Greetings, Finally the last piece of a high-performance workstation (Intel Core 2 Duo Conroe). Here are the discussions on CPU and graphics card: // CPU http://www.hardwareforums.com/recom...intel-present-2006-a-13184/?highlight=kuphryn // Graphics Cards http://www.hardwareforums.com/recom...el-core-2-duo-conroe-13475/?highlight=kuphryn Essential questions about Internal Peripherals * Power Supply Preferred power supply (500W or more) for high-performance CPU? Many brands and products (450W -> 1000W). Which ones are accurate and reliable? * CPU Fan Thermaltake Zalman * New motherboards include on-board sound card, network card, etc. Music and network connection are extremely important. What is the performance difference between on-board (internal) and stand-alone (independent) peripherals? Better to select stand-on sound card and network card to improve motherboard efficiency? Are on-board peripherals reliable? Kuphryn
* Power Supply 550W and Up, for brands look here. * CPU Fan If you are not going to OC it, the stock will do, if not..... you can still use Zalman's S775 coolers or TTs. * New motherboards include on-board sound card, network card, etc. Onboards are fine, but If i were you, ill use standalones to lessen the system overhead. If you want to have better sound, use standalone.
PSU ^^What he said^^ CPU fan ^^ What he said^^ plus Arctic Freezer 4, it is really good and very quiet. Also make sure to get some Arctic Siver 5. Other Stuff