Ironically I SHOULD BE on a tight budget, I was not going to spend ANY money at all, but my laptop died on me (never ever getting a dell laptop again, thats my 2nd one that seem to have a time bomb on it and fail 1 month after warranty runs out). So all of a sudden I have to quickly build a new system. But you know, 20$ is 20$, I was just doing my research and this question came to my mind. Thx for the input.
So obviously, since I wasn't prepared to be building this system, all of a sudden I have to do this research, and I'm a value shopper, which is why I asked the question, even though its only $20. It matters to me.
And over night (last night I stayed up till 4 in the morning - notice when I added the post) I have read through 20+ threads, 10+ articles and reviews on what is the most value for performance setup, and its pretty obvious every agree mostly on the following:
E8400
ASUS p5Q pro
radeon 4850
DDR2 800 4GB
WD 640GB 7200rpm hd
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283
and then everyone have opinion about cases and PSU and mine are something along the lines of the following, which are more expensive than I'd like already.
PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP
And after reading so many posts, and realizing that 80% of them talk about the same builds and components, I am amazed that you guys have the patience. Respect for that.
Ironically this one is turning into yet another one of those : )
Because I'm just about to ask, especially towards Zenmaster, would the E5200 be a better choice for a $ per performance setup, and does that fit the rest of the system? Or would a E8400 still make more sense for this build?
And 1 more thing. I had vista on my laptop, and I learned to hate it. I was planning to put XP on my new system, but then after reading around I am starting to have second thoughts. If vista is going to run so much better for these new components, I may consider trying TINY VISTA - a tweaked version that apparently removed all the annoying bits of the OS (I love Tiny XP). Any advice on the OS for this system?
And Finally, I do plan to OC, but I have never before, and would like to play with that for once. Will this setup allow me to OC as a beginner?
Best regards.