$500 Budget gaming rig - feedback appreciated

[GregH]

Folks here have been super helpful in the past so thought I'd see what suggestions/improvements people had for the system I'm looking at putting together in the near future.

It'll mostly be used for gaming, and I'll see if I can do an overclock on the CPU to get it to 3.6 (possibly 4.0) as it seems that's easily doable without tweaking the voltage too much.
I have no plans to add a second video card, and I'll be sticking with my Hanns-G 19" widescreen LCD so 1440x900 is the likely resolution I'll be gaming at.

Parts will most likely be ordered via DirectCanada as the free shipping more than makes up for the slightly higher prices on some components:

*edit*
Forgot to mention I'm sticking with XP and in addition to my existing vid card & PSU I'll also be using the existing DVD/RW drive

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail $185.88

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L Atx LGA775 P35 1333FSB 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 Sound Gblan Motherboard $90.25

OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit $60.90

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache Ncq Hard Drive $53.88

Antec Three Hundred Mini Tower Gaming Case 300 ATX 3X5.25 6X3.5INT No PS Front USB & Audio $52.33

Xigmatek HDT-S1283 Direct Touch 3 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 LGA775 S754 S939 S940 W 120MM PWM Fan $31.86

OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Compound 3 Gram Tube $5.25

Antec TriCool 120MM DBB Case Fan 3-SPEED 1200/1600/2200RPM 25/28/30DBA 39/56/79CFM 3 & 4PINS $10.77

Silverstone Strider ST50F 500W ATX12V 24PIN Power Supply W/120MM Fan Active PFC $0 - already have it in existing machine

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTX 575MHZ 768MB 1.8GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card $0 - in existing machine

THERMALRIGHT HR-03 HEATPIPE VGA COOLER 92MM $0 - already installed on card

Total price: $515.67 including GST


I'm not 100% sure on my RAM choice - I just picked that one as it was cheap & a friend had recommended it.

Any feedback or suggestions for improvement (so long as it doesn't add too much to the cost) would be greatly appreciated!

[Mibs]

I've got that memory and have no complaints about it. I haven't tried oc'ing it very much though. I really don't like those Antec tri-cool fans, because all 3 I had have died on me or have gone terribly noisy. Other than that for a $500 upgrade I'd say you're going pretty good for yourself!

[3.0charlie]

For the ram, I'd go for these, instead of the OCZs: Mushkin HP PC2-6400 HP2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-5-4-11 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit - DirectCanada. Now, if you could find a deal for 2x 2gb sticks, it be even better.

[snoosebum]

Its amazing what you can get for 500 bucks now.
If you have your heart set on the OCZ Ram theres usually a $30 MIR for it. I think Canadacomputers is advertising it as 28.99 right now after MIR.
I bought the same sticks last summer, I think I paid about 130, I have been happy with them.
I believe the Kingwin is the same as the Xigmatek but 24 bucks instead of 31.
Kingwin RVT-9225 Direct Touch 3 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 LGA775 S754 S939 S940 W/ 92MM PWM Fan - DirectCanada

[Eldonko]

I would spend the extra $30 and get 4GB

[CMetaphor]

I Would Not get the Kingwin personally. See the link from Anandtech.com:
AnandTech: Kingwin RVT-9225: Budget priced cooling results in budget performance

[BALISTX]

Looks good. What are you running for a video card?

[snoosebum]

Sorry, cmetaphor is right, but I linked you to the wrong cooler. This one is the same as the Xigmatek.
Kingwin RVT-12025 Direct Touch 3 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 LGA775 S754 S939 S940 W/ 120MM PWM Fan - DirectCanada

[GregH]

Originally Posted by BALISTX

Looks good. What are you running for a video card?

Near the end of my post above ^^

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTX 575MHZ 768MB 1.8GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card $0 - in existing machine

THERMALRIGHT HR-03 HEATPIPE VGA COOLER 92MM $0 - already installed on card

Snoosebum: Thanks for the heads-up on that cooler - I'll check it out.

[Leclerc]

Originally Posted by snoosebum

Sorry, cmetaphor is right, but I linked you to the wrong cooler. This one is the same as the Xigmatek.
Kingwin RVT-12025 Direct Touch 3 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 LGA775 S754 S939 S940 W/ 120MM PWM Fan - DirectCanada

If it's not the same product, it have the sames specs . So it is the same cooler and it's a great choice. But both the Xigmatek and the Kingwin are actually "unavailable" so if you don't want to wait to much, you could take a look to the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro LGA775 2500RPM 45CFM - DirectCanada for around 20$ and have similar performance.

I don't really know the thermal paste, but I've heard that the Arctic Cooling MX-2 Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound Paste NON-ELECTRICAL Conductive 4 Gram - DirectCanada was the best one. Maybe another member can help you more than me on this one.

Nice upgrade.