New Gaming Rig! Opinions Wanted! (UPDATED)
 

Hello forum members, I wanted to post the spec's of a new gaming PC I will be buying this weekend but before I go through with it I would really like to hear from you if my build is good or needs work.

I do not plan to overclock anytime soon, but I do plan to Crossfire two 4850's down the road and when I do I will prob look at overclocking the CPU to aroudn 3.6 on air. I also want to keep it under $850 bucks before tax and right now everything comes to $833.50 :clap:

So without delay please drop a line with your opinion.


CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail

MOBO - ASUS P5Q-E ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 2PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN eSATA 1394 Motherboard

RAM - Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB 2X1GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 5-5-5-18 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory

GPU - Diamond Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card

HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive

PSU - Antec Truepower Quattro 850W Power Supply ATX V2.2 EPS12V 20/24PIN Active PFC 80PLUS Dual 8PIN PCI-E

DVDROM - Samsung 203S TruDirect 20X SATA DVD Writer Lightscribe Black OEM W/ Software

Thank you for help/advice/opinion!!! :canadianwave:

I would DEFINITELY go for at least 2gigs of ram, personally i would get 4gigs. Its worth the extra cash

What's with the horrid RAM?
At the very least get a 2x1GB DDR2-800 kit. Better yet would be a 2x2GB DDR2-1000/1066 kit but you'd need a 64bit OS to use all 4GB.

I'd go with a Pioneer DVD-RW myself, but that's just personal preference.

Not sure you really need the Quattro 850W (though I have one myself and it's great), you could save a quite a bit of money and go with something like the Corsair TX750.

2gb of memory ... Corsair XMS2
Pioneer DVR-212 for optical
Corsair 620HX

No case
No operating system
Crap memory/not enough memory
Overkill on power supply
Would choose WD or 7200.11 over 7200.10
No aftermarket cooler (3.6 GHz on air probably won't go over so well w/ stock cooling)

3.6 on air with a 8400 is very easy.

Yet another post strongly urging you to get better ram. There are some amazing deals on NCIX and on HWC sponsored deals for great RAM pretty much every week. Excellent choice on the E8400, I think that is definitely the sweet spot right now for a CPU. If you have good airflow 3.6 on stock cooling should be attainable, depends on your own personal temperature threshold that you are comfortable with. Since you aren't planning on OCing right now don't worry about extra cooling until you have to. I also like Pioneer drives better but I recently installed that Samsung drive in a friends rig and there haven't been any problems with it. As previously mentioned you don't have a case listed, are you reusing one from a previous build? And are you doing the same with Windows? (I'm assuming it's Windows you're going to use since it's a gaming rig...)

I've had 2 of about 10 that won't do 3.6 under any circumstances ... So I wouldn't necessarily say very easy (very easy if you get a good core, perhaps) ...

Stock cooling gets really hot in the summer ... my friend actually just replaced his stock cooler because he was hitting 70+ under load @ 3.6 GHz ...

I guess I should point out that everything else I already own, that being; The OS (WinXP Pro), Monitor (Sammy 226BW), Case (Antec 1200), etc...

My reasons for the PSU is to futureproof abit. I plan to CrossfireX two 4850's and I wanted a very good PSU with soild rails and two 8pin connectors. Plus modular is a BIG PLUS for me.. must be modular from now on for me.
The ram is another case though. I went for 667 to run a 1:1 ratio. I know if I want to OC I should get some DDR800 so if I can get a 3.6 OC I can again run a 1:1 ratio. But since I dont plan to OC anytime soon meh save some cash now and when I do get new ram ill have some backup ram if anything happens.

I do want to thank everyone though for posting!

you have a 22" monitor and due to that .. 1 single GPU will be better than 2 :)