Hey guys, I'm very new to this but I've been researching and looking around for over 3 days now and my brain is fried. I don't know what else I need or understand what I'm reading anymore after 3 days of researching lol. I want to be able to play Age of Conan and Crysis on high(max if possible) settings as well as being able to 3d model, animate and other video and graphical editing without lag and drag. I wanted to start with this build first but add on more later like more ram, video card for dual sli and a monsoon cooler... etc. This is what I've come up with so far.


**********

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129021

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131294

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115043

Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231166

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139006

Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130345

Optical: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136133

HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148298


Future purchases:

Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835702002

Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009125

More Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231166

Another Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130345

Sound: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6829271003


*********

Questions:

1. What kind of vista should I get? I mainly want it for DX10. I know it's buggy and stuff and takes time to tinker with to get it work right and software company have/had trouble getting their software to work but if there's any major reason not to get vista that is worth hearing that will affect my total experience, please tell me.

2. Will my PSU handle this and future set up?

3. Is there anything else I need?

4. Will I be able to add on an ATI video card later so I can use sli with 2 monitors and ATI card with another monitor? From what I read using all sli capatible card would force all card to shut down and be used as one. I don't understand what PCI-e x1 is.

5. Do I need a NIC besides using the mobo nic? I saw Killer nics ad saying its the best but some of the customer reviews say different. If getting a nic improve my online gaming experience, which do you recommend?


**********

This is all the questions I can think of at the moment. If there is anything else I should know, please let me know. Any constructive feedback, advice or suggestions would be nice!


EDIT: Want to keep it around $2000 or less. I know my monitor is going to take a chunk out of my budget. Will go beyond if needed.

Top 5 heatsinks:

http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

Check your PSU here:

Certified SLI-Ready Power Supplies
http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

Get Vista SP1 64-bit.
The link to More RAM is not correct. It is showing a cooler.

3. I don't see a hard disk.

5. Forget the Killer NIC, IMHO. Onboard is good enough.

I've added the HD and fixed the more ram link.

I've checked it, they don't have a listing for 9600 GT 1G Dual SLI. They do have a list for "other builds" at the bottome but there is so much PSU in that list that doesn't tell me anything but brand, watt and its SLI certified! I need to know which PSU would supply dual 9600 GT 1G SLI, 9300 quad and everything else.

Checking out the frosty tech link right now. Would these be consider better or just cheaper? The heatsink i linked can get your CPU below -3 degrees.

Looking at the PSU link again. I assume the +12v/60a is what I want or more then I need? I read somewhere on the SLIzone site that it needs about 30a.

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_ask_mmm001.html

then again his card is weaker than what I'm aimming for.

Case: Good choice.

Mobo: NVIDIA chipsets aren't up to par with their Intel counterparts. I recommend a P45 like the ASUS P5Q Pro instead. It's much cheaper and much better. It also supports Crossfire, but more on that later

CPU: Solid choice. It might be worth it to move up to a Q9450 for the extra cache.

Ram: I have the PC6400 version of that stuff and it is flawless. Honestly there's no need for PC8500; PC6400 will run 1:1 with a 400MHz FSB which is a good target for a stable long-term overclock.

PSU: Yes, best choice out their in my opinion

Video: STOP. The Radeon HD4850 is twice as fast as that card and $25 cheaper. Check the reviews, it beats the 9800GTX:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14967/1

You could also put the money you saved on the mobo towards a more powerful HD4870. You might need it for that 1920x1200 display. It is faster than the GTX260 and can even challenge the GTX280 in some tests. Unfortunately it can be hard to find in stock right now but keep a sharp eye out and you might see one.

Optical: Do you really need Blu-ray right now?

Cooler: I think you'd be much better off with a good air cooler like the ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro.

Monitor: Looks good but I'm not up to speed on LCDs.

Another Video: If you follow my recommendation and get a P45 mobo and HD4850 or 4870 you can add another card for some Crossfire love when it is necessary. Honestly though with that monitor you won't be needing two cards unless you want to give Crysis a go on all very high settings, which I must say is incredible.

