Potential build for a gamer on a budget, kinda

[onizzy]

Hi,

This is my first pot and I've been thinking about building a new system around summer time when Hellgate: London comes out and have been lurking here for some ideas. I just recently started to get pricing on particular items and build mock systems and was wondering if this build was ok. I know that by the time summer comes around this stuff will probably be a little outdated and hopefully cheaper so I'll either save some money on this setup or reconfigure later. I believe everything seems ok but I would mainly like some mobo and psu suggestions. Suggestions to any other hardware are welcome also.I really like the case but am wondering if it will be too cramped as I also plan to add a water cooling unit and don't really know where to start with that. I know some basics of water cooling but don't know which internal kit would work best for cooling the cpu and vga. The topower/epower psu seems ok but have never heard of that brand and I don't know which mobo would best handle this setup:

Antec P180 W/O Power Supply Mid Tower Case 128.75 +shipping and handling

eWiz.com Antec P180 W/O Power Supply Mid Tower Case

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6600 2.4GHz 1066MHz 4MB LGA775 CPU, Retail 320.33 + shipping and handling

eWiz.com Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6600 2.4GHz 1066MHz 4MB LGA775 CPU, Retail

STT DDR2-800 2GB (2x1GB) CL4 Dual Channel Memory Kit 201.88

eWiz.com STT DDR2-800 2GB (2x1GB) CL4 Dual Channel Memory Kit

Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB SATA2 7200rpm 16MB Hard Drive 157.59

eWiz.com Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB SATA2 7200rpm 16MB Hard Drive

Seagate ST3320620AS 320GB SATA2 7200rpm 16MB Hard Drive 90.13

eWiz.com Seagate ST3320620AS 320GB SATA2 7200rpm 16MB Hard Drive

BFG nVidia GeForce 8800GTS OC 640MB 2DVI/HDTV PCI-Express Video Card 410.97

eWiz.com BFG nVidia GeForce 8800GTS OC 640MB 2DVI/HDTV PCI-Express Video Card

Topower/Epower ZUMAX ZU-650W X3 650W 20/24pin ATX V2.0 Power Supply

eWiz.com Topower/Epower ZUMAX ZU-650W X3 650W 20/24pin ATX V2.0 Power Supply

Samsung SH-S182M/BEBN LightScribe 18X Double Layer DVD+/-RW Internal Drive w/Software (Black) 64 for 2

eWiz.com 48 Hours Samsung SH-S182M/BEBN LightScribe 18X Double Layer DVD+/-RW Internal Drive w/Software (Black)

All this plus 136.96 for tax and 37.62 for shipping adds up to 1739.81

I was using mainly froogle and newegg to find the lowest prices as my system is mostly cost driven but decided to build a system using ewiz because they seem to have pretty good prices and I thought that if I got everything there it would be cheaper on shipping. For sometime I thought of getting a system from ibuypower because I didn't want to deal with building my own system and water cooling but again since price is a factor I just can't fork over extra money for that convenience alone. Doing some pricing I noticed a $400 price difference which I can't ignore. I'm kinda on a budget but then again I don't want to be too cheap and end up with a crappy system. Any advice would be a great help. Thanks.

 

[Willz]

Hi.

For more information on PSU's i would Highly suggest you check out BigB's Power Supply Sticky

I aint sure if that Power Supply you have selected will do the job, sure its got a high amount of Watts, but watts aint the most important thing, its amps on the rails, quality/ brand name you need to look for :).

What motherboard are you going to be getting?

Its gonna be a nice system :)

 

[Warmonger41]

Looks great now. Will look great this summer.

 

[onizzy]

I took a look at the psu guide and didn't really see a mention of topower/epower in the stay away and buy list. It was only a quick mention about how they are a general psu maker. As for my mobo, I was thinking about this:

Asus P5N-E SLI Quad-Core/ nForce650i SLI/ A&GbE&1394/ ATX Motherboard

eWiz.com Asus P5N-E SLI Quad-Core/ nForce650i SLI/ A&GbE&1394/ ATX Motherboard

or this:

Abit AW9D-MAX Core 2 Duo/ LGA775/ 975X/ DDR2/ A&2GbE/ ATX Motherboard

eWiz.com Abit AW9D-MAX Core 2 Duo/ LGA775/ 975X/ DDR2/ A&2GbE/ ATX Motherboard

I figure with this I can add a second video card down the road if need be. Also I heard that a core 2 duo can bottleneck a 8800. Has anyone else heard this?

 

[Big B]

Topower is fine for a PSU. They're what many companies rebadge as their own.

 

[Karanislove]

I figure with this I can add a second video card down the road if need be.

Thats True...SLI (Scalable Link Interface). This is a technology from Nvidia that allows 2 PCIE graphics cards in the same computer system to be linked, thus sharing the load of the image being created. Cards in SLI are linked via a small hardware bridge. This makes for some hugley powerful gaming systems.

ATI CrossFire Technology does the same thing but ATI calls it Crossfire and Nvidia calls it SLI.

Also I heard that a core 2 duo can bottleneck a 8800. Has anyone else heard this?

I've never heard of this and also I dnt think its true..

 

[onizzy]

I'll take your word for it that topower is a good brand. I just had a hard time deciding if buying from them was a good deal because it seemed like a pretty good psu for way cheaper than what some other brands charge.

Topower/Epower ZUMAX ZU-650W X3 650W 20/24pin ATX V2.0 Power Supply

eWiz.com Topower/Epower ZUMAX ZU-650W X3 650W 20/24pin ATX V2.0 Power Supply

 

[Karanislove]

Oh well if you have ne plan to buy another Graphics card in the future then go with 1000W PSU because 8800GTS sucks hell lot of power..arount 270W:ohah: and you will have to spend more money in the future to get another PSU which will juice two cards...

 

[onizzy]

I've always wondered how much does the lower powered c2d offset the power hungry cards of today?