Hows this gaming rig looking? (< 2000 CA$)

[Mike145]

So im planning to build a new gaming rig pretty soon. I have a family member working with ATI which gets me 50 % of their cards (yay!). My budget is 2000$. So far, these are the parts I've been looking at.

Antec 900 Case - 109.95

Corsair 750W PSU w/ 140mm fan - 114.95

Intel C2Q Q9450 2.66Ghz - 364.95
or
Intel C2Q Q9550 2.83Ghz - 579.85

Intel Desktop Board DX48BT2 w/ DualDDR3 1600, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, 1394, Dual PCI-E x16 CrossFire - 309.95

Patriot - DDR2 4gb (2 x 2gb) - 109.95

SEAGATE- 500gb hard drive - 84.95

Samsung 20X speed plus DVD write - 27.95

2 HD4870 512 mb cards

Vista 64 bit.


Hows this looking so far? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[shadowduck]

Case- good
PSU- Excellent
Q9450- 9550 not worth the $200- overclock.
No No no! Intel boards are rock solid yes- but offer zero overclocking and tweaking options. DDR3 is a complete waste. Look at t he Asus P5Q Pro with the RAM you picked. The board and RAM you have right now WILL NOT work together.

Hard Drive- Fine.
Optical- Excellent drive.
CF 4850 will be amazing, especially at 50% off. Sell me one too
Good OS.

 

[Mike145]

well see the problem is, i dont know how to overclock... and i woudlnt want to wreck something haha. So i dunno if i will be doing it. Alright so 9450 it is. And, i took a look at the Asus p5Q board, looks pretty good, its about 50 dollars cheaper too

 

[shadowduck]

It is so easy a 12 year old can do it. There are lots of guides on these forums on how to O/C.

Unless you completely push it overboard, or put in a stupid number you cannot damage anything. The motherboard will shutdown to prevent it.

 

[wip99gt]

If you're going to crossfire stick with and x38/x48 board.

 

[Mike145]

so with a intel mobo you can't overclock? why not??

 

[shadowduck]

Intel boards don't offer the options. Intel boards are made to run stable systems rock solid and for OEMs, not to overclock or tweak.