My tax return is finally here so I now have cash in hand to buy a new system. Please critique my build. I already have a monitor, keyboard & mouse and O/S. I am looking for feedback regarding compatibility issues, performance vs cost, if anything is overkill and unecessary & if the parts listed could be obtained at a lower rate than what I listed.
I will be using this to play Guild Wars, COD2, BF2, EQ2 and Oblivion as well as dvd burning. I would like to overclock (although I need to learn how to do this) and also future proof this as much as possible. My budget for this is $2500.00 US dollars (if you have a completely different build and stay within the $2500 budget I am open to anything).
$149.99 Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Computer Case With Side Panel Window - Retail (will this case be cool enough or should I add any fans? my current computer over heats all the time)
$174.99 ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT 620W Power Supply - Retail (is this overkill? If so what would be a suitable replacement)
$160.00 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$200.00 Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$73.99 SONY 16XDVD±R,5X DVD-RAM Write DVD Burner With Black front panel Beige E-IDE/ATAPI Model DRU820A - Retail (is this the best performance vs cost in a dual layer dvd burner?)
$139.99 Klipsch Promedia GMX A-2.1 2.1 Speaker - Retail
$121.99 Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card - Retail (will having this help performance/sound quality over the on board audio to justify the cost?)
$59.99 ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan with Heatsink - Retail (will this be enough to keep my system running cool? As I noted earlier my current computer overheats and resets all the time)
$214.33 OCZ Gold GX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM System Memory - Retail (is this good for overclocking? Is it a good performance vs cost choice?)
$172.00 DFI LP UT nF4 SLI-DR nVIDIA nFORCE4 SLI CHIPSET SERIAL ATA150 ATX FORM FACTOR 2xPCI-E(X16)/1xPCI-E(X4)/1xPCI-E(X1)/2xPCI/4xDDR W/SATA,RAID,DUAL LAN(Gb),1394,USB 2.0 & AUDIO (CPU TYPE:AMD ATHLON 64 - SOCKET 939) (I want to overclock and heard this was a good brand. I dont plan on having duel video cards so could I go with a lesser DFI board or stick with this one?)
I am having a hard time choosing a processor:
$453.50 AMD ATHLON 64 X2 4400+ (ADA4400CDBOX) RETAIL BOXED W/1MB X 2 CACHE 90NM (TOLEDO) (is this better than the operton 175?)
$504.00 AMD Opteron 175 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail (Should I get this because of its overclockability?)
I am also having a hard time choosing a video card. Please keep in mind the games I want to play (Guild Wars, COD2, BF2, EQ2 and Oblivion):
$599.00 ATI Radeon X1900XTX 100-435805 Video Card - Retail (If I go with this chipset what is the best card to get? Is the ATI version worth the extra money? Should I get a XTX or XT?)
$369.00 eVGA Geforce 7900GT 256-P2-N565-AX Video Card - Retail (Which card with this chipset should I get? I listed the eVGA but should I get a different one? Is the GTX worth the extra money or should I go with the GT?)
$599.00 eVGA Geforce 7900GTX 512-P2-N575-AX Video Card - Retail (Which card with this chipset should I get? I listed the eVGA but should I get a different one? Is this card worth the extra money or should I go with a GT?)
Thank you all in advance for your time and effort.
I will be using this to play Guild Wars, COD2, BF2, EQ2 and Oblivion as well as dvd burning. I would like to overclock (although I need to learn how to do this) and also future proof this as much as possible. My budget for this is $2500.00 US dollars (if you have a completely different build and stay within the $2500 budget I am open to anything).
$149.99 Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Computer Case With Side Panel Window - Retail (will this case be cool enough or should I add any fans? my current computer over heats all the time)
$174.99 ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT 620W Power Supply - Retail (is this overkill? If so what would be a suitable replacement)
$160.00 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$200.00 Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$73.99 SONY 16XDVD±R,5X DVD-RAM Write DVD Burner With Black front panel Beige E-IDE/ATAPI Model DRU820A - Retail (is this the best performance vs cost in a dual layer dvd burner?)
$139.99 Klipsch Promedia GMX A-2.1 2.1 Speaker - Retail
$121.99 Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card - Retail (will having this help performance/sound quality over the on board audio to justify the cost?)
$59.99 ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan with Heatsink - Retail (will this be enough to keep my system running cool? As I noted earlier my current computer overheats and resets all the time)
$214.33 OCZ Gold GX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM System Memory - Retail (is this good for overclocking? Is it a good performance vs cost choice?)
$172.00 DFI LP UT nF4 SLI-DR nVIDIA nFORCE4 SLI CHIPSET SERIAL ATA150 ATX FORM FACTOR 2xPCI-E(X16)/1xPCI-E(X4)/1xPCI-E(X1)/2xPCI/4xDDR W/SATA,RAID,DUAL LAN(Gb),1394,USB 2.0 & AUDIO (CPU TYPE:AMD ATHLON 64 - SOCKET 939) (I want to overclock and heard this was a good brand. I dont plan on having duel video cards so could I go with a lesser DFI board or stick with this one?)
I am having a hard time choosing a processor:
$453.50 AMD ATHLON 64 X2 4400+ (ADA4400CDBOX) RETAIL BOXED W/1MB X 2 CACHE 90NM (TOLEDO) (is this better than the operton 175?)
$504.00 AMD Opteron 175 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail (Should I get this because of its overclockability?)
I am also having a hard time choosing a video card. Please keep in mind the games I want to play (Guild Wars, COD2, BF2, EQ2 and Oblivion):
$599.00 ATI Radeon X1900XTX 100-435805 Video Card - Retail (If I go with this chipset what is the best card to get? Is the ATI version worth the extra money? Should I get a XTX or XT?)
$369.00 eVGA Geforce 7900GT 256-P2-N565-AX Video Card - Retail (Which card with this chipset should I get? I listed the eVGA but should I get a different one? Is the GTX worth the extra money or should I go with the GT?)
$599.00 eVGA Geforce 7900GTX 512-P2-N575-AX Video Card - Retail (Which card with this chipset should I get? I listed the eVGA but should I get a different one? Is this card worth the extra money or should I go with a GT?)
Thank you all in advance for your time and effort.