First Computer Build - Opinions?

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tmbroe01

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Apr 4, 2008
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I'm sure you guys get a lot of these but I figured I'd post up my plans for my first computer build for any opinions. Building it for Gaming, but I'm sure that's obvious.

Case: Raidmax Smilodon, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156063

Power Supply: Corsair 550W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

Motherboard: MSI P35 Neo2-FR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130098

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029

GPU: XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150252

Memory: A-Data 2X1GB 800 MHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066

Hardrive: Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 160GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148230

Optical Drive: Philips DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827248008

Keyboard: Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109156

I know the hard drive is on the smaller size, but that's just to keep the initial price down. Total price plus shipping and mail-in rebates comes to $846.89. I would love to get that below $800 if anyone has any ideas. Also, any opinions on my potential overclockability would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
buy the power supply from buy.com. its $85 ($70 AR).

although you want to spend less... i would bump up to the e8400 since prices went down. they are out of stock at newegg currently but in stock at buy.com, zipzoomfly.com, etc. they are in the $210 range.

look up your parts at different websites to find better deals. clubit, buy, zipzoomfly, mwave... to name a few.
 
MoBo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136034
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137
memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161063
Gfx: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150282 700mhz core speed
Hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148261

The case is the only thing that you might not like but the other things i looked for price to performance ratio and i found that harddrive with more space same price. Hopefully you like some of these and this helps you with you decision making...
oh and
PS...you can get the 550 corsair from buy.com cheaper probally they always have them cheap ..i have one from them for about 75 dollars and free shipping
 
Here's what I would adjust with your setup.

Case - CoolerMaster RC 590 for $70 (Or stick with your Raidmax if that's your preference)
CPU - E4500 Core 2 Allendale for $120. Drop that E6750 as you can overclock the E4500. Save $70
PSU - Buy that VX550 from Buy.com as what crhscoog just mentioned which has free shipping. Save money by going this route.
HDD - For $10 more get the Seagate 250gb SATA 300 drive for $60 as oppose to that 160gig
Video - MSI NX8800GTS OC edition with free Witcher PC game for $230 before MIR. $200 after MIR

BTW, what about your O/S?
 
crhscoog: Well, that deal on the power supply will save me some money. As far as the E8400 goes, I never really thought about the fact that it is only $20 more than the E6750, so I should probably get that instead.

P£P§!™: I'm still up in the air as far as the motherboard goes. I was looking at a motherboard in the same price range as the DFI you suggested, the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L. I've heard good things about it, but was turned off by the fact that apparently its North Bridge runs pretty hot, which is why I switched over to the MSI that I posted, which supposedly runs cool. I like your suggestion for the hard drive, which is practically the same as what I was looking at except that it doubles my disk space for only $10 more. As far as Gfx goes, I decided that I wasn't going to go with anything less than the 8800GT. I like the case you posted, but I've gotten really attached to that Smilodon for some reason.
 
HardwareGuru said:
Here's what I would adjust with your setup.

Case - CoolerMaster RC 590 for $70 (Or stick with your Raidmax if that's your preference)
CPU - E4500 Core 2 Allendale for $120. Drop that E6750 as you can overclock the E4500. Save $70
PSU - Buy that VX550 from Buy.com as what crhscoog just mentioned which has free shipping. Save money by going this route.
HDD - For $10 more get the Seagate 250gb SATA 300 drive for $60 as oppose to that 160gig
Video - MSI NX8800GTS OC edition with free Witcher PC game for $230 before MIR. $200 after MIR

BTW, what about your O/S?
Click to expand...

I thought about getting something like an E4500, but I didn't want to overclock the processor right out of the box. I know overclocking isn't that big of a deal, I've never actually performed one before so I wanted to a get a CPU that had a decent clock speed to start with. Then after I'd had the computer for a while I would begin to mess around with overclocking it a bit.

As far as my O/S goes, my University offers a $8 copy of the windows 32 bit Ultimate Upgrade disk for students. I've heard that you can use the upgrade disk to perform a clean install so that's my planned route. If that doesn't work, then I'll just use my old XP disk to install XP and then upgrade it. I'd like to go 64 bit, but I can't get the 64-bit disk through my University or through Microsoft. Of course if none of that works then I'll just have to buy a copy of Windows Home Premium 64-bit.
 
Yeah I understand. If you're new to overclocking, you don't want to overclock the cpu right away. You want to just have it running for now then, later on decide to overclock it.

tmbroe01 said:
I thought about getting something like an E4500, but I didn't want to overclock the processor right out of the box. I know overclocking isn't that big of a deal, I've never actually performed one before so I wanted to a get a CPU that had a decent clock speed to start with. Then after I'd had the computer for a while I would begin to mess around with overclocking it a bit.
Click to expand...
 
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