So i am putting together a new computer. I had everything picked out but have since decided to try to cut back on the cost some. Here is what I have so far.

E8400
EVGA 8800GTS (G92) 512MB it is PCI 2.0x16 do i have to use it in a mobo that is 2.0 or can i use it in a regular PCI slot? I was also looking at the EVGA 8800GTS 320MB not gonna be quite as good as the other one but should be just fine for regular gaming.
MOBO any suggetions I have the 780i picked out but feel I can get somthing jsut as good for cheaper.
Western Digital Caviar 500GB 7,200RPM x2
THermatake Purepower 600W
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4gb(2x2) DDR2 800 Any different suggestions for 4gb of RAM?
Vista Ultimate 64Bit Is there any other reason to get 64bit since Ill only be using 4GB of RAM now?\
Planar PX2611 LCD Monitor
Sound card no need to get a sound card if the MOBO already has onboard sound correct? Granted it might not be as good as sound but good enough to live with?

Any advice would be great. I will be using this to game with Crysis, WOW whatever other games I may pick up.ANd jsut general everday use surf internet etc....

Thank You

PCIe 2.0 cards are backwards compatible, so you should be able to use the 8800GTS in a PCIe 1.1 board just fine. Supposedly cards still don't use up all the bandwidth of 1.1, so putting it into a 2.0 slot would give you little to no advantage at this point in time.

Your choice of mobo will depend on what you need it to do. Will you be planning on putting that 8800GTS in SLI in the future? Do you need RAID, firewire, eSATA, etc.? If you answered "no" to all of the above, then the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L or the ABIT IP35-E are the budget boards of choice, with the latter having the price advantage with a $30 rebate. If you are planning to SLI, I think you need an nVidia chipset and a 780i mobo should be fine.

Onboard sound should be fine as long as you aren't some obsessive compulsive audiophile.

Nice monitor. The budget for my new build is even lower than the price of that thing alone...

Thank you I like that monitor also, its sitting at my fathers jsut waiting to be used.

I dont plan on doing SLI
I will put the 2 drives In Raid, possibly a 3rd in raid also all sata drives.

Firwire I wont be needing.

Then you want a good board with raid. DS3R is one of them. Integrated audio has advanced quite a bit. They do 6-8 channels. HD to boot. If you want a sound card, get the best or nothing.

The psu isn't great. Pick out a tier 1/2:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088

Do you overclock?

No i dont plan on overclocking.

^
If you get a P35-DS3L (or similer DS3x motherboard) you can find OCing How To here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] w=0&nojs=0
If you do OC get a better cooler.

For PSU I would recommend a Corsair 450VX/550VX/520HX or PP&C 610. What do you plan for the case?

I have a Lian-Li Classic Series PC-75B for a case. I plan on getting a Zalman for a cooler even if I dont OC.