Building first PC!

J

JSgamer

New Member
I decided to build my first custom pc to replace my 5 year old laptop so I wanted some opinions of the items I chose and if I should reconsider anything.

Here is what I have picked out so far:

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039

Graphics card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130442

Power Supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145232

Hard drive X2 for Raid 0 Setup:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296

Monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001278

CD/DVD Drive/Burner:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129023

Sound Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102024

OS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116493

CPU cooling (plan to overclock):
http://www.quietpcusa.com/Thermalright-Ultra-120-Extreme-1366-RT-Quiet-CPU-Cooler-P507C61.aspx

The total comes out to roughly $2500 which is kinda high but I just don't know where I want to make cuts for a less expensive price. Since I'm coming from a laptop I do have some added cost of having to get a monitor and the new OS is costly as well since my XP prefessional I read will only support 4GB of ram.

What do you think?
 
Ok first things first sick system! Instead of getting 2 150 gb Velociraptors get 1 300 gb hard drive. Its cheaper anyway. That ram is pretty epic but its also overly expensive. Try to find some cheaper ram. Corsair is good and so is OCZ.
 
He wants run RAID though. Kinda hard with one drive. lol

Also, I don't think you gain much on the 285 vs. the 260,
especially for the price of a 260.

And with Windows 7 coming soon, it may be wise to save
your money on Vista and wait for the full release of 7.
You can find the 7 Beta online, but not from Microsoft.
 
Last edited:
Bodaggit23 said:
He wants run RAID though. Kinda hard with one drive. lol

Also, I don't think you gain much on the 285 vs. the 260,
especially for the price of a 260.

And with Windows 7 coming soon, it may be wise to save
your money on Vista and wait for the full release of 7.
You can find the 7 Beta online, but not from Microsoft.
Click to expand...

He doesn't need to run raid though. Second the 285 is better than the 260 216 core so I approve of that. Also 7 is going to have its own host of problems when it comes out. Just get Vista SP2.
 
Not when you can get a 260 for less than $200.00

It's not twice as good, so why would you pay twice
the price?

I guess if money is not object.
 
I have to agree while GTX 285 is a nice card....its not worth twice the price of a GTX 260. If anything you should SLI 2 260s instead for greater performance for the same price. I mean why buy a SLI I7 board without taking advantage of it!


Also 300 bucks for a monitor is pretty nuts.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236050

or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009145

or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001254

Pretty much mirror specs for half the price.
 
Last edited:
Could save some on your monitor too. Here's some items that would
substantially lower your build price, but still leave you with a great pc:

Acer 22" = $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=2010190020 1309822582 4017&name=$100 - $200
GTX 260 Superclocked
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130372
CORSAIR DOMINATOR DDR3 1600 (you won't notice the difference unless you're benchmarking)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224
VelociRaptor 300GB (RAID not necessary) ($199.99 Rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136322
 
Thanks for all the very good suggestions. My goal was to stay as close to $2000 including a monitor as I can.

The reason I picked the monitor I have in my first post was because of the HDMI port.

I think Ill downgrade a bit on the memory and use what was suggested here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224

I'm thinking about dropping the external sound card and use the sound off the mother board as well as run 32 bit XP (already have it so its free) for now until Windows 7 rolls out even though it only supports 4 gigs of ram.

The last thing I'm deciding on is the RAID setup. Is RAID 0 or RAID 1 worth the performance or fault tolerance?

With those changes that should put me at about $1980.
 
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