please review my choices...thanx!

[iNiNe5]

so i'm coming very close to purchasing this computer within the month.... any comments on each choice would be appreciated. i use the PC for everything, games, work, net, movies, music, photoshop, etc.... i'd like to game in higher rez as well. i'm planning on a big monitor purchase (24+ inches) to double as TV and PC monitor for room

is there a better alternative to any of the parts? not looking into spending any more than what's there (no more than 2k). may try overclocking a bit but not really into the crazy push to the limit type of thing. not really into upgrading every year either so hoping this will last me at least 3 years....

Intel Core 2 duo E8500 (considering Q6600 as well)
Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4
Corsair TX750W
OCZ Reaper 2x2GB DDR2 1066
PowerColor Radeon HD4780 1GB (in CrossFire)
Western Digital Black 1TB (or 750 GB) (in Raid)
Antec 900 or 1200
Windows XP
necessary fans, etc.... for cooling...

optional for future:
SoundBlaster X-Fi (maybe/maybe not)
Windows Vista 64-bit

i read that the new intel chips are to be available in the next month or two. does anyone forsee prices dropping significantly between this month and next for any of these components, should i wait at least until november? (i am ignorant of the pricing trends.) thanks.

 

[krazyk12]

if your looking for future proof, i would go the q6600, a simple OC to 3ghz is easy.

but i would also wait at least a month, unless its a MUST HAVE NOW.

 

[johnyeah]

price of current cpu/motherboards will drop for quite a bit when core i7 comes out next month

i'd say check back then

 

[Proximon]

Since you only want mild overclocks, you likely don't need 1066 RAM. Last I checked those reapers were overpriced.
This Mushkin is a good choice, and has been for months:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146731

Your Corsair 750, while a top notch PSU, is not enough to drive two 4870s.

However, I'm going to get a little radical and advise you to drop the 4870s. They are great and all, but you get way more bang for the buck with two 4850s. Still very fast, and you won't have to spend another 100 bucks on a PSU.

With the money you have just saved, you can get a faster quad, a decent after market CPU cooler, etc.

 

[eklipz330]

the corsair should be fine with two 4870's

http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-tx-750w-atx-12v-power-supply/q/loc/101/206178325.html

just google real quick, corsair 750tx 4870cf, you should get your answer.

4870 CF should do great at that resolution, but, if you want, you can get 4850 CF and a q9550...

but a 4870 CF and a e8500 should do wonderfully for a years time

 

[nishiki]

Maybe consider a 4870 X2 ? a little bit cheaper and you can downgrade the motherboard to a P45 one that is also cheaper.

 

[geofelt]

The new Intel i7 cpu's and X58 chipset will be very good at the high end. The cpu's will start at >$300.
Current high end quad core cpu's will not be able to compete.
Therefore you should see price drops on current quad products, particularly those priced near $300 and up.
I don't forsee much change in duo and lower speed quads <200.
If you get a quad, plan on a clock speed of 3ghz or better to drive your vga configuration.
More cores is mostly not a good substitute for speed.

What is your purpose for raid?
There is generally no real world(vs. synthetic transfer rate benchmarks) performance advantage to raid of any kind.
Go to www.storagereview.com at this link: http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0
There are some specific applications that will benefit, but
gaming is not one of them. Even if you have an application which reads one input file sequentially, and writes
it out, you will perform about as well by putting the input on one drive, and the output on the other.

If you want performance, get a velociraptor. If you need more capacity, get a second storage drive.

I would see how the onboard sound works out. The HD sound on current motherboards is very good.
You can always add a sound card later.

 

[iNiNe5]

thanks for your responses.

my purpose for raid was for redundancy...i am not very disciplined in backing up my content.

 

[geofelt]

thanks for your responses.

my purpose for raid was for redundancy...i am not very disciplined in backing up my content.

The value of raid-1 for protecting data is that you can recover from a hard drive failure quickly.
It is for servers that can't afford any down time.
Recovery from a hard drive failure is just moments.
Fortunately hard drives do not fail often.
Raid-1 does not protect you from other types of losses such as viruses,
software errors, operator error, or fire...etc.
For that, you need EXTERNAL backup.
If you have external backup, and can afford some recovery time, then you don't need raid-1.