FredSRichardson
Solid State Member
- Messages
- 20
I'm seeking advice and/or criticism of this build before I commit to it.
From reading various articles here and elsewhere I've gotten the feeling that certain things are "faith-based". That is, you can do well picking either approach, but people have very strong feelings about which one is "right". I'm quite n00b to this, so for my own sake I marked things I've already decided about (been indoctrinated?) as being "religious":
- This is a gaming rig that will be used for a few other things
- I've decided that I won't ever run SLI or xfire
- I'll be running on a 1680x1050 monitor, but I can't fit more than a 19" one
- I'm sticking with WinXP. This is a bit of a religious thing, so I won't go into it.
- I'm sticking with 32bit. Another religious topic.
- I'm sticking with 2 cores. Yet another religious topic.
- I want to keep the cost down. Well, everyone can relate to this
My first big upgrade will probably be to something like Win7-64bit whenever I want to use all my Ram, but I'm hoping I can delay that for a long time.
Here's my current PSU and Case. I also have a floppy, CDRW, DVDRW that I can salvage from my previous build.
I think these are adequate buy any thoughts about that would be great:
-------------------------------------
PSU (already have)
PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W ATX12V / EPS12V
CASE (already have)
LIAN LI V COOL PC-V1200B plus Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
---------------------------------------
Now for the rest of the build:
ordered CPU (I could save $20 on the processor and get the E8400)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - $190
ordered MBD
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - $100 (after rebate)
GPU (This did okay on Anandtech's benchmarks @ 1680x1050 for a single GPU non SLI/xFire card)
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - $200 (after rebate)
MON (There's also a Asus that's very similar)
Acer X193W+BD Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2000:1 (ACM) - $129
ordered RAM (I realize that I can probably only address a little over 2Gig with the above 1Gig GPU, but the price is OK for future 64 bitness)
G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $45
ordered HSF (I couldn't go with the Sunbeam because it doesn't fit on this MBD)
XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler - $40
That total is around $730 (so far)
Any advice or criticism greatly appreciated!
-Fred
From reading various articles here and elsewhere I've gotten the feeling that certain things are "faith-based". That is, you can do well picking either approach, but people have very strong feelings about which one is "right". I'm quite n00b to this, so for my own sake I marked things I've already decided about (been indoctrinated?) as being "religious":
- This is a gaming rig that will be used for a few other things
- I've decided that I won't ever run SLI or xfire
- I'll be running on a 1680x1050 monitor, but I can't fit more than a 19" one
- I'm sticking with WinXP. This is a bit of a religious thing, so I won't go into it.
- I'm sticking with 32bit. Another religious topic.
- I'm sticking with 2 cores. Yet another religious topic.
- I want to keep the cost down. Well, everyone can relate to this
My first big upgrade will probably be to something like Win7-64bit whenever I want to use all my Ram, but I'm hoping I can delay that for a long time.
Here's my current PSU and Case. I also have a floppy, CDRW, DVDRW that I can salvage from my previous build.
I think these are adequate buy any thoughts about that would be great:
-------------------------------------
PSU (already have)
PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W ATX12V / EPS12V
CASE (already have)
LIAN LI V COOL PC-V1200B plus Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
---------------------------------------
Now for the rest of the build:
ordered CPU (I could save $20 on the processor and get the E8400)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - $190
ordered MBD
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - $100 (after rebate)
GPU (This did okay on Anandtech's benchmarks @ 1680x1050 for a single GPU non SLI/xFire card)
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - $200 (after rebate)
MON (There's also a Asus that's very similar)
Acer X193W+BD Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2000:1 (ACM) - $129
ordered RAM (I realize that I can probably only address a little over 2Gig with the above 1Gig GPU, but the price is OK for future 64 bitness)
G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $45
ordered HSF (I couldn't go with the Sunbeam because it doesn't fit on this MBD)
XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler - $40
That total is around $730 (so far)
Any advice or criticism greatly appreciated!
-Fred