My first build - looking for any advice or critique!

[MoreGrease]

As I'm heading off to college next year and my current computer is an offensively slow 1.25 Ghz eMac, I've decided to finally splurge and build myself a nice new gaming and multimedia PC to last me through school (or at least the next three years) with little or no need to upgrade. However, as I've always used Macs, I have almost no clue about PCs, and while I've spent many tens of hours reading up on how to build one, I'm still looking for help.

Basic Facts
1) It will be used for fairly heavy gaming, plenty of Photoshop, and, as I will be doing a game design major, possibly everything from video encoding to 3D rendering. It will run 64-bit Vista and Ubuntu.
2) I have a budget of about $1400, counting speakers and monitor. Tax (approx. $100 total) and shipping (approx. $40) are not included in the component prices. Rebates are mentioned but not deducted from the base prices.
3) I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
4) I have to buy everything, and I mean everything, from scratch.
5) I have no parts to reuse.
6) I am not planning on overclocking presently, but likely will in a year or two's time.
7) I'm planning on getting an LCD, about 20", to run this and my PS3.
8) I plan on building this somewhere around late February to March, in the hopes that Nvidia's new GPUs will drive prices down a bit.
9) I need a mobo with gigabit LAN, good onboard audio, and the rest, but nothing fancy like Crossfire.


My Shopping List - All prices are taken from Newegg, but a few things (namely speakers and monitor) I'll buy from Amazon or a brick and mortar store.

Antec Sonata III 500 Black Computer Case (w/ 500w Earthwatts PSU) - $129.99
SILVERSTONE FM121 Case Fan - $16.99
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - $189.99
ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink - $49.99
ASUS Radeon HD 4870 EAH4870 DK/HTDI/1GD5 Video Card - $249.99 ($20 Mail-in Rebate)
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R ATX Intel Motherboard - $119.99 ($15 Mail-in Rebate)
OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $66.99 ($30 Mail-in Rebate)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $109.99
SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223F - $25.99
Acer H213H bmid Black 21.5" 5ms 16:9 Widescreen LCD Monitor Built in Speakers - $199.99
Logitech Z-4 2.1 Speaker - $69.99


Specific Questions
1) Will the Earthwatts 500w be enough to power this whole rig? The GPU, with its Dark Knight cooler, especially worries me, as I know nothing about calculating wattage but I have a feeling this requires a lot (graphs I've seen seem to place the 4870s anywhere between 180w and over 300w). Other forums have told me it is good enough, though.
2) Will the Sonata, with its rear 120mm fan, the Silverstone 120mm, the PSU fan, the Dark Knight GPU cooler, and the Zalman CPU heatsink/fan be able to keep this cool enough?
3) This is a very nooby question, but will the mobo be able to control the case fans and the Zalman or will I have to control them with the voltage/fan controller?
4) I'm planning on using Arctic Silver 5 on my CPU and the Zalman, but as I don't think the Zalman comes with its own thermal compound already on it, will I need AS's thermal material remover and surface purifier, or will a rubdown with alcohol be fine?
5) Does anyone know much about that Acer monitor? I haven't seen it in person or read any "real" reviews, but it has good Newegg feedback. I was wondering how it compares to this Asus VH222H, which is similar (and with audio-out, a big plus) but with a hideous orange powerLED.


Any other comments on the build would be greatly appreciated. As I said, I am a complete newby to PC building, and no comment is too mundane and obvious to be helpful.

Thanks in advance!

 

[sharken]

why buy a zalman if you are not going to overclock, stock fan be fine, PSU so so, rest is ok

 

[aevm]

You did a great job there.

I agree with sharken, get rid of the Zalman cooler.

Yes the Earthwatts 500w be enough to power this whole rig.

Yes it will be cool enough, at least until you overclock the CPU. The HD 4870 will kick most of the hot air out the back of the case through a vent.

 

[aevm]

That Asus VH222H sounds very promising. I fixed your link, btw, here it is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236053&Tpk=vh222H

It has 17 5-egg reviews at newegg, plus one retard who didn't actually buy the monitor and gave it one egg and complained that the text doesn't look as good on it as on his old CRT. Well, duh, everybody knows that and it's true for all LCDs. 0 out of 34 people found his review useful So, ignoring that cretin, this monitor actually has 100% 5-egg reviews.

Edit: if the orange LED is too annoying, tape a piece of paper over it. I did that for the annoying blue LED on my Samsung monitor, and now I can barely see if it's lit or not - just perfect.

 

[IH8U]

Go with DDR2 800 instead, you can grab 2 of these for just a few bucks more (before MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227334
$39 OCZ Fatal1ty 2x2GB DDR2 800
and as mentioned before drop the Zalman cooler, as there are better out there.

 

[kubes]

Can also save yourself a few bucks with the GTX 260 (216 core). Since the new GTX 295 and GTX 285 are coming out soon prices on the GTX 260 and GTX 280 are dropping like mad. The GTx 260 (216 core) will run neck and neck with the 4780 1gb verison. Might want to look at a few bench marks to see which one runs faster for the types of games you play to make the choice. In general though the GTX 260 is cheaper though and will give you the same preformance.

I also agree that you don't need the 1066mhz ram. got with just ddr2 800. 1066mhz is only used for major overclockers.

Probally don't need the zalmen cooler either. +1 on that one as well.

 

[MoreGrease]

Go with DDR2 800 instead, you can grab 2 of these for just a few bucks more (before MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227334
$39 OCZ Fatal1ty 2x2GB DDR2 800
and as mentioned before drop the Zalman cooler, as there are better out there.

Will DDR2 800 work as well with that mobo, though, which lists 1066 as its standard? My uncle (a programmer) suggested sticking with the standard memory speed of the motherboard just to simplify things. Still, 2x the RAM is certainly something to consider.

Following some recommendations on other forums, I've decided to ditch the Zalman in favor of a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 with retention bracket, too. Cheaper and better, it seems.

Can also save yourself a few bucks with the GTX 260 (216 core). Since the new GTX 295 and GTX 285 are coming out soon prices on the GTX 260 and GTX 280 are dropping like mad. The GTx 260 (216 core) will run neck and neck with the 4780 1gb verison. Might want to look at a few bench marks to see which one runs faster for the types of games you play to make the choice. In general though the GTX 260 is cheaper though and will give you the same preformance.

I was sort of hoping that the new Nvidia cards would drop prices on the 4870, too. I'll see what happens over the next few weeks, though. It is worth pointing out that that particular 4870, the Asus EAH4870 Dark Knight cooler edition, is actually much cheaper ($40 before rebate, $60 after) than most GTX 260 216s right now.