Current PC is now 4 years old and heading for retirement.

Need to get a good solid PC to initially run my current XP progs before a Vista 64 bit upgrade next year.

(I will use my current mouse, keyboard and monitor)

So here is the list of components I'm 99% sure I want to get, please see notes below for a few questions I have.

Case: Antec P182

http://scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=604059

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo, E8400, 3.0 GHz (Wolfdale)

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=736334

Motherboard: Asus P5Q Deluxe (not out yet but reviews rate it well)

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=818509

CPU/Case fans: Noctua NF-P12 Vortex-Control Quiet Case Fan 120mm (several of these)

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=787802

CPU Cooler: Asus Triton 79 Amazing Series

http://scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=777704

or Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-039-TR

PSU: Corsair HX 620w

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/3325602/-/Product.html?searchstring=Corsair+HX+620W&searchsource=0

Just three essentials left!

Hard drives:

Are WD Raptors really worth it? They are not SATA 2 (3gb) just standard SATA.

Are they noisy!!

Memory:

I Want 4gb DDR2 min. I know my XP will not recognise all of it but its needed for later Vista upgrade (Then I will get another 4gb!!)

I will overclock my E8400 3 ghz to at least 3.6ghz (see this easy guide!)

So I will want same fairly decent DDR2 RAM but 8500 or 6400?

I think I want 8500 but not finding much choice. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

GPU:

Initially I want a fairly cheap (but good) card preferably Nvidia with DX10 mainly for later use as part of a Media Centre PC. As long as it runs BF2 / Orange Box games great (in XP/Vista) I will be happy. Later I will fork out for a monster card, but not now!

Any help or suggestions on the above would be much appreciated.

The case is great, and comes with 3 silent fans in it. 4gig of ram is great if you have a 64 bit OS. I would have 2gig of ram to start with and get a slightly better VGA card with the spare cash that this allows.

About Raptor's; no they are not worth it, harddrive transitions and spin speed is rarely, if ever, an issue with games and other media. Three of my closest friends have owned Raptor drives and all it did was show that GPU and RAM are usually the biggest bottlenecks I'm afraid. Not saying they are useless, but for normal use (including serious gaming) I'd say they are.
Save the dough and go for space, 750 GB drives are dirt cheap now and 500 GB one's even more so!

What do you mean by "great" in reference to how the Orange Box games run?
Do you mean "great" as in very high resolution, max settings, and consistently high framerates?

Or do you mean average resolutions, average settings, and consistently high framerates?

Also, do you need that much power supply?

epsilon72 said:
What do you mean by "great" in reference to how the Orange Box games run?
Do you mean "great" as in very high resolution, max settings, and consistently high framerates?

Or do you mean average resolutions, average settings, and consistently high framerates?

Not looking for mega high resolutions, but want to play on high settings with very good to high framerates.

Also, do you need that much power supply?

Is 620w overkill? (I'd rather have too much than not enough)

Do you think the cheaper 520w version (or similar) will be enough? It unlikely I would want to have crossfire setup and not looking at doing lots of overclocking!

How I choose my graphics card?
With a price at least twice the next most expensive item on the list.

Which is more I want to spend on a card right now!  When I upgrade to Vista yeah sure I will shit out money for a good card, but right now something good will do!

Have you considered the Zalman xxxHP series? They are really quiet and they would fit quite well with your build.

As for the ram, I would pick the faster ram personally since you're going to have to ramp up your FSB speeds you need ram that can handle it.

2x2gb of good quality ram would go really well I would say.

As for the graphics card, why not pick up an ATI 38xx or 48xx series, that way you can scale your graphics output up to 3 cards as your need arises.

For lower resolution I would suggest the 4850 or if you intend to use a 27+ monitor in the future the 4870 with 1gb of GDDR5 ram will have plenty of bandwidth to run at a high resolution.

Squilliam said:
Have you considered the Zalman xxxHP series? They are really quiet and they would fit quite well with your build.

Yes but availability and price make the Corsair more appealing.  I am considering the 520w version now though!

As for the ram, I would pick the faster ram personally since you're going to have to ramp up your FSB speeds you need ram that can handle it.

2x2gb of good quality ram would go really well I would say.

Can you recommend anything specific?

As for the graphics card, why not pick up an ATI 38xx or 48xx series, that way you can scale your graphics output up to 3 cards as your need arises.

For lower resolution I would suggest the 4850 or if you intend to use a 27+ monitor in the future the 4870 with 1gb of GDDR5 ram will have plenty of bandwidth to run at a high resolution.

When I upgrade to Vista I will need something that supports V.High resolutions on 24" Widescreen or bigger.  But budget video cards are everywhere and there is a lot to choose from!!