please have a look at my (modest) gaming rig!

[Savage13]

This is my first attempt at building a computer - I know very little about it and would really appreciate your thoughts on the parts I've chosen.

Gigabyte GA-EP43C-DS3 Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express)

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply



Including Windows Vista (64-bit) this all adds up to £700, or $1000.

A couple of things I'm not sure about are the motherboard and the RAM - are they appropriate to get the most out of the cpu / gpu? I'll be wanting to overclock the processor in the future.

If there are any other changes you think I could make to really improve the system I'd be glad to hear them.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[hikaricloud]

Looks good...the mobo should probably have a P45 chipset though, they're better for overclocking. As for the RAM, if you can find something with lower timings, great, if not, those sticks are ok.

 

[Luke]

id look into a 7200.11 hdd instead, twice the cache. Or a WD drive with 32mb cache

 

[Puddle Jumper]

If you don't mind spending a little more on the Cooler the Sunbeam Core Contact is a lot better than the Freezer 7 Pro.

Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)

 

[Luke]

^ well we don't even know if he is overclocking, or going to be overclocking a lot.

Are you? There is no reason why you should not though...

 

[Puddle Jumper]

He said he wanted to overclock his cpu in the future.

 

[Luke]

^haha, didn't see that, my bad. Yes you will want something more then the AF7 if you are going to do more then a mild oc. The core contact like puddle mentioned would be great.

 

[maroon1]

Zotac GeForce GTX 260 "55nm Maxcore" 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (288-OK101-000ZT)

Cheaper, supports Physx, and this GTX 260 is based on 55nm

You can get eVGA model for a little more
EVGA GeForce GTX 260 "Core 216 55nm" 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (896-P3-1255-AR)

 

[scrimstar]

Zotac?! Wth?! Get EVGA, since they have awesome customer service.

 

[zmatt]

No Zotac. That name sounds like trouble.