Hello all! I'm newly registered, although I've been reading the forums for awhile now.

I've decided that it's time to build my first computer. In the past, I've bought Dells. Yes, I know -- I'm a bad person.

I'm pretty computer savvy when it comes to software and so forth (in fact, I write software for a living) but kind of a dummy when it comes to hardware.

This computer will be used for gaming, and to a lesser extent, utility. (I tend to 'retire' my old computer when I buy a new one into my fileserver, email, web-surfing box to keep my nicest box clutter free). The types of games that I gravitate to vary quite a bit, but include MMOs, RPGs like Oblivion, first person shooters, RTS games, and strategy games -- (currently, I'm pumped for Spore to come out next week).

I'm confident that I am pretty capable of physically putting the computer together correctly, but buying the parts is a little scary to me because of compatibility issues, performance bottlenecks, cooling, power, and all the other little considerations. Frankly, I don't even know where to begin.

As said in the subject, I'd like to spend between $2000 and $2500 for the whole rig, which should include the monitor and a 64-bit copy of Vista or XP. If a few extra dollars could yield me something stupendous, I'd be willing to go higher too -- that's just ballpark.

Lastly, a few thoughts:

I'd like to stick with an Intel chipset. Another question I have is whether waiting for the Nehalem architecture would be wise at this time. My current understanding is that the chips they are releasing this year will be the -extremely- high end chips, probably costing an arm and a leg. If not, I suppose it makes sense to go with a quad core?

I've always been more of a fan of NVidia than ATI, but I see a lot of people recommending the 4780x2 card in other threads. I know that NVidia just had their NVision or whatever conference where they debuted some new stuff. Anyway, I'm flexible here. I just want the best performance.

Fast hard drive(s), I don't particularly want RAID. Are those velociraptor drives worth getting?

Overclocking, again, I don't know that much about it -- but if it were -easy- to do and not stressing my components, I'd be interested in that as well.

So anyway, I'd just like some advice or "fantasy builds" that would get the job done here. I'm in the US, so Newegg is my likely purchase avenue.

Thanks for reading!

Sorry left off vista. $110 so may want to save on monitor. also the hdds i chose are about the best price per gb you are going to find. can run them separate or together but i just don't think the raptor performance is worth the price.

also left off the mobo link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131284

you could do some mild overclocking very easily with very minor adjustments. and that case would still keep things cool. however if you really want to make sure it is cool for not too much$$

This heatsink and bracket (make sure to get the bracket) totals $42
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233003
bracket:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233019

and remember. i probably went a little overboard on the monitor. you can get that same resolution for cheaper on some pretty dang good monitors. so that is one place to get more opinions.

Actually very easy to get moderate overclocks. Harder to get the high and stable overclocks at the upper edge of the hardware's ability. Performance increases will depend on how well the software scales with the higher clock speeds.
In many games when you're running max graphics quality at high res you won't actually see any increases as the video card is the limiting factor. Better to give the GPU a bump up instead.
Of course some games respond better to CPU OC's - MS FSX and Supreme Commander would be an examples.

For most audio/video creation and editing the CPU OC will get you a nice bump in performance. Same for CPU intensive tasks like virus scans, etc. Very little or no noticeable improvement for office tasks like web surfing, email and the like.

The retention bracket is a back plate that gives added support to the moderately heavy heat sink.
It's an alternate attachment method thats easier, more secure and gives better performace than the more traditional push pin standard option.

Most video cards can be overclocked just like the CPUs. Actually much easier to do in fact.

The X2 is two GPUs on one card. The X2 can sometimes outperform the GTX 280 in some games when using graphics quality filters (AA/AF). How much of a difference between the two depends on the games you have (or will get). There is no easy answer to "which one is best".

If you buy existing LGA775 Hardware you are completely not upgradeable!

Nehalem uses the new LGA 1366 and Triple channel DDR3... At least in a year or two you can upgrade processor and Ram.


Buying LGA775 at this point is like buying a 2008 Mustang when in November they are releasing a new body style.. Your brand new car just got dated!

Thanks for the advice guys. To those of you saying wait for Nehalem at this price point... let me ask for clarification on something.

The Nehalem chips that are coming out this year are the super high-end chips right, aka... the equivalent to the current 'extreme' edition right? The regular (and 'normal' high-end) chips are coming out QC of 2009 I understand.

Assuming I don't want to drop $1000 on my CPU, that seems like a long time to wait. Thoughts?