Planning new build... Please comment.

[Chronozon]

This is the new machine I'm planning on putting together within the next month or two. Nothing here is final, so I'd like to hear what you guys think or if there are any problems with these parts working together. I will not be overclocking, but I am going to use it for gaming (hopefully running at 1600x1200 at least, with some AA/AF enabled). Also, if possible I'd like it to be somewhat cool and quiet.

Case: Antec P182
Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-620HXEU 620W
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 Ver 2.0
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3,0GHz
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme + Noctua NF-P12 120mm
RAM: Corsair XMS2 Xtreme DDR2 800MHz CL4 2x1GB
Video Card: Asus GeForce Extreme 8800GTS 512MB
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Hard Drives: 2x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 16MB 320GB
DVD-Writer: Samsung SH-S203D SATA
Keyboard: Razer Lycosa
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder

For the moment I will be keeping my Dell 2001FP monitor. I'm also not ready to go Vista yet, so I'll be running XP Pro on this machine. I'm planning on upgrading some of these parts within a year or so, specifically the video card (after GT200/RV770 have been released) and the CPU/motherboard (after Nehalem has been released). I want most of the other parts to last me a while. The 620W PSU is in preparation for whatever monster video cards they'll be coming up with later.

A couple other points... I'm not interested in running SLI/Crossfire. And I'm probably not going to get Vista until it's necessary to have more than 2GB RAM while playing games, at which point I'll get 4GB and 64-bit Vista. I know I could get 64-bit XP, but at that time it will probably feel more natural to just take the step to Vista anyway.

So... Comments? Questions?

 

[EXT64]

Looks good. I'm glad you didn't skimp on the Power Supply (those Corsairs are supposed to be really nice). Only concern is that it may be hard to find an 8400, but if you are in no rush I guess that isn't an issue. I also like the MB brand.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I'd look at the TomsHardware CPU charts.....seems the Thermalright IFX-14 is the king of the hill right now.

Everything else looks pretty evenly matched as far as state of the art goes except for the old WD HD's. I'd opt for a single 750 GB Seagate 7200.11 before I'd do two WD's. About the same price too but you get an extra 110 GB with the one Seagate. I'd be willing to bet that the single Barracuda would be faster in gaming even if the WD's were in RAID 0.

http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0

If you opt for a 1TB model, I'd grab the Samsung F1 as the hi density 330 GB platters in this drive are even faster than the 7200.11 But not all F1's have the hi density platters.....It would seem only the 320 GB, 640 MB and 1 TB models have the hi density platters as the math don't work with the 500 and 750 GB models.

As I posted in another thread, the three most recent WD HD's in storagereview.com's reliability survey had the 3 WD models "more reliable than 4%, 5% and 12% of all other drives in the survey". That means 96%, 95% and 88% of other drives were more reliable.

http://www.storagereview.com/WD1500ADFD.sr?page=0%2C9
"According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, the Western Digital Raptor WD1500 is more reliable than 12% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation."

http://www.storagereview.com/WD7500AAKS.sr?page=0%2C6
"According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, a predecessor of the Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS, the Western Digital RE2 WD5000YS , is more reliable than 4% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation."

http://www.storagereview.com/1000.sr?page=0%2C7
"According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, a predecessor of the Western Digital Caviar GP, the Western Digital Caviar WD4000KD , is more reliable than 5% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation. "

"According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, a predecessor of the Seagate Barracuda ES.2, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 , is more reliable than 43% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation."