Page 1 of Recommend new Gaming PC specs

Been saving my pennies and have approx. £950 for my dream machine.

Looking at:

E6600
2GB 800Mhz Ram low latencey
Mobo - not sure - but need reliable one for gaming and video editing
88000GTS 320Mb card - BFG looking good.
Quiet - good cooling gaming case - Antec 900 looks the daddy.
2x 500GB 16MB cache drives - WD
Onboard sound - if decent mobo
Gig lan
Firewire
Power supply - quiet
DVD burner - would like lightscribe and robust burner.


The main areas I am looking for advice on a good memory mobo combination that will work with the Antec case and a decent power rated power supply preferably as Eco friendly as poss and enough power for the gaming !
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Go for good quality branded RAM, but don`t pay over the top for `gaming performance RAM`. You really only need exotic RAM if you are intending to seriously overclock.

Seagate or Samsung for the drives not WD, preferably Samsung.

I have been happy with Pioneer and NEC DVD writers, and had two LG`s that died with little use.

Asus are probably the most reliable MB supplier, Abit have made some good boards but they also have made some dogs. I think Foxconn are churning out some good boards at the moment and I like Asrock.

Do some research on the Net, places like Toms Hardware.

The 6600 is a fantastic processor that held its £200 price for months.
In the last few weeks you can now get it for around £140 - £150 and the E6700 has come down to almost take its price. So, depending on when you decided your budget could mean either you spend less money or could get more power for the same money...??...........

Ste

as above, tbh unless your overclocking get mid range ram, the other stuff is overpriced & as with all pc stuff theres always something that`ll replace it 5 mins after you`ve bought it :)

Seagate or Samsung for the drives not WD, preferably Samsung

aargh,,,,,, sorry, but for my two penneth worth WD (western digital) are amongst the most reliable drives on the market, i`m still running a 200gig ide WD drive & after about 4 years of heavy abuse it`s still going strong & near silent (& thats in my pc thats running 24/7) i also have a 230gig SATA WD drive thats also been hassle free, but, i do also like the seagate drives, i have a seagate baracuda 300gig drive thats been no problem in the 2 years it`s been running, & i also used to have a samsung spinright drive, but i swapped it out becuase it seemed to have a continuous "hum" BUT i have to say this was probably just that particular drive, because the sammy spinrights are by all account very quite in normal operation...

i`ve had a few asus boards, and i`d say they are generally very good, only had 2 duffers (one a p4 mobo the other a socket A) i`m currently running an abit AB9-Pro & i`ve found it to be superb, the main + point for me is that it has 9 sata 2 connecters, so adding new drives is a doddle, incidentaly my previouse board was an asus dual pci-e board, but tbh running two gfx cards isn`t the booster you may think, imo, get a single gfx card but go higher in spec, rather than having 2 mid range running in tandem, as for dvd writers, i have a sata writer, it was £22 from scan, it`s a samsung & it`s the most reliable drive i`ve had yet, although i also use nec as well & they are also excellent (but i believe sony own them now, so that may change)

as for an eco friendly psu, don`t bother, given the spec you want go for the highest wattage you can afford, don`t do it on the cheap, but also imo don`t go to high, i don`t see the point in paying £100+ for a psu when a well made one can be bought for less than £50, go for a minimum 650-to-700 watt, EZcool & Atrix both do very well priced high quality models in that range :)

hope this helps...

Well I have never seen a Seagate die, and I can go back to the days when 20MB was as big as they came. WD make decent drives, but I think they generally have a lower performance and higher price then the Seagates and Samsungs. I do run a pair of WD Raptors and they are superb drives (bloody noisy though!!!) so its not that I am anti WD. I don`t have any long term experience with the Samsungs but I have had a pair running 24/7 for the last two years. Almost all recent comparative tests have rated the Samsungs above all others for performance and noise, they have always had a good reputation for being quiet drives.

There is a comprehensive group test in the current (June??) PCW. The Samsung 500GB was the Editor`s choice; I hope they are right as I have just thrown 4 of them into a media server. They are going to be sharing space with an EZcool PSU, so that is another vote for that.

Description Price
Mobo Asus P5B Deluxe WIFI Socket 775 Core 2 Duo P965 FSB1066 DDR2 SATA Audio ATX 113.86
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4ghz) Socket 775 FSB1066 4MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 150.91
Memory Part No. BL2KIT12864AL663 2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix Tracer 240-pin DIMM (with LEDs) Upgrade for a ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP System 91.64
Graphics BFG 8800GTS OC 320MB DDR3 Dual DVI PCI-E 185.67
Case Antec Nine Hundred - Gaming Case with 200mm Top Fan - No PSU 67.99
HD1 Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM 75.99
HD2 Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM 75.99
HD3 WD Raptor WD360ADFD 36GB SATA 10KRPM 16MB Cache - OEM 65.32
DVD LG GSA-H42LBRL 18x DVD±RW DL/RAM Lightscribe Internal - Black Retail 24.67
Power Antec TruePower Trio 650W PSU - With 3x 12v Rails and 120mm Fan 70.99
Cooler Zalman CNPS7500-ALCU LED Socket 478, 775, AM2, 754, 939 & 940 CPU Cooler 18.29
Total 941.32

This is what I have so far specced up.

Any thoughts / compatability issues ?

I am mainly doing video editing and gaming.