FINALLY finished with build...just need stamp of approval.

I've been asking a lot of questions around here and I think I've finally got the build I want. I just wanted to get a final stamp of approval before I place my order.

http://www.avadirect.com/product_d [...] p?PRID=830
Tower Case: Antec Nine Hundred
Power Supplies: Corsair 550W
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro
Processor: Intel Quad-Core Q9550
CPU Coolers: No upgrade (I don't think I need any upgrade here? I don't plan on doing any OC)
Memory: G.Skill 8GB
Video Card: Evga 9800 GTX+
SATA Hard Drive: WD 1TB Caviar Black
Storage Subsystem Config: RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
DVD RW Drive: Samsung S223 with Lightscribe
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Total price: ~$1600

How does it look? This is the first time I've ever designed a computer. Just last week, I had no idea what half of this stuff was so I'm really new to all this. That's why I want to get one last opinion before I submit my order. Are the brands all compatible with each other? Is the power supply powerful enough? Do I need a cool fan upgrade? Is the motherboard good enough for this system? Is G.Skill a good brand for memory? Is the tower case good enough (does it even matter)?

One more thing..I plan on buying a TV tuner card and installing it myself. I've never done anything like that before so I just wanted to make there is a slot for it in this computer I've designed?

I've really appreciated all the help I've gotten so far on this forum. Everyone has been such a big help to me. I would have never been able to design this without all your input so thank you!

Uh get the 4850 instead of the 9800

its cheaper and generally is about equal to it in performance

if your not overclocking get a antec 300... or even just a p180 for silence

you don't need raid... just one disk.... also get a WD 640 GB one as its pretty good, has storage capacity and is fast

I don't know what the Ava direct.com thing is for... but I wouldn't think your build would cost 1600 w/o it...

PSU is enough

About the TV tuner card... sure you'll have plenty of slots... but do A LOT of research on tv tuner cards before you buy... i here a lot are complete crap, and have constant driver issues, so make sure you do a lot of research on an acceptable one if you do decide to go that route

EDIT: how come whenever i respond to a new thread... by the time i reply theres always another response -.- hehe

Yes, they are all compatible. The only problem is if you are very interested in games and want a second card, like I wrote above. You can fix that with a HD 4850 or HD 4870.
The HD 4870 is faster but more expensive.

The power supply is OK, but leaves no room for the second card, especially with tuner and several hard disks. Get the 750W version, it will solve everything nicely. You do know it won't consume more than the 550W version, right? It's just that a 750W PSU can deliver 750W, if necessary, without getting damaged. A 550W PSU can't.

You don't need a fan upgrade.

Excellent motherboard. I especially like the 8 SATA ports. That will help if you end up adding lots of hard disks.

Yes G.Skill is a good brand.

Yes the Antec 900 is a very good case. Yes it matters because advanced video cards and tv tuners can get hot, and you want a case with excellent cooling. The Antec 900 will do very well here.

The build is fine. The only thing is, you should go with a 4850 since you chose a crossfire board. This will allow you to add another 4850 down the road for more performance. You don't need the cooling upgrade unless you plan to overclock. The Antec 900 will provide plenty of ventilation to keep the system cool.

Oh and go with the 4850. Based on the ava direct link I take you will be buying from them?

If you don't game then both the HD 4850 and 9800GTX+ are overkill. They'd just cost more, waste electricity, and produce heat. Consider something like Sapphire HD 4670 or XFX 8600GT instead. The 750TX PSU is overkill too. You could get the 550W Corsair or the Silencer 610W instead. Sorry about the flip-flopping, but you had that 9800GTX+ in your original post and I thought you were a gamer. Yes, two high-end cards (in Crossfire or SLI) only make sense for a gamer. Some non-gamers also use two cards, but not high-end cards, just so they can use 3 or 4 monitors. (Normally a card supports two monitors, so the third monitor needs a second card to power it.)

Avoid WD's 500GB disks. Their 640GB disks are a lot faster in average read/write rates because they use newer technology (perpendicular magnetic recording) and have higher density platters. Seagate's 500GB disks are OK, but still slower than the 640GB from either WD or Seagate.

I'm using an 8600GT right now as I type. It's perfect if all you want is to use Office or Visual Studio, maybe even on two monitors. It's small, quiet, cool, doesn't consume much. No good in recent shooter games, but that's not a problem for you. It will play SimCity all right, for example.

eVGA or BFG are just fine, it's not just XFX. I just happened to see the XFX first in that list at avadirect. eVGA tends to be preferred on forums like this because they have a step-up program, but you don't care about that if you don't play games.

Tell you what, if you want more graphics power get the Sapphire HD 4670 512MB ($4 more than the 8600GTS) or an eVGA 9600GT ($38 more than the 8600GTS). Both are about twice as fast as the 8600GTS.

Some benchmarks:

9600GT more than twice as good as the 8600GTS:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 6,745.html

HD 4670 and 9600GT almost tied:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati- [...] 0-review/9

Between 8600GT and 8600GTS - the GTS is faster. DDR3 is the next step after DDR2, consuming less and with greater bandwidth. Originally DDR stood for double data-rate, but it doesn't really make sense any more, what with DDR3 and GDDR5 and so on.

Cool, I think I'm gonna go with the 4670. What exactly does the HDMI mean though? Sorry for all the questions. You're probably getting annoyed by now lol. But I appreciate the help so much. I seriously couldn't have done this without the help from the people on this forum.

Right, 550W will do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Umm, this is probably a stupid question: do HD tuners also record standard def TV?