My new build idea

Seems a little low on ram to me if you are running Vista. Nice Mobo, CPU and GPU. Are you planning on OCing? You probably won't need an aftermarket CPU cooler if you plan on running stock for now. I have my Q9650 running at stock right now with the stock HS and cooler and it's fine.

+1 for the upgrade to 4GB of RAM. It improves the minimum fps in some games, making them run more smoothly.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2 [...] y-better/5

+1 for 750TX too.

Judging from the GA-X48-DS4 and the 700W in your post, I'm guessing you're planning to do Crossfire later. That comes to $220+$250+$250 for MB + card #1 + card #2. Consider a $120 GA-EP45-DS3R and a $550 HD 4870 X2 2GB instead. It costs less, it works better at high resolutions thanks to the extra RAM, and you get all the performance right away.

If I'm guessing wrong and you're not interested in Crossfire, then you can still downgrade the MB and save $100, and you can also save about $20 by downgrading the 750TX to 650TX.

What kind of monitor do you have, or will you have? If it's a 22" or smaller then a HD 4870 is enough, and you don't need a Crossfire motherboard or a big PSU either.

22" monitor only really needs one 4870, you should still get along very nicely.

Add the second 4870 later if you need to.

Jeremy

^ Only if you really do plan on adding an extra card in the near future. I would expect a fight back from NVidia considering the rate ATi progressed, should mean that more and more powerful cards are released and others fall down the rankings.

It may make more sense just to replace rather than xfire when the appropriate time comes - dependant on time scale obviously.

Jeremy

Good idea jpdykes saves me a bit of money getting one card.

Will be interesting to see what benchmark l get.

Im thinking that l dont need to get any more cables etc, l have lots of spare sata ones.

And im sure the PSU comes with more then enough cables, but one thing l was thinking is do l need a convertor for the 4870 as its 2 x 6 pin pci-e l think.

Im not looking at putting Vista on the system im happy to stay with XP for now, would it be worth getting 3 gig of RAM or just stick with 2? Im not sure that it would make a massive amount of diffrence but l could be wrong.

Is it worth getting the extra fan for the Antec 900? Or should l just see how the system runs first and decided from there.

While this is true and i agree, I dont think he would be well served making this a big issue in deciding his build - cards will inevitably be delayed, have limited driver support and be overpriced - decide now what you want without being worried about what's just around the corner; consider it though if you go down the crossfire route (which I think you would profit more from) and use extra cash on some RAM - get a 4870 now, then you can get another when the price drops further in 4-5 months.

Apart from that, it's a very nice build +1 for the case and +1 for the corsair 750. I would definatley read up on overclocking ad get some significant performance out of your CPU - it's not that hard if you read some threads.

Good Luck!

"RAM: Corsair Memory 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-8500 (Will go for 3 gig as l will be running XP)"

Mate, I'd really reconsider getting vista 64bit.

1. There are no compatability issues now
2. You need a 64bit OS anyway if you want to get the max performance out of your RAM - 4gig is a must-have really - especially if you're expecting to play future games well
2. Having used Xp, I was also critical of it, but just as you moved from win 98 to xp, you realise that it really is superior!

I know it shouldn't matter to some people, but it makes your computing look and feel so much cooler lol!

Yeah, the whole point of getting the 900 is that you shouldn't have to worry about cooling at first

get Vista. It is more stable than at release (just like xp back in the days) and it lets you use dx10 stuff. If anything, go for a 64bit system so that you can use all of your Vram + ram.

Also, I'm not a big fan of x48 products as the "superior 16phase" systems used for power management doesn't play well with quad core overclocking (even those nice striker2 boards and whatnot).
In all honesty, the whole x16 vs x8 situation is not going to bottleneck you in any case, at any resolution more than a handful of percents (if anything).