My Christmas Story
I am ordering all of my parts through NewEgg, I will not post the case because that is a controversial item for most people. I am posting the hardware I am getting. My goal price was $800 and the final price with shipping ended up coming out to $811.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3
1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
250GB Western Digital 7200RPM SATA 3.0
Gigabyte GeForce 7900GS
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
Antec 500W PSU
I will explain my reasoning. The processor is the best overclocker according to many and comes at a cheap $218 from NewEgg. The motherboard has been given a lot of really good reviews for C2D overclocking. The RAM was just the best bang for the buck and the motherboard might have an issue with RAM voltages above 2.1V. Some say that the newest BIOS will fix that, but I didn't want to take any chacnes. The hard drive was about $80 and for a 250GB SATA you can't really beat that price. The video card was quite possibly the hardest part to decide on. I thought really hard about getting the ATI x850xt for $120 because it was a 256-bit card and had really high clock speeds as well. I myself used to have an ATi card and I couldn't stand their drivers to say the least. Also, I wanted a card that would handle most of the newer graphical games that are coming out. The 7900GS @ $189 with an after market GPU cooler allowing for further overclocking just seemed like the best deal. The powersupply was just laying around my house and I didn't feel like buying another one. :) Hope that this will help someone out or someone will catch a mistake that I made in my selection of these parts. Keep in mind that this computer will be overclocked. The standard according to the motherboard paired up with a C2D is that the E6400 will run at a STABLE 3.2Ghz not to mention that I will be using an after market CPU cooler. Happy hunting.
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Hey nvrx! Welcome to Nordic PC.
You have a pretty good parts list there. I of course would disagree with some selections, but in this business everyone has their own preference.
I've been building computers for about 5 years professionally, and have used most all brands of components out there. There are only two manufacturers I will use now for motherboards, Asus and MSI. I also tend to lean toward EVGA for video because of their great support and Step-Up program.
Good luck on the build man. You should have a great budget PC there when you're done.
I have also had good experiences with MSI and their driver locator is a godsend for lazy people :D I have never had an ASUS but I was told that their drivers are quite hard to find and I have had to deal with my fair share of "retarded" motherboards that virtually have no drivers. Thanks for the quick response. On another note you mentioned something regarding different parts, I was just curious on just which parts those were.
Well, if you check out what I'm putting in machines like the Njord Berserker, it should be fairly straight forward. I use Seagate hard drives, except for the W/D Raptors, and I would've used an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard. I know it's a bit pricey compared to the Giga-byte, but that 8 phase voltage regulation is nice, as is the heatpipe design.
Probably the biggest disagreement would be the 1GB of memory, instead of 2GB. The 7900GS is a good card, but the 7900GT has more pixel pipes and clocks higher than the GS. It's a little more money, but a lot more bang. Also, I take it that Audigy 2 is a left over, as anyone buying audio would get an X-Fi these days.
I guess that's about it.