*Edit* Didn't realize that was a 24'' LCD. At that resolution you might be needing Crossfire sooner that I let on.

Sound: Glad to see you didn't go with Creative . Unfortunately Vista has changed the rules for hardware accelerated audio. In short you will need either a Creative XFi series or (much more preferable in my opinion) an ASUS Xonar series card to get surround sound and cool EAX effects in most older games. The reason for this is too much to go into here, but if you want to read more about it check this out.

Home Premium should be enough for your needs, and make sure you get the 64 bit version.

Oh yes, easily.

Always, but I can't think of anything at the moment

You've got me confused here so I'll skip this for now. Why do you want three video cards if not for SLI or Crossfire?

I don't think that's necessary.

LOL, budget CPU with a $130 cooler. OK, Q9300 is not exactly cheap, but still it's Intel's worst quad, with low multiplier and small cache.
Get yourself a Q9450 with a Xigmatek HDT-S1283. You'll save $50 and have a faster CPU whether you overclock or not.

LOL at the $165 optical drive too. See how it advertises this:

but it forgets to add that this is bulls**t, because the drive is read-only when it comes to Blu-Ray, so you won't store a single bit on Blu-Ray disks with it.

The 1GB 9600GT is also good for a laugh. You pay for 1GB of VRAM but the card is underpowered because it has very few stream processors compared even to old stuff like the 8800GTX or 8800GT. You also get stuck with an nVidia motherboard, bad move. You should consider a GA-X48-DS4 with two HD 4850 cards instead IMO.

Edit: you should not even think of putting two nVidia cards and an ATI card on the same PC. Driver conflicts.

If you are serious about using two cards, I'm voting against the P5Q Pro because it doesn't do so good at 1920x1200 with HD 4850 Crossfire. It drops to x8 on both slots and creates a bottleneck.
Here's an article that shows you the numbers. It's about a P45 Gigabyte, not the P5Q (which is a P45 from Asus), but you get the idea.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/ [...] index.html

^I'd wait for some more comparisons before jumping to that conclusion. Most of the small differences they observed could be explained by the fact that the X48 is just a higher performing chipset. With a little tweaking the P45 should be able to close this gap considerably.

In the cases where the X48 kills it I suppose the cards are having to swap out with main memory, in which case performance will be utter crap regardless. Like PT Boats where the X48 is 4x faster but still bottoming out at 11.9 FPS

Yeah, I'd definitely like to see more articles like that one. An X48 costs about $100 more and it would be good to know for sure if it's worth it.

Still, the OP seems to have the cash. Just look at that Blu-Ray drive and that cooler... I thought he might as well get the best chipset.

I would choose the hard disk from here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] ,674.html#

Ok I made some changes to the list taking the advice that you guys gave me so far. Which saved me a couple hundred bucks on my initial build. I went with the p5q pro for the combo deal. Sticking with the q9300 instead of 9450 because of the price but it will drop to the same price as the 9300 but I need to make the purchase today to keep my discounts. I don't really understand why the PSC 6500 is better than the 8500. Could I just OC the 8500 too? the price is the same as the 6500.

Thanks for the quick feed back guys. Staying up for this is worth it. In a few hours I can order my parts


**********

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129021

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131299

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115043

Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231166

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139006

Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121253

Optical Burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827129020

Optical Reader: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827135151

HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148298


Future purchases:

Cooler: undecided

Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009125

More Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231166

Another Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121253

Sound: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6829271003


*********

More Questions:

1. Which one should I get? theres a bunch of home premium 64-bits out there.

any other suggestions or advice would be great!


*********

To explain why I brought up the question about the ati and nvidia card:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=6269

doesn't matter now. the mobo i picked only has 2 pci-e slots which are both 2.0. The other pcie slots are x1. I highly doubt i'll find something to stick in there unless i'm not understanding what the pcie x1 is used for.

Yeah the Blu-ray drive and TEC cooler give me lulz

How about the $224.99 9600GT

debating about this wd3000glfs but is the fast speed and cost worth giving up the extra 450gb space from seagate?

300gb 10k rpm: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136260
750gb 7.2k rpm: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148298