Building my first PC.

[Rolay]

Making a rig, mainly going to be used for gaming with some schoolwork being done on it, looking at a $1400 budget. Seeing as how this is my first time, anything will be helpful.

My main specs at the moment are:

Case - Cooler Master HAF 932
PSU - Corsair HX620W
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Motherboard - Asus P5Q Pro
OS - Windows Vista Business 64-Bit (Ultimate's a bit out of my range.)
Ram - Mushkin EM PC2-6400 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-800
Video Card - XFX 8800 Ultra 768MB
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 250GB
CPU Fan - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro LGA775 2500RPM 45CFM

Looking to have this built in about a month or two, any sort of input will be helpful.

[Babrbarossa]

Welcome- first cape bretoner, i think!

I'm assuming that the 8800 Ultra is used- you're not planning on buying one new, are you?

[3.0charlie]

2 changes:

HSF: change for the OCZ Vendetta II.
Ram: Mushkin PC2-8000 Redlines, or Ascents. The EMs are great sticks, but with a 333MHz FSB chip like the E8400, it's better to upgrade to DDR2-1000.

And Babr's question is very much valid: are you thinking of buying an Ultra?

[Supergrover]

Why the business version of vista?
I'll second the added speed you'll get from the ascents, they are on sponsered deals right now for $99 after a $30MIR.

[Babrbarossa]

NCIX.com - Buy Buffalo Firestix FSX1066D2C-K4G 4GB 2X2GB PC2-8500 DDR2-1066 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit - FSX1066D2C-K4G In Canada.

just posted this on another thread- good deal for this ram

[miggs78]

Originally Posted by Babrbarossa

Welcome- first cape bretoner, i think!

I'm assuming that the 8800 Ultra is used- you're not planning on buying one new, are you?

Originally Posted by 3.0charlie

2 changes:

HSF: change for the OCZ Vendetta II.
Ram: Mushkin PC2-8000 Redlines, or Ascents. The EMs are great sticks, but with a 333MHz FSB chip like the E8400, it's better to upgrade to DDR2-1000.

And Babr's question is very much valid: are you thinking of buying an Ultra?

Ditto here too. I'm also assuming that you are not buying an 8800 Ultra really..

And also +1 for Charlie's suggestions..

You seem to have done your homework quite well, most of it is bang on target really..

[geokilla]

Same goes for all of the above. Plus, if you're getting a new 8800 Ultra, get a 9800GTX+ or ATI 4850 instead.

Instead of PC2-8000 RAM, I say DDR800 RAM. Those can easily clock to DDR900.

Change the hard drive to a WD/Seagate/Samsung 640GB hard drive. Those are better, quiet, and significantly faster than the 250GB hard drives.

Also try to answer sticky please. Are you overclocking? I think you are, but not sure.

[miggs78]

Aah I don't see why he has to answer that sticky, he already mentioned most of the required stuff in the first sentence..

Making a rig, mainly going to be used for gaming with some schoolwork being done on it, looking at a $1400 budget. Seeing as how this is my first time, anything will be helpful.

As for the hard drive for $10 more you can get a 500GB, but if you are gaming as you mentioned I will agree with geokilla, for a single drive WD 640GB, and for 2 or more to do a RAID get Seagate..

[Rolay]

Was going to order the Ultra off of DC, which was..$168, and now that I just checked it again they sold out.

And Vista Business, the reasoning to that was it was about $60 cheaper than Ultimate, and with all the stuff I'm buying the price puts me about $6 under my budget.

EVGA E-GEFORCE 9800GTX+ 738MHZ 512MB 2.2GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card - DirectCanada

I was looking at that video card a bit, too. I don't really want to go over $190/200 for the card right now.

As for overclocking, I'm probably going to do very little when I get it since I don't know that much about it. Once stuff starts getting outdated I'll OC a fair bit more.

I'm mainly looking at getting my stuff from DC, paying an added $15 for the RAM mentioned verse saving a bit more appeals to me.

Western Digital SE16 320GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB Cache 8.9MS NCQ Hard Drive OEM 3YR MFR Warranty - DirectCanada

That HDD there seems pretty good, the computer I have right now is a 500GB one and I don't even use close to 100 gigs in it. Once I get more money I'll look at upgrading some of the things, like getting Ultimate, Raid, SLI.

OCZ Vendetta II is out of stock...but what about the Vendetta I, not even a dollar away from my current one.

G.SKILL F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ PC2-8000 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1000 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit - DirectCanada

How's that RAM? Around $70 so I like it already...but I don't know enough about RAM, or their companies.

I'm trying to be as cheap as possible with this build..and the $1400 is after tax/shipping.

[Babrbarossa]

NCIX.com - Buy Diamond Radeon HD 4850 625MHZ 512MB 1.98GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card - 4850PE3512V In Canada.

maybe go for a 4850- good card for the money and can be had for under 180.

Also, don't forget that you can always go to NCIX and price match anything you found cheaper at DC

EDIT: this palit is 149 with MIR: NCIX.com - Buy Palit Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Video Card - XAE/48500+T352 In Canada.