Any upgrading needed?

[slugger_2003]

This is my thoughts on my next rig:

Processor : intel e6600

G/Card : 8800 gtx / X2000 XTX

Mobo : ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP

RAM : 2 * 1gb/2gb/ stick kingston HyperX ddr2 800 (PC6400) model: #KHX6400D2LLK2/1G

S/Card : Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro with X-Fi Remote Control Upgrade Kit

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty (already has the remote)

Speakers : Logitech Z-5500

Hard Drive 1 (Western Digital): 2* 250gb (WD2500KS) in Raid 0
(WD3200KS)
(WD4000KS)
(WD5000KS)

Hard Drive 2 : 150GB Raptor Drive (WD1500AHFD) for O/S in first partition
(perhaps 3 raptor drives and no caviar drive)

O/S : windows xp pro 64-bit (Comes with upgrade coupon?)

DVD writer : brown-box/OEM dvdrw dual layer 16x SATA (x 2)

Floppy Drive : OEM

Case: SILVERSTONE TJ09-BW Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Thermaltake VD1000SWA Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
RAIDMAX Samurai SAMURAI 908 Silver/Black SECC Steel / ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
NZXT Nemesis Elite Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Cooler Master CM Stacker 830
CoolerMaster Stacker 832
Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS

Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 Black

PSU: Corsair HX 620

Air-cooling: ????????

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5

If there are multiple entries it's because I'm undecided which to choose as of yet. Do the stock fans on the above cases do a good enough job for the above potential system (consider worst case scenario). Also, what would you folks suggest for cooling the CPU?
Thanks in advance.

Matt

 

[rysher]

looks good

 

[orion23]

Why buying XP when Vista is out?

Sure vista is a bit slower in benchmarks compared to XP, but it is not brutal or worth it, unless you like to count FPS.

Air Cooling will be just fine. Get a Tuniq Tower 120, Thermalright Ultra 120, Zalman 9700 LED or Scythe Infinity (Top 4 coolers out there)

Floppy drive? Those still exist?

Case... That's very personal. Whichever you like best. Seriously, you're gonna be looking at it for a long time...

Kingston RAM? I don't know about that.

Get a kit of Crucial Ballistix 4-4-4-12 or G.SKill 2GBHZ 4-4-4-12 ($300 or less)

Very overclockable RAM. Those 2 are the best PC2-6400 RAM available.

 

[White_Hair]

Nice rig.

Couple "personal advices":

- You "might" have some problems with the creative Fata1ty sound card. As a former owner of that product, I can tell you that card bring me a lot of problems, cold-boot, cracking sounds, slow down windows performance, etc, on my DFI NF4 Venus board with 600W OCZ GameXStream

- For air cooling, check out Tuniq Tower, I have one and it is the best I have tried. Make sure your case layout and motherboard model is capable of handling this heatsink (it is huge and heavy). Due to my Lian-li PC-V2100B Plus II case layout, the motherboard has to be installed up-side-down and the Tuniq will hit the psu compartment wall if the 775 cpu socket is too close to the edge. I don't know about the silverstone one, you better check it out. The Tuniq has lenght of 13cm and according to my actual measurement, you will need to have the cpu socket to have at least 4 to 4.5cm away from the edge of the motherboard. (All the 680i motherboard built according to the reference motherboard doesn't work for me, and I ended up spend extra 160 to upgrade to Asus striker. So beware!!)

- For your ram selection. Check out this thread and try your best to get Micron D9GMH chip for better oc. (which implies you will have a lot of probablity of oc from ddr800 to ddr1000+) The thread is here: http://ramlist.ath.cx/ddr2/

If you are looking for corsair model, you can go to here: http://www.houseofhelp.com/v3/showthread.php?p=281817

Just some personal thoughts.

Cheers

 

[ghost6303]

Why buying XP when Vista is out?
Sure vista is a bit slower in benchmarks compared to XP, but it is not brutal or worth it, unless you like to count FPS.

there is no reason for a gamer (let alone anyone for that matter) to purchase vista as of now, or anytime in the forsee-able future. see my post here #13 for more reasons
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1157874

also vista runs DX10- no games, software, or video cards currently run DX10 so theres no point in upgrading.

in regards to the origional post... ditch win 64 bit and get the 32bit version, very very few software titles use 64 bit anyway, and your only going to run into headaches trying to get 32 bit applications to run in 64.

and if your taking my advice above, theres no reason to get 2x2gb sticks of ram, only vista would utilize it, for xp i would save my money, or maybe spurge and get 2x1gb of something a little faster
ther then that your setup looks pretty sweet. my 2 cents anyway.

 

[pdinc]

Just buy a XP disc from newegg with a free vista upgrade coupon and you get the best of both worlds.

Also, I heard a lot of not so happy users complaining about it being a bitch to get all the features on that board up and running, so you might want to take a looksee about that. Thats why I went with a bx2.