[Spencer2004]

hello again i have come up with my final part list for my gaming rig. plz comment on it and advis any changes etc, note that my max budget is £600 and i am aware that my hard drive isnt included in the list as i allready have 1.

[tomthedrummer1992]

My personal preference is to have IDE DVD drives - this frees up the SATA channels for adding Hard Drives, and means I can have many more optical drives should I want to.

So far as the case goes, I would highly recommend a thermaltake one. The airflow in them is simply amazing, lots of room inside, clear panel on the side and very easy to work with. I have this one http://www.thermaltake.com/product/C.../vb1000bws.asp and would recommend it any day of the week. I got mine from Novatech. Especially, as looking at that one, it only has the one fan on the side and I can't see an intake fan.

Monitor isn't fantastic. I have a 2000:1 contrast ratio and 2ms response rate and I got mine at a similar price - although mine is only 19". Also as that GFX card has DVI outputs, I would highly recommend getting a monitor with a DVI input (like mine does) otherwise you won't see the true benefits of such a good card.

Just my 2p.

[thingie2]

All rarther good, but there are improvements that could be made, depending on usage. Are you planning to overclock this machine? If you are, you will need a better CPU fan, and possibly a case with better airflow, it doesn't look like that one is very good in that sense. if you are not overclocking though, I think those should be fine.

I disagree about the DVD drives, SATA is best, it's much easier to use and more tidy, and most motherboards have atleast 4 SATA ports on them, so unless you are a making a server, or wanting to RAID an insane number of drives together, it's fine. And you can only have a max of 2 IDE drives on most newer motherboards.

Monitor, is ok, but like tomthedrummer said, it would be better to get one with DVI input. And if there is one for a similar price with better response time, or contrast ratio, got for that one, but you won't notice much difference between 5ms and 2ms response.

[tomthedrummer1992]

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree about SATA lol.

Personally, I like to have to optical drives (only have 1 at the moment though) and if I went SATA I would only be able to have 2 hard drives, wheras I plan to have possibly 3.

Again it depends on how many SATA there is on the motherboard, for example if there is only 2 then get an IDE optical, but if there is say 6 it doesn't matter. SATA does look more tidy though as the cables aren't flipping massive!

[thingie2]

Oh, well if you don't have many SATA ports, then yes, it's probably best to go IDE, but most motherboards come with atleast 4 SATA ports (atleast the ones I have seen that aren't for complete budget builds)

[Spencer2004]

thanks guys. yes i want sata because its more tidy and im not bothered about losing a sata port as i will get a terabyte drive if i need more storage and im not bothered about raid or anything. i will be overclocking my cpu to 4ghz so i guess that i will need a better cooler, i saw the duorb and that looked pretty good but its massive, could someone give me some suggestions plz. as for the case i thought that the 250mm side fan would give allot of airfolw allong with all the other fans but if not can someone also make a suggestion for an alternative but keep in ming that im not going to pay £100 for a case. finally i dont really care about the quality of the monitor as long as it works as im going to get a 24" later anyway.

[thingie2]

well for a cooler, a good cooler is the Noctua NH-U12P it's not the cheapest of coolers, but on the reviews I have seen it performs better than the Tuniq tower and is alot quieter.

As for the case, something like an Antec 300 is good for a cheap case, good airflow, but still fairly cheap.

Of course you can go to other sites for the products, but I wasn't sure what site you originally speced from so i couldn't get links from there.

[tomthedrummer1992]

I still say get the Thermaltake for your case!

[thingie2]

Thermaltake's are more expensive though

[tomthedrummer1992]

They are more expensive but so worth it! Especially is you are going to be sticking huge coolers in. They also have better airflow, dust filter on the intake fan, nice clear side and look sexy too. You can also lock the front to stop people you don't want to get in getting in.