Need help finalizing parts, mostly mobo help

[prslol]

Hey looking for help mostly with choosing a mobo for my comp.

This is what I have its basically complete and has a mobo selected but I'm not at all sure with it.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=11556027

My friend picked a mobo for me but said he wasn't really sure at all about mobo's right now and to ask someone more knowledgible before going through with buying it.

Anyways I'm looking for a good midrange priced mobo 100-150. SLI would be nice but it doesn't matter to me (dunno if the powersupply would even be enough for sli anyways) that much. I'm not really worried about DDR3 either. I looked at a few boards for giga/asus/msi but I'm not really sure on which one the only one I was concerned about was one of the asus boards only had 1 sata plug/port.

Also is the power supply I picked fine for this system?

For a heatsink I was just looking for something that would drop my temp about 10c and be fairly quiet and not too large. Is this a good choice or is there a better option?

and lastly I was stuck deciding between the XFX 8800GTS 512mb and the EVGA version. Both seem to be a little OC'd from the stock 8800GTS 512 however the XFX comes with CoD4 which I was planning on buying anyways so I figured I'd save myself like 40 bucks since I heard XFX gets good reviews as well. Is this worth the extra bit of money I save or does the EVGA perform better?

 

[shadowduck]

That motherboard is just fine. Not top of the line, but a good middle of the road board. If you want top end with full 45nm/FSB1600 support for betting overclocking look at the X38/X48 boards. This will double the price of your board however. It all depends on what you deem important.

SLI is a waste of money. Skip it unless you want to game on 30" LCD or above resolutions of 1920x1200.

PSU is just fine, really a little overkill. Corsair VX550 will serve you just fine. But get the one you picked as long as has the huge rebate on it.

Your choice on the video card. If you want the game get the XFX.

 

[prslol]

Alright cool. I think I might drop down to 320gb hd which will save me a little money and maybe I'll go with that psu if its cheaper. That will give me a little more room to spend on a mobo gonna check out the ones you suggested now.

thanks for your input.

 

[aevm]

That's actually a VERY nice list. [:mousemonkey:5]

Get the WD3200AAKS or the WD6400AAKS, they are faster than the WD5000AAKS.

The x38/x48 motherboards cost a lot more than the GA-EP35-DS3R (say, $80 more or worse). They give you some advantages, but your setup won't benefit from most of them. E.g. Crossfire is useless with an nVidia card, PCI-E 2.0 is not really needed by the 8800GTS. The higher fsb helps when overclocking, but you can still overclock the E8400 to 3.6GHz with the GA-EP35-DS3R.

 

[B-Unit]

Id take a look at this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127325 MSI is a solid brand, and it has a nice rebate right now.

 

[aevm]

And The Witcher is a great game too If you're not into RPGs you can give it to somebody else for a birthday or Christmas.

 

[prslol]

alright I changed some things around a bit.

I switched the Lian Li PC-61 seems like a slightly better case and it had a combo deal with a PSU.

The PSU is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151027

Just want to make sure that its fine.

Also switched to the faster HD.

Anyways I got a bit extra now to spend on a mobo. I checked out some of the Asus's P5K's and I'm wondering if any of these will allow me to OC better than the Gigabyte and which one I should go with if they will.

Asus P5K-E
Asus P5KC
Asus P5K Pro
Asus P5K EPU
saw the P5N but that looks like just an SLI deal.

Also saw some Abits that look similar. Iunno maybe I'm thinking too much into this I just don't want to regret spending the extra 20-30 bucks if I end up getting into OC'ing my comp.

I notice the EPU can handle higher FSB dunno if that means anything. I'm guessing if anything the "Pro" might oc the best as they tend to tag things with Pro in the pc world when refering to stuff for gamers.

Thanks for the help so far I appreciate it.

 

[aevm]

I'd stay away from Asus mobos for now. There's a scandal going on with Gigabyte and some independent reviewers accusing them of lying on the mobo specs. Wait until the truth comes out, it's safer.

Seasonic makes great PSUs, good choice. The Silencer you picked originally was designed by Seasonic too, btw.