All Prices and Components from NewEgg.com. Wishlist showing all Component Specifics Here: $2100 Expandable Intel nVIDIA Gaming System
As title implies, the system is intended to last for a long time and provide expandability in the future for continued High-End gaming under $2100.
My Priorities with this machine are Gaming Performance, Reliability, Overclockability and Value, in that order. Core components (Chassis, Mobo, PSU) should last at least 4-5 years, and everything else should be good for around 2 years and easily upgradeable beyond that. I plan to overclock it at some point, perhaps extensively (up to and perhaps beyond 3.4GHz from the E6600). The GPU I may just upgrade in a couple months with EVGA's step-up program.
I will be using it for gaming, multimedia, photo and video editing, desktop publishing and web development. I plan to dual-boot it with Windows XP Professional and Ubuntu Linux.
The Rundown:
Cooler Master CM Stacker Black Steel ATX Full Tower Chassis fitted with 4x 120mm Apevia Red LED Fans @ 63.85CFM(x4), 1x 80mm Apevia Red LED Fan @ 25.64CFM, Red Cathode kit, Red EL Wire and a Side Window Mod (if I can find it)
ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Mobo
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 12V 620W SLI-Certified ATX Power Supply
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 CPU
ZALMAN 9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler with Arctic Cooling MX-1 Thermal Compound
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCIEx16 HDCP Video Card
G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel SDRAM
4x Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s HDDs (RAID10 Configuration for 500GB of Fast-Access Space and Full Data Redundancy)
Creative Sound Blaster SB0570 Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Sound Card
D-Link 54Mbps PCI Wireless Adapter
SAMSUNG Black DVD+-R/RW & CD-R/RW 2MB Cache IDE LightScribe DVD Burner
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech MX518 8-Button +Wheel Wired Optical Gaming Mouse
ViewSonic Optiquest 20" 1680x1050 5ms 1000:1 CR DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor (already ordered this)
Creative Inspire P7800 90-Watt 7.1-Channel Surround Speaker System
So what do you think? is it worth the money and time invested? Are all of the components good/reliable or should I be looking at other ones? Other comments welcome!
As title implies, the system is intended to last for a long time and provide expandability in the future for continued High-End gaming under $2100.
My Priorities with this machine are Gaming Performance, Reliability, Overclockability and Value, in that order. Core components (Chassis, Mobo, PSU) should last at least 4-5 years, and everything else should be good for around 2 years and easily upgradeable beyond that. I plan to overclock it at some point, perhaps extensively (up to and perhaps beyond 3.4GHz from the E6600). The GPU I may just upgrade in a couple months with EVGA's step-up program.
I will be using it for gaming, multimedia, photo and video editing, desktop publishing and web development. I plan to dual-boot it with Windows XP Professional and Ubuntu Linux.
The Rundown:
Cooler Master CM Stacker Black Steel ATX Full Tower Chassis fitted with 4x 120mm Apevia Red LED Fans @ 63.85CFM(x4), 1x 80mm Apevia Red LED Fan @ 25.64CFM, Red Cathode kit, Red EL Wire and a Side Window Mod (if I can find it)
ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Mobo
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 12V 620W SLI-Certified ATX Power Supply
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 CPU
ZALMAN 9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler with Arctic Cooling MX-1 Thermal Compound
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCIEx16 HDCP Video Card
G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel SDRAM
4x Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s HDDs (RAID10 Configuration for 500GB of Fast-Access Space and Full Data Redundancy)
Creative Sound Blaster SB0570 Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Sound Card
D-Link 54Mbps PCI Wireless Adapter
SAMSUNG Black DVD+-R/RW & CD-R/RW 2MB Cache IDE LightScribe DVD Burner
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech MX518 8-Button +Wheel Wired Optical Gaming Mouse
ViewSonic Optiquest 20" 1680x1050 5ms 1000:1 CR DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor (already ordered this)
Creative Inspire P7800 90-Watt 7.1-Channel Surround Speaker System
So what do you think? is it worth the money and time invested? Are all of the components good/reliable or should I be looking at other ones? Other comments welcome!