meh...
@ plasma,
getting a hdd with more storage will not make something "less prone to dying". i dont know where your freind has gotten this misleading information. in very rare cases, ofcourse someone will get a bad drive, but thats just the reality of manufacturing the products, ther will always be a DOA somewhere.
yes, sata is better than ide, that is why i had posted an SATA drive in the setup. it even says "SATA" in the link, it cant get much more clearer.
- Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
- SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners
for the gpu, choosing nvidia over ati is a matter of prefrence. either company has great gpu's with performance levels that compete with each other. again idk wher your friend has gotten this info.
and for the psu, trust me, this psu will completely handle everything in that rig. it is actually more than you might need but at that price and that brand, it is a great deal for a psu that will handle all your needs.
@ dawn,
i hope that you please dont take this wrong, but that build isn't better than what i listed.
for $99, i would defenitly go with a corsair or pc p&c psu over that mushkin with 4 rails
i had listed a 4870 which is a good bit better than gts 250.
the i7, mobo, and ram that i had listed would give better performance than the C2Q and DDR2 ram.
also why would you choose to list a standard optical drive when for $5 more, he can get a cd/dvd burner.
- all in all, both builds are around the same price, but for $1k, the first build i listed is better
edit: also, plasma, sorry, but i think that you should question what your friend tells you.
2nd edit: dawn, i see that you had included a monitor in your build. the only reasing i didnt include one is because there was no mention of it in the beginning.