QUOTE Oh and by the way, why not the 8800gts 512? it only like $100 (US) more and delivers performance that rivals the 8800GTX (in some cases) Because the 8800 gt seems to run just as well as a 8800 gts.

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Take note I said 8800GTS 512MB, take a look at its benchmarks compared to the 8800GTX
8800GTS 512MB *Different to the 8800GTS 320MB or 640MB
and also take note, the 8800gt is extremely hot, it can reach temperatures of up to and over 90C on peak loads. Whilst the 8800GTS 512MB's revolutionary new heatsink design means it has a lot lower temperature...

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@ Saint Michael and Plug:

Yeah... maybe the subject title was a wee bit misleading. I'm willing to pay a little bit more for more productivity and performance, which is why I jumped the gun with a quad core as opposed to a dual core processor. I am NOT willing to overclock anything, since there isn't much sense in gaining 66MHz or whatever when it will shorten the life expectancy by a good bit. (Back in the day, it made sense, but I'd rather have my build last longer. Chances are that I won't even miss the slight boost of speed that I would get from safe and stable overclocking. )

However, I found out that it wasn't just a mere $50... thanks so much for finding that E6750! Question: What's the difference between the E6750 and the E6700 that warrants the outrageous price difference of $130?! I was defending the choice of the quad core because it seemed to be only $50 more than the processor I was looking at, but the E6750 you found was a boon. I previously gave quad core no chance because I figured it was overpriced and not worth the look (before I thought there was only a $50 difference), but now my previous stance remains. Thanks for that.

I picked the case I initially went with because Tom's Hardware recommended it very highly, plus it actually looks pretty nice. The non-traditional internal design seems to make use of a passive cooling solution by design... but this was one component I threw to the wind and picked out because someone said so. I'll consider the other ones because although Lian Li makes nice cases, the darn thing is $219 by itself! Not super keen on something that looks like a sci-fi toy though...

As mentioned previously, your RAM choices were for 2GB, and I figured I'd chip in a little bit more for 4GB. I'm not super familiar with the differences between 64-bit and 32-bit... I'll have to do some homework on that one. (I thought that it was the fault of XP not being able to utilize more than 3.5GB of RAM?) The 2GB choices are tempting though, as running a machine even with a game like F.E.A.R., a few applications, and background services on my current laptop with 2GB don't produce too much of a hiccup as far as RAM goes for gaming.

Water cooling still scares me. I would try it out but you also have to go through the whole process of having to switch out the fluids periodically... which means more chances for me to fudge up and ruin a machine. I did read into it earlier and figured that it was just simpler to run sinks and fans... I figured that maybe a VGA cooler and aftermarket CPU cooler would help those components from going unstable at higher temperatures? Or am I being paranoid and the stock cooling hardware included with the components will actually prevent that?

I took another look at motherboards and funny-enough, I got a different board but at the same price with less negative reviews. The Gigabyte board I was originally looking at had problems with bad BIOS flashes... which knocked the rating down considerably. This ABIT board seems pretty good, well peer-reviewed, and of course features more than enough but with the prospective performance that I would like (P35 Northbridge, etc.).

As for the hard drive... that's what I thought when 2GB was more then enough. That turned to 20GB... which turned to 80GB... which turned to 200GB... and I just very recently filled up my 200GB external. (Music, programs, etc. fill up a lot of space... especially today, when it's hard to find a commercial product that doesn't suck up more than 100MB.) I'm working now off of a 500GB for saving the larger files on my 200GB external...

The power supply was an iffy decision, since I mentioned that I don't know of a convenient way to figure out power usage from each component. I would imagine that there's an idle wattage and a peak wattage so you could simply add the figures up... I'll look into those power supplies since you're probably right on bumping up the juice box to around 700W.

I did have a video card in that list, but I just noticed that they're out of stock. Not sure if they're going to restock or not... but I would like something along the performance lines of the NVIDIA 8800 GS GPU. I know it's rather expensive and up there, but the prices seem to justify the performance boost (twice the price for twice the frame rate). I'll have to look more into those choices you provided me, as well as how much of a difference it will be in real life (as I see it) and if it's worth going for. I want to make sure that they support Dx10 also.

I'm planning on a great sound system in the future. I love sound and have not had much opportunity to enjoy the luxury of true surround gaming. Realistically, I don't know if I'll be able to tell between an X-Fi chipset or the older Audigy, but then again, I haven't had the chance to actually sit down and playtest these cards. (I've also been under the notion that aftermarket sound cards are supposedly superior to onboard... but then again, times have changed.) I wish I could do something like that at BestBuy or something like how they have their home theatre "experiences;" sound is very subjective and I don't know how much of a difference sound card and/or onboard qualities will be, if you get what I'm trying to say. (I don't know how to word that at the moment.)

Funny as it is, I have no idea what I'm going to get for a monitor yet. I was so focused on the hardware components that I haven't looked into monitors... Definitely going to go with an LCD, even though their refresh rates aren't as good as a CRT (but I hear that they are very close nowadays). I'm actually pretty happy with my 17" laptop LCD, but time will tell as to what I'll eventually settle for.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

 

 

 

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Oh, the monitor is the easiest choice ever! Just pick a monitor which is the lowest price (<US$250-300) the biggest screen size (22" seems to be the best value for money), the best refresh rate (the lower the better, I'd recommend 2ms, those 5ms are a little slow if you're in to extreme fast movies and/or games) and don't forget the brightness (450-500 does well, although the higher the better (to a certain extend)), last of all, if you are going to be using the monitor to watch movies with your friends/family consider getting a monitor with very good viewing angles so that nobody fights for the front seat.

Speakers are not so important if your going to get full blown surround sound, but consider monitors with better speakers (10W+).
Oh, and ah... remember the resolution is very important, a typical 22" monitor should have 1680x1050 (or something like that) if the resolution is 1440x abcd it should be 20" etc... if its 1280x efgh it should be 19". Resolution is very important, although some 17", 19" laptop LCDs have 1920x1200, 1920x1080 resolutions desktop LCDs are a little different. Don't all buy from newegg too, some other sites (like dell.com, tigerdirect.com etc) might have some x% off sales too...

Remember, if you are going to be playing games (like Crysis etc) then you'll need a monitor with a very good contrast ratio, I recommend atleast 1000:1 although they might be $50-$100 more than the 800:1, 900:1 monitors
well here are some recommendations for LCD screens...

These are from newegg.com:
Monitor-1
Monitor-2
Monitor-3

Dell:
Many Dell branded Monitors
Well, that is all. Good luck Monitor Hunting (a division of house hunting...)

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Thanks for the info, never knew that.


Yep, just pick up a Samsung LCD and you're good to go

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