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Advice Needed on New Intel Build

N

naxos

n00b
Joined
Apr 19, 2004
Messages
60
Good Afternoon!

Its been a while since I have upgraded. In fact I'm still running a AMD 64 3200+. So as I see I'm due a significant upgrade.

Lots has changed since I was planning my last build and I would really value some input on my part selection. One of the things I would really love to accomplish in this build is to make an extremely quiet box - maybe I'm just getting old but the roar of the jet engines in my current computer just isn't doing it for me anymore. That being said if making it extremely quiet will compromise performance - I would prefer to bump up the decibels a bit.

System Use and Overclocking intentions: I will be using this as my main system for work and gaming. I have another box I use as a multimedia system so that is not a major concern for this box atm. For work I use Dreamweaver, Photoshop CS3, and very minimally Sony Vegas. For gaming I mainly play World of Warcraft but casually like to play the latest and the greatest FPSs and RTSs. The monitor it will be plugged into is the 24inch Dell Ultrasharp. As far as overclocking goes - I have never done any overclocking before, but now most of the reviews make it seem so easy with automated settings for it in the bios now days. So I would like to overclock as long as it doesn't take extreme cooling or is too complicated. I understand you can easily get this chip to 3.0Ghz?

System Components
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 any reason to spend more?
MOBO - Could use lots of help here because they seem quite expensive if I'm looking at DDR3 and Also I can't decided how important SLI is to me, I know I won't have install it with the new build but could be nice to add in later on when the system is getting tired?:
Memory - Should I go DDR2 or DDR3, Also 2GB Dual Channel or 4 even though 32bit Windows can't address all 4? Or is 3gb the sweet spot for 32bit OS?:
Video Card: Still deciding between nVidia 9800x2 or the 8800GTX.
Looking at these 2 cards or the likes:
HDD: A quick large capacity SATA drive. Unless RAID would be the way to go?

Accessories
Case: LIAN LI PC-A59B or LIAN LI Lancool PC-K7B
PSU:Need suggestions. Want a solid, quiet, preferably modular PSU
CPU Cooler:Would like suggestions for a solid, quiet fan (without leds ;))

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to try and get all the details on the page in one swoop...I'm sure I still forgot something. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. As you can tell by looking at the parts, Price is not the #1 factor in determining parts as I have budgeted some decent coin for this build (because I generally only build every 3 or 4 years), but I would hate to overpay on a part that I won't see any performance bump from - ie. just paying for a name.

THANKS!
 
Perhaps this should be moved to the General Hardware section? Or should I repost there?
 
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