hi all, been lurking around and reading up on posts and replies on parts for gaming machine

my budget is 2k and i ended up these parts https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/ [...] ID=9388706 (with oc'ed cpu)

please let me know if you think i can get more bangs for the bucks if i built it differently

i'm also looking for a 24" lcd (not counting this toward 2k budget), any recommendation?

thanks

I'd change the case to a cheaper one and one that is better suited for cooling. Say a Antec 900, Coolermaster 690.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119137
I'd also change the cooler to a higher rated cooler off Frostytech
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
Use the savings and the rest of the budget to upgrade to the Q9550
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115041

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824005113
......But if you have a big box retail store that you can shop for monitors and actually compare them side by side is what i'd recommend.

Well since this is for a gaming machine, I would not recommend getting a Q6600 for your processor, I would stick with a dual core for the same price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115036

This ram was recommended to me by a friend, but any PC28500 would be much better then the ram on your wishlist, a little more pricey, but I believe worth the change.

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

Do you need the 1TB drive & the smaller drive? Would you consider running 2 - 640GB drives in Raid 0 for much better speed & performance, plus a bit more space.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] viar%20640

I don't know anything about the ASUS P5Q, but I would probably get a CF board, just in case you ever want to add another video card.

P.S. is it necessary for an 80$ keyboard?

asus p5q pro works well although i'm on the original bios due to the later revisions being unstable... how strange... anyway it generally gets a fsb stable at 450 no matter what... some people get well over 500 with it... i wasn't a lucky one though... o well

the q9550 is a good processor ifyou plan to overclock... i currently have mine at 3.85 ghz and runs beautifully.... with the kinda cash your willing to put into a system however... i'd just wait for nehalem... it's supposed to be right around the corner

i however didn't wait because my previous system was unstable and didn't want to have to pay the price for ddr3 ram

Blu-ray would need to come down a lot more before it's a good deal.

Why 2 80Gb hard drives?

No to the 1066 RAM. unless you are overclocking a long ways, 800Mhz will do.

Ditch the Zalman and get the Xigmatek and the bracket.

thanks for the replies everyone

i was thinking the 2.4ghz so i could oc to 3.0 ghz, and the ram is for oc'ing as well

the 2 80 gig was was raiding for the OS drive and common applications and the 1 TB for storage

another thing i'd like to do also is ripping my hd camcorder stuff and burning them into blu ray dvds, that's why i went with the blu ray burne (and the firewire)

the case choice was mainly for looks, and reviews has it that it's pretty slient

i swapped out the cooler with the sunbeam contact freezer (thx for the article, that was great)

and i just ordered <url>http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8775783&productCategoryId=pcmcat143700050048&type=product&id=1204331848176</url> this for pick up, only reason to get it is that it's the cheapest tn panel i can find for 24"

now i'm stumped on cpu choice. should i wait for nehalem, or quad core 2.4, or quadcore 2.83 for overclocking

decisions decisions