Tax Refund Upgrade.

[merlin704]

With my Tax Refund, I am updating my current PC:

P4 3.0C@4ghz
1gb Kingston HyperX PC4000
Abit IC7-G
ATi X800XTPE

It's a little behind times but can handle most new games with max settings.


My new upgrade choice:

Intel C2D E6600
Asus P5B Deluxe
2Gb Geil Ultra DDR2 800
eVGA 8800GTX KO
Maxtor 500Gb SATA 3.0
BFG Tech. 800W PSU.

Comes to about $1800 shipped.

Anything I should change or should I just hit the Purchase button?

 

[engiNURD]

Change the PSU... to a corsair 520W. Also, why the p5b deluxe instead of the p5b-e? Theres some g.skills for $185 at the egg, 2gbnq; they work great and OC to around DDR2-900. if you want to OC past ddr2-900 (past 450Mhz base FSB), go for one of these instead:
$235 - Patriot eXtreme Performance 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 PDC22G6400LLK ($275 - $40MIR)
$245 - Buffalo Firestix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 FSX800D2C-K2G
$290 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ
$300 - Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 BL2KIT12864AA804

If you want SLI, go for the 680i SLI or 650i SLI boards instead of a P965 Express chipset with two 16x PCI-E slots. The P5N-E SLI is nicely priced and can OC very well.

 

[merlin704]

What 680i board do you recommend? Also what is wrong with the RAM and PSU I have chosen?

 

[engiNURD]

The Asus one is good. The eVGA ones are nice, too, but you might get a bad one and need an RMA.

BFG doesnt make great PSUs. They're supplied by TOPOWER, and while they do have some great psu's (Tagans), the BFG ones usually aren't (usually TOPOWERs lower quality psus). JG says its a hit or miss with them. Why take the chance? just get a known, good, reliable brand. You don't even need an 800W PSU for a single 8800GTX, only a 450W w/ +12V @ 28A. The Corsair I recommended has been getting rave reviews from everyone, and is supplied by Seasonic. It can supply 40A on the +12V rail and is half the price of the BFG. If you plan to upgrade to an SLI setup, then get the 620W Corsair, which is more than enough for an SLI system, and still cheaper than the BFG. You could always get a lower PSU for now, and add a GPU PSU (FSP Booster X 300W GPU PSU) in the future, if and when you upgrade to SLI. Check the recommended PSU list in the psu subform. You could also check out jonnyguru.com (rec. list is in the forum), and http://psu.thetruck.net.

The 4-4-4-12 GeiL ram seems to be having alot of issues. If you'd like to try your luck, go ahead. The G.Skill sticks dont seem to have as many people complaining about them. While I usually don't care about newegg user reviews, there seems to be a large number of users having issues with those sticks. Now if you want to OC past DDR2-900, then go for any sticks that use the micron ic's.

 

[merlin704]

Hmm I really appreciate the info. Been out of the loop for awhile. Guess you could tell that from my current setup. Anyhow, I do want to be able to upgrade to SLI which is why I chose the 800W BFG. BUt now, I will look into the Corsair 620 and the G.Skill RAM.

New configuration:

C2D E6600
Asus P5N32-E SLI
G.Skill 2x1gb DDR2 800
eVGA 8800GTX KO
Corsair 620HX PSU

Anything else?