What do you think of these specs?

[FadingTheory]

It would not be worth it.

If you buy retail, no, you will not need a heat sink. If you buy oem, you will need one. What you get depends on your price range and overclocking interest. the Zalman 7700Cu is always a good bet though.

 

[Apokalipse]

the #1 thing is to buy a better PSU
I would suggest at least 450W with at least 20A on the 12v rail

#2 I would actually suggest buying a 6600 GT for now, and wait for the new ATI and Nvidia cards to come out. but wait and see the benchmarks before you decide which of the new ones to get.
people are saying now "it looks like ATI will win"
I'm not saying they won't, but that's what people thought about the X800's

#3 I would suggest either an Athlon 64 3200+/3500+ Venice, or a 3700+ San Diego
the difference between the Venice and the San Diego: the San Diego has an extra 512kb L2 cache (stores instructions which allows the CPU to access them quicker than from RAM. the more, the faster generally)

a DFI NF4 Ultra-D motherboard (which allows for really good overclocking)

2x512MB G.Skill PC4800 DDRRAM (G.Skill RAM reaches really high speeds)
if not G.Skill, then 2x512MB OCZ PC4200

either Seagate or Western Digital hard drive(s)
the Raptor's (from WD) are 10,000RPM and if you put your OS and frequently accessed programs on it, can speed things up.
I would suggest a 36GB Raptor, and a bigger 7200RPM drive (for other misc storage)

 

[darylb]

I've attached a speadsheet (zipped) with full names, budget and links but if you are too lazy (or not interested enough) to read that, here is the summarized list.

Processor:AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ PROCESSOR S939 VENICE
Motherboard:DFI LANPARTY UT NF4-D ATX NFORCE4 S939 DDR
Ram:OCZ DUAL CHANNEL OPTIMIZED 2X512MB DDR PC3200 CAS2
Vid card: eVGA E-GEFORCE 6600GT 128Mb
Hd:SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 200GB SATA HARD DRIVE 8MB 7200RPM
Case:THERMALTAKE SOPRANO VB1000SWS MIDTOWER SILVER ATX CASE
Monitor:HYUNDAI IMAGEQUEST L90D+ 19IN LCD MONITOR
Sound card:CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 ZS 7.1 1394 PCI RETAIL BOX
PSU:OCZ POWERSTREAM 520 WATT LOW NOISE POWER SUPPLY
DVD writer:NEC ND-3520A DVD+RW DUAL LAYER+R
Keyboard:SAITEK PC GAMING KEYBOARD
Mouse: LOGITECH MX500 HIGH PERFORMANCE OPTICAL MOUSE

 

[Apokalipse]

that LCD is rising the price quite a bit. if you have room, 21" CRT's can be found second hand pretty cheap. they usually have really high resolutions and refresh rates

 

[dale5605]

I would recommend you get this mouse:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=211125

It's probably the best one out there.

I'm not really too sure about the Saitek keyboard. If I were you I would probably be safe and go for a Logitech or Microsoft media keyboard.

 

[Luxar]

I think he'll be fine with the Saitek keyboard; it's one of the best out there for gaming, hands down.

 

[dhw200]

the saitek keyboard is great, feels real comfy, the backlighting looks cool. its a really nice piece of hardware

 

[darylb]

Any thoughts on the processor/mobo/ram/vid card/etc arrangement?

 

[idiotec]

If you do plan on getting one of the new gen cards when they come out, that 6600GT will be fine. But, those new cards will most likely be $500+ when they come out. If you do not think you will do this, get a 6800GT, it is a big jump up over the 6600GT.

 

[dhw200]

If i were you, i would wait and get the comp rather then put $170 on the 6600 GT if ur going to replace it in a little while.

just my 2 cents