[leehall]

Hello,
Newbie here. I am building a new gaming/home use computer for the first time, and have been looking around but still don't know much about how it all works. I am getting almost all the parts from Newegg, as that is what I am most comfortable searching through. Any other sites with comparable prices would be much appreciated! I want a nice computer for < $2000 that will allow me to upgrade in the future if needed (these parts add up to about $1400 without monitor, power supply, case, cooling, and disk drives: this is the upper limit on what I can spend). This is what I have so far, I am trying to figure out if all the parts are compatible or not (they are as far as I can tell), and if there are any bottle-necks or over-kills. Also, I need to figure out what power supply I need for this- any recommendations?
All suggestions/comments welcome: I am new to this and don't want to make a mistake!
(I put links to their corresponding newegg listing underneath)

Motherboard:
Asus P5E3 WS PRO LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131282

Ram:
Patriot Viper 4gb (2x2gb) 240-Pin DDR3 1333Mhz Dual Channel with 7-7-7-20 timings
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220286
...I am trying to go with DDR3 to make everything easier to upgrade in the future, even though I am only using a 1333Mhz FSB on my CPU.

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Q9550
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115041
...Am also considering a Q9400/9450, or possibly a Q6600. If I compromise on some of the other parts I am also thinking about the Q9650, but that is probably out of my price range.

GPU:
PNY GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB 512-bit GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133217
...Is this over-kill?

HDD:
WD 80GB RAPTOR 10K RPM SATA 3GB/s WD800ADFS HARD DRIVE
(newegg doesn't sell this)
...I plan to put my OS's and several games on this one
AND
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148138
...for more room.


Other thoughts: I think I will be trying to run linux(several distrobutions) an dfreeBSD on it, and it needs to be OC-able. Also, later upgrades might include water-cooling it (are there any cheap blocks for the 9800 gx2's?), and more HDD's on it in raid. How big of a case do I need? Please comment!
Also, any other sites to post this question on and get more opinions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!!

[thingie2]

in all, quite a good selection, however there are a few things I think you could upgrade, for example, the graphics card, personally I would go with this card as it is slightly less money, however performs only slightly behind the Nvidia 280GTX, and better in some tests.

Harddrives, the old raptors aren't that special anymore, and don't provide much additional speed compared to a fast 7200 rpm, go here, then scroll to the bottom and click "View all products" then go bakc to the top and choose your test, you will see the raptors don't come in at the top (apart from the newer velociraptor but that costs $300) and the second harddrive can be faster too, it is the older range from seagate being from the 7200.10 range, as there is the faster 7200.11 range. For my build when I'm getting it, i'm probably going to be getting 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 320GB drives for raid, as these are single platter and therefore very fast (see the chart again) and then getting a 750GB drive as backup.

PSU: I used this calculator here which I find quite good to give you the power you will need. The caclulator recomends about 550W, so I would probably go with a Corsair 620W this is because I find corsair make very good powersupplys, and the extra power allows the PSU to not run at 100% therefore making it quieter (fan will be slower) and it is also modular meaning you only have to have the cables you are using in the case.

[Spencer2004]

well i think that u should go for ddr2 1066mhz as they are cheaper than ddr3 and have lower latencies with basically means that they will go faster, u will also need a board change if u chose that option.

go with a q6600 and overclock it to Q9550 speed to save a couple hundred dollas.

if u r going with an intel chipset based motherboard u should get an amd card so u can add another card and put it in crossfire mode in the future, i suggest a 4870 x2. also amd r better than nvidia because their cards are getting better and cheaper and also they dont lie about their proudcts like nvidia do.

the raptors are poor value for money and samsungs f1 series are faster in many cases plus they give you allot more storage for your money, for even more speed i suggest buying 2 of these and putting them in a raid 0 configoration.

so if you decide to go with ddr2 and u change your chosen motherboard u will want to go for either an x38 or x48 chipset and be sure to get one with pretty copper heatsinks and heat pipes on the north bridge, south bridge and vrms. asus is a very good make to go with.

as for the things you havent mentioned you will need a reasonabley good cpu cooler if you chose to overclock, look for something around the $50 - $80 mark as overclocked quad cores run very hot. if you dont want to overclock an artic cooling freezer pro 7 will do.as for the case it dosent really matter what you go with as long as its atx standard and has atleast 4 holes to place fans.

when you buy a psu you will need about 650W - 750w to power all your hardware, make sure you go with a good quality one as cheap ones will damage your hardware, a modular psu will help with cable tidying and airflow.

i hope that you dont mean that u r going linux only because the only games that i have found for linux is quake 4 and doom 3 but i assume that u r going with windows. obviously go with vista as it supports direct x 10 and direct x 11 eventually.

hope this helps

[leehall]

Wow... Thanks Allot!

I am definitely losing the raptor, and thanks for the psu calculator and graphics card suggestion!

Yea, I think for now I will probably go with ddr2 memory still: maybe get a mobo that supports both? Downgrading the cpu and overclocking it seems like a good idea: I was planning on over-clocking the 2.83Ghz too, but I don't think I need that much power for a couple hundred more. I hadn't really looked at amd that much, but I will definitely do that now.

Yes, definitely going with vista for my gaming! (I plan on booting to several OS's).

Do you think the price of my cpu will go down when Nehalem comes out?

Thanks allot, this really helps!

[thingie2]

I would say, yes, the CPU's probably will go down a bit, however the Q6600 will probably go down less than the Q9550, as the Q9550 is more expensive because it is among the newest (and fastest) CPU's around.

[Spencer2004]

well the q6600 will overclock to about 3.6ghz but 2.8 ish seems safer and more stable. the asus p5kc had both ddr2 and ddr3 support and will give you a moddest overclock, however if you want to go for a better motherboard you will have to go with one or the other as motherboards that support both ddr 2 and 3 are mostly buget motherboards. you could get the speed of ddr3 but with the cost and low latenticies of ddr2 by buying some ddr2 1200hmz and overclocking it to about 1400 - 1500mhz.

of yes and you will need a guide to dual boot vista and linux as it is hard to do so and u can skuff up your operating system boot options. make sure that you have a vista instilation disk handy as you will need to do severial OS repairs when installing operating systems that vista dosent like (all of them)