And in other day to day things q6600 going to win. Need to convert some video or mp3 into a different format, wins hand down. Or download filing for torrent app., website websurf, and run scan disk in background, q6600 all the way.

It looks like you are covered with advice. I say Q6600 and free OC to 3G/1333 easy and cool w/ the Ultra120. Don't forget the CPU HS fan. I suggest the Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm Fan. It's a US link, it's for info purposes only.

go with sammy F1 HD.

You can't compare USD to AUD - they are very close to each other at the moment (1 AUD currently buying 0.945USD).
However prices are not relative. I really hate seeing the "go 8gb and 64bit" articles where they say RAM is cheap since here it is not....

I say go 2GB and XP home. How's that?

Meh ... XP 2GB 32bit vs Vista 4GB 64bit again? Pretty famous problem actually ...  
 
See this thread: pretty long discussion about it ..
 
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] 1300-build

I don't care, I will buy the DRM Vista POS when I am forced. 2GB works for me.

thanks for the extra advice guys, all very helpful. Yeah i almost forgot the fan for the Heatsink, ill have a look the scythe.
Ill probably see how onboard goes like you guys said and go from there.
Again thanks for all the help

it's up to you, your call
 
Actually I myself using 2GB under WinXP, it's still running fine. The idea to get Vista with DirectX 10 is tempting, but for all the headache of backward compatibilities and so on and so on ... Nah, not worth the time and money for me now .. If i'm building from scratch with no copies of Windows, yes I will go for Vista either 64 or 32 nvm ... But for the one who already got XP, I don't think it's worth enough to upgrade for now .. . eSpecially just to get 4GB boost .. This 4GB advantage to 2GB still overrated today ...

i would have to agree that there isnt a great deal of advantage from 2-4Gb (even though im getting 4Gb) its just that i want to have this computer last for a while and do as little upgrades as possible. But for right now 2gb is fine. I have 2gb and vista on my laptop now and it works quite well.

Ya, go for 4GB if you want and you can afford, I mean taht you're not pushing your budget ..  
 
For the "last long hardware", I'm praying for it (for both of our system). I'm just building a new system 3 months ago. Hoping it to last 2 years at least with as little as upgrade. I'm spending too much money for computers (one computer and one laptop at the same month) .. *sigh ...  well, but it's inevitable since my wife needs one for her work (our laptop just blew up 2 weeks after we bought a new computer) ..