Building First PC

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Hey techies, I could use your opinion. I have never built a pc, but want to give it a try. Some friends helped me a bit last night and here is what we came up with.

The system is for gaming almost exclusively.

I really need to know if everything here is compatible (for example, do I go with IDE or SATA for the hard drive) and if I overlooked anything or there is another item that is clearly superior for the same(less) money. Also, I know there is a lot of debate on this, but I am pretty sure I would like to stay with Intel for CPU and Nvidia for GPU. I just feel more comfortable with them.

Thanks for your help!

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $140. May get this elsewhere for cheaper. I've seen it for as low as $88.

Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $100

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-8500C5D - Retail $140

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail $150

ALTEC LANSING BXR1121 15 Watts 2.1 3 piece music and gaming speaker system for PC and MP3 player - Retail $30

Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse - Retail $36

EVGA 896-P3-1260-AR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail $300

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit English for System Builders 1pk DSP OEI DVD - OEM $110

Logitech 967738-0403 Black USB Standard Deluxe 250 Keyboard - OEM $7

ViewSonic X Series VX2240W Black-Silver 22" 2ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail $250

EVGA 132-YW-E178-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI FTW ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $270

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail $190

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DH-20A4P-08 - Retail $25

Total $1,750 with monitor.

Any advice on what tools or other items I need to pick up would be very helpful as well.

wd 640gb hdd is around $85. fast and best price per gb you are going to find. 140gb more than your choice for $15 less.

22inch monitor not sure you need an sli board. are you planning on sli? you could save some good money by getting a p45 mobo and hd4870 gpu (4870 is same price)? also the p45 would allow you to add another gpu if you wanted later. it would be at x8/x8 instead of x16/x16 but at that resolution it makes very little difference.

would get sata burner

antec 900 is a great case

pc power and cooling makes great psus but so does corsair and the 750w corsair has been cheaper lately. around $110. so you could save $40 there.

are you planning on doing big overclock? if not then you can save on ram by getting ddr2 800 at 1.8v (that is standard). Mushkin has some 2x2gb for $69 after mail in rebate right now and that would save you $70. no performance difference unless major overclock. can still do good overclock?

You could save $125 plus mobo (minimal if x48 or over $100 if p45) by those changes and have just as good if not better. heck that 225 savings on p45 set up would allow you to do4870x2 on the p45 and you wouldn't need to worry about crossfire. on 22in screen that is going to whip everything for quite awhile (of course if it was me i would still probably just do 4870 which is plenty at that res )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827135156
^Nice ASUS SATA DVD/CD drive, Ive had this for a while works great. $39.99

Nice build. Looks good. Yeah I'd definitely go with a Radeon 4870 myself, specifically this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814103064

along with a good x48 MB. I'm sure you'll be happy with your system either way though.

is there a reason you chose the 500gb vs the 640gb? aren't they $5 or $10 difference? for an extra 140gb might be worth it?

other than that you build is looking great. and you saved some good coin. congrats.

i haven't seen any big performance lift from 32mb vs 16mb cache on the 500gb drives? whereas the 640gb gives you 140gb more space. maybe there are some benches I haven't seen yet but from personal experience there was no noticeable difference.

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

After reading on the Intel Wolfdale E8600 chip, I'm really inclined to get this and do some overclocking. It appears to be an excellent chip for gaming.

With that in mind, do I need to change my mobo, memory or psu? Here is my current build:

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATAsata 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLIsli Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2ddr2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

GIGABYTE GV-R487-512H-B Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

ASUS P5Q Deluxe LGA 775 Intel P45 Intel Motherboard

LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model GH22LS30

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Coredual-core Processor Model BX80570E8500