What do you think about this pc?

[napalmdest55]

I will be building my first pc very soon. Can anyone give me and suggestions?

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2.4ghz, 4mb L2 Cache in each core.
$495.99

Motherboard:
EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel
$209.99

Ram:
PNY 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Desktop Memory Model D1GX53OPT (X2)
$61.98

Hard Drive:
Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JS 200GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
$54.99

Graphics Card:
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB PCI Express x16 Video Card
$519.99

DVD/CD combo drive:
Sony 18x DL DVD+/-RW Drive, Internal, ATA
$69.99

Case:
Antect Nine Hundred
$139.99

Power Supply:
Ultra X3, 1000watt
$249.99


For a total of $2,351.71
Of course I plan on building this pc for a total of about $2000-$2500, so if parts get better by the time I start buying parts I will of course get better parts that can work with my budget.

[Rob]

That's a lot for the processor. Do you think you'll get your money's worth out of it?

If your using Windows Vista then you might want to go with 2GB of RAM.

The power supply at 1000 watts may be overdoing it, unless you want to be ready for SLI.

No sound card? The built-in sound may be just fine.

[napalmdest55]

The pc I plan to build does include 2gb of ram. I plan to buy an intel processor later on when they drop the price. Intel has already announced plans to drop the price of the Q6600 2.5 quad core when ever AMD releases thier quad core. From what I read Intel will drop the price of the Q6600 under $300

The motherboard has an intergrated 8 channel audio... Do you suggest I would need a sound card?

[Sstellethyss]

I have to agree with Rob on the price of the processor. But since the machine falls into your price range, I doubt that matters much. The price you listed is the price that I have come to expect from Intel. In my opinion, you could get just as much performance out of an AMD chip, and get much closer to the low end of your budget range.

Another consideration is your video card. From what I can tell (and I've never built my own machine before so take this with a grain of salt..) but you're paying about $120 for another 128MB. Consider the actual performance difference between this card and the 640MB model which can be found on newegg.com for $399.99. Personally I was having a hard time choosing between the card you selected and the 640MB version myself and then common sense said that video cards are probably one of the most often upgraded parts of a computer. Consider how fast technology is moving these days and what about a video card is going to constitute your consideration to do your first upgrade. Dropping $520 on a video card that I will be swapping out in 10 months isn't worth the week and a half I had to put up with idiots cussing me out at work to come up with the $520 in the first place.

Lastly, your power supply appears to be way over the top unless you're planning on using 6 of those video cards...... you know what I mean.... but then again I don't really know what exactly you're building this PC to do so maybe you need that much juice, but I don't see it.

I have to say that when I first considered building my own PC I was very tempted to go with the highest CPU I could find and the highest video card I could afford, and I would make up for this by cutting cost on the motherboard and the hard drive. Since then I've come to the conclusion that the mobo is the most important decision because a gamers main consideration should be upgrade ability. Your hard drive is fine since you'll have plenty of room to double up on that later on if needed. If you have to replace your motherboard, 9 times out of 10 your other parts outdated first and you're going to end up having to drop another $2,400 in just a couple years, rather than upgrading a stick of RAM here and a Video Card there to keep up with the demanding frame rate these days.

Again, I've never done this before, but I felt like sharing what jumped out at me on your list..... so more power to you with whatever you decide! :p

[napalmdest55]

I forgot to mention that my full price includes the monitor and windows vista home premium OS.

Also AMD hasnt released any Quad Core processors from what I know.

I used a watt calculator http://www.extreme.outervision.com/powercalc.jsp and if I get a 1000watt power supply I shouldnt have to upgrade it for a long time.

[Sstellethyss]

You're right in that AMD has not yet released a 4x4 CPU, but it shouldn't be much longer now. They appear to be coming out with a CPU called the AMD Athlon 64 FX-7X Quad Father which will be two dual core processors linked together... and what's interesting is... they will have their own individual front side bus. This gives the Quad-Father the potential to blow away Intel's Kentsfield CPU that is soon to be released as well. :D

This article is located on hothardware.com, if anyone is interested.

[Rob]

Linky

http://www.hothardware.com/articles/AMD_QuadFather_4X4_Update__Configurations_Come_Int o_Focus1/

[The Wise Monkey]

Nice system.

If you wait until the 22nd July, then your processor will be $200 cheaper:

http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=789466