New Build, Best Bang for Buck?

[Speirs]

Well I have been planning on building a new gaming PC for a while and I think I've decided on the best bang for buck gaming PC for around €1000/$1600/£800. Here is what I've come up with (with a lot of help of course!):

Case: Antec Solo
PSU: Corsair HX620W
Monitor: Samsung 226CW
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6600 Boxed
Graphics Card: HIS HD 4850, GDDR3 512MB, ATI Radeon HD4850
Memory: 4096MB-Kit GEIL Black Dragon PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL4
Hard Drive: WD Caviar 640GB
Disk Drive: LG GH22LP20
OS: Microsoft Vista 64 Home Premium
Cooler: Arctic Freezer 7 Pro


I am planning on ordering this today, so if I need to change something, can you please let me know? I have been shopping around for a while now, trying to get the best bang for buck rig, constantly changing parts.

So if anyone has any advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Onus]

That is a solid build. The only nit worth picking is that if you buy an OEM optical drive, you won't get software with it, including a decoder needed to watch movies. A Retail version won't cost much more ($5-$7?) but will include the software.

 

[50bmg]

If you ever want to crossfire, you might want to spend a few extra bucks and get an X38 mobo. X38 = 2-16X PCIe.

Otherwise good build. Fine for single video card.

 

[Craxbax]

I would suggest that if this is strictly a gaming rig you consider the E7200. This is the current budget OCing champ and rivals E8400 and E8500s OCing performance. the smaller cache doesn't hurt gaming performance.

 

[evongugg]

You might want a certified PSU:

ATI Radeon HD 4850 System Requirements

450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express® power connector recommended (550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)
Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products.

 

[BobfaceBilly]

If you do decide to stay with the q6600, (or actually this applies to any processor you get) try to get a OEM version. When you say "boxed" I'm assuming that means your looking a buying it retail.

The reason you should try to get a OEM CPU is that they normally have lower VID's compared to ones bought boxed. Thus this makes the OEM's overclock better and stay cooler when overclocked.

 

[theLaminator]

I have an E8400 and would definitely recommend it over the q6600, there aren't many programs out that are optimized for quad core much less games that are.

 

[th_username]

good

 

[theLaminator]

nah i'm running Vista Ultimate 64 with 4Gb of G.Skill Pi series and have had no issues with it. Really it all comes down to preference though

 

[Speirs]

That is a solid build. The only nit worth picking is that if you buy an OEM optical drive, you won't get software with it, including a decoder needed to watch movies. A Retail version won't cost much more ($5-$7?) but will include the software.

Well I checked the retail version, and for some reason it's cheaper. Go figure...

And regarding certified PSU's, the one I have is certified if I'm not mistaken....

And whats this about Crossfire anyways? I know it's two graphics cards and all that, but is it really that much better? And will my computer not be able to support it?

Thanks.

 

[evongugg]

If you want Crossfire you should get a X38 or X48 motherboard.

 

[theLaminator]

Yeah you'll be able to run Crossfire with a p35 but you won't run the cards at full 16x, you'll be limited to 8x. For crossfire I would recomend an x38/x48 board