building a new pc... looking for some advice

[Almightycow]

Hiya Folks

I found this forum in a random search, read around for a bit and am looking for a bit of advice on building a new gaming pc for mmorpg's.
I don't have too much experience with this, have built 1 before out of pretty random components.

my budget is around $2500 (not including monitor)
My main concern is processor and motherboard, but any suggestions on components would be greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance for any help

Almightycow

P.S. if any more info is needed i will be watching so just ask

 

[GageMW]

holy ****.
well, for that you can get pretty much the best. hold on a sec while i pull up some good stuff

 

[Elbatrop1]

Are you in the US?

 

[Almightycow]

Are you in the US?

yeah, in the hell known as texas

 

[macdawg]

athlon fx and sli mobo

 

[GageMW]

shhh... no dissing texas, they'll execute you!
k specs:




$815 | AMD Athlon 64 FX55 ClawHammer/Hammer 1GHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

$228 | DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

$250 | ENERMAX EG851AX-VH(W) FM ATX 660W Power Supply 90 - 264V UL cUL VDE DEMKO NEMKO SEMKO FIMKO

$280 | G.SKILL 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 550 (PC 4400) System Memory

$52 | ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan
(pretty sure this fits, but someone might wanna dbl check.)

$519*2 | eVGA Geforce 6800Ultra 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card

that leaves you $163 overbudget w/o speakers, sound card, HD and case... so unless you want the best, and are prepped to go over budget you could tune it down to a FX53 and 6800GTs or just have one Ultra if you don't want to deal with SLI, also the PSU could be tuned down. Sorry i couldn't be of more help listen to others and take what sounds good from this list

 

[dhw200]

Thats a kick ass PC. If i were you, i would tune it down to an FX-53, two 6800 GTs, and get two gigabytes of Patriot RAM. Then you could also get a kick ass set of speakers (Logitech Z-5500s).

 

[Almightycow]

shhh... no dissing texas, they'll execute you!
k specs:




$815 | AMD Athlon 64 FX55 ClawHammer/Hammer 1GHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

$228 | DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

$250 | ENERMAX EG851AX-VH(W) FM ATX 660W Power Supply 90 - 264V UL cUL VDE DEMKO NEMKO SEMKO FIMKO

$280 | G.SKILL 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 550 (PC 4400) System Memory

$52 | ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan
(pretty sure this fits, but someone might wanna dbl check.)

$519*2 | eVGA Geforce 6800Ultra 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card

that leaves you $163 overbudget w/o speakers, sound card, HD and case... so unless you want the best, and are prepped to go over budget you could tune it down to a FX53 and 6800GTs or just have one Ultra if you don't want to deal with SLI, also the PSU could be tuned down. Sorry i couldn't be of more help listen to others and take what sounds good from this list

thats a ton of help man

as far as going over budget i alway look at the fact that if i have to i can always use the speakers and sound card from my current PC until i can upgrade. also have an extra 200 GB hard drive sittin around i was plannin on using as a storage drive.
i also have an extra 500 watt power supply (dont ask. it's an i'm retarded story)

any thoughts on heat issues? a friend of mine suggested liquid cooling but would rather not if its not necessary

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

shhh... no dissing texas, they'll execute you!
k specs:




$815 | AMD Athlon 64 FX55 ClawHammer/Hammer 1GHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

$228 | DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

$250 | ENERMAX EG851AX-VH(W) FM ATX 660W Power Supply 90 - 264V UL cUL VDE DEMKO NEMKO SEMKO FIMKO

$280 | G.SKILL 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 550 (PC 4400) System Memory

$52 | ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan
(pretty sure this fits, but someone might wanna dbl check.)

$519*2 | eVGA Geforce 6800Ultra 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card

that leaves you $163 overbudget w/o speakers, sound card, HD and case... so unless you want the best, and are prepped to go over budget you could tune it down to a FX53 and 6800GTs or just have one Ultra if you don't want to deal with SLI, also the PSU could be tuned down. Sorry i couldn't be of more help listen to others and take what sounds good from this list

This is good but you have 2 options to decrease the price.

Drop down to eVGA 6800GT's, they will run at ultra speeds with a little overclocking and beyond

Drop down to a whinchester \ venice 3500+, saves alot of money and can run at FX-55 speeds. Also available are san diego 3800+ and 4000+ which are more expensive, and the 4000+ is a FX-53 with a locked multiplier

 

[GageMW]

ok well, i realized mine seemed a little impracticle because youd prolly have to shell out about $100 for a case to hold that. check around newegg for a thermaltake,aspire, lian-li,antec, or cooler master. It would need a front back and side fan. top fans are nice but not necessary, like i said, you could prolly save yourself a bunch by downgrading to GTs and a FX53. also wait a while for some more suggestions, btw, do you plan on overclocking?