need help, building a new rig

[staffsMike]

Good to know

[iranu]

If I read it correctly the OP is after a machine that is going to last as long as possible with regarding playing games for as good a bang to buck ratio. With the possibility of a 24" monitor later then I presume you will want to be gaming at a 1900x1200 resolution. This is going to require a minimum of an nvidia 8800GTS 512mb with GTX and newer cards in the new year contenders.

I always see cases as a personal preference and many more people have greater experience so I shan't comment.

I would also recommend buying 4Gb DDR2 of ram for a new build. Whilst xp 32 will not utilise all of this due to addressing it makes sense to purchase 4Gb from the same manufacturer bearing in mind how cheap DDR2 is currently and this will be fine when switching to Vista.

Hard drives. Again this depends on your usage and what you want the PC for. Game loading times can be reduced by a faster drive, but you'll pay for it and the reduction will be marginal. A lot of people think that games performance as opposed to level loading times, that is to say, whilst they are playing and blasting away, is determined by how fast the drive is because data is always being taken from the drive. That is not strictly true and it's the reason why PCs have memory. Store that potentially wanted data in memory and you don't need to access the slowest component in the PC, i.e the hard drive, therefore the game will access the data faster. So more memory is better than a faster hard drive for games. I would look at a 500Gb hard drive which will cost @£60 - partition it for the Operating System, Programs, Data.

PSU - as a new build and someone who wants to future proof as much as possible then you are looking for a quality PSU first and foremost. Whilst we all gaze into our crystal balls and try to garner the direction that power usage is going to take there is no need to go mad with regard to your specifications. i.e 1000W PSU

As a gamer you will have to decide whether you want to have the ability to run 2 graphics cards (in Sli or crossfire) or whether you are happy with one and whether you will want to overclock the cpu. This will determine your motherboard and PSU choice.

For a single card PC then a quality 450W PSU will do everything you need including overclocking the cpu and more. When looking at 2 graphics cards then a quality minimum 620W is a wise and I think that your suggestion of a corsair 620W HX is a good choice.

CPU wise I'm unaware of any game that currently uses all 4 cores although that does not mean to say that all 4 cores are not used by the operating system whilst a game is playing. Again this choice of dual core verses quad core is determined by the applications that you will use and the time frame that you will be using them for.

I am in the same situation. I am looking to upgrade soon but I wonder whether I will see the benefits of a quad core cpu for the applications I run. If you are happy to buy a Q6600 and then overclock (either now or in the future) then I think a Q6600 would do you for a couple of years. It would certainly see the dawn of general quad core usage .

I'd generally go along with the kind of spec that Pob225 suggest but increase the ram to 4Gb, switch to a single 500gb drive then decide whether you want to run two graphics cards in the future - which will determine motherboard and PSU requirements.

[challenging]

Hi to all as a newbie !
just thought i'd let you no about my new pc just finished building !
not the best pc on the planet but nice for a total of £ 950

q6600
latest 400gb samsung sata 2
2 gig corsair ram 800 mhz
620watt corsair power supply
latest pioneer DVD writer
thermaltake shark tower
gigabyte p35 M/B ( not sli ) but for £50 is stable , well built and easy to o/c processor to 3 gig
bfg 620 mhz 8800gt
samsung bbw 22" monitor with a nice 2ms refresh rate
logitech G5 mouse and saitek keybored
£35 aftermarket processor heatsink/fan
£25 on nice wooden desktop speakers

like i said not the best on the market but b4 o/c
11500 on 3d marks 06
then 13500 with processor to 3 gig and 8800gt to 670 and 1900
which wiped the floor with my mates running £150 sli nvidia M/B and a xfx 8800gtx xxx card !!!!

he wasn't happy and as he has his own pc company rang suppliers to find out why lol ......... but like they said 3d marks doesn't test everything but least i'm ahead at the moment !!!!

i can run all games on high at 1650x1050 and BF2142 looks cracking !!
just thought this would help , so spend a grand and keep the rest back for when it all goes out of date in a years time !

[staffsMike]

in games he will still have you beat i'm sure, unless he has a terrible cpu.

3Dmark means nothing to me.

[challenging]

he is using the same processor / power supply memory but like i said 3d marks 06 doesn't fully test graphic cards so yes the readings are not totally accurate but i find gamers do use these types of programs to get some sort of bench mark .
if you do want to spend up to £2000 then sli a couple of gtx's and still have change or wait for the new ati 9800/8900 ( depending on what there gonna call it ) to arrive !!

[staffsMike]

It's useful for when you overclock your gfx card to stress test it and a basic measure of the gaming capability.

[Siccness]

New specs:

Cpu - Q6660

Cooler- Thermaltake CL-P0114 120mm CPU Cooler - Retail

Mobo - abit ip35 pro

Case - Antec 900

Gcard - Evga 8800gts g92 512 mb

Ram - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4PRO - Retail

Psu - Corsair 620 hx or 520 hx ?

Hd - Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

[Pob255]

I'd stick with the 520w if you're not planning on crossfire or sli (which would require a differnt motherboard/graphics card selection)
I know that might sound hypocritical looking at the total overkill 700w psu in my pc, but I only got it because it was on half price sale for £37 and there's nothing for £37 that comes close to it

If you don't want to upgarde in the near future, then thinking about it I'd actually go with 4gb of mem and a copy of vista64 now (you can set it up for dual boot with xp )

I'd still not bother with the raptor personally, even on IDE drives my load times are not that bad, a good amount of memory and a clean system are the things I've found that really effect loading times and with 2gb of memory and 512mb or more of graphics memory you don't get much/if any in the way of drive-memory transfur in game to slow things up.
But if you really want to then I'd actually consider the expense of a 2nd normal hard drive on top of that. (I personally like haveing 2 anyway one for OS & programs and one for back up.)

[Thorsson]

Also Thermaltake coolers are a bit poo, aren't they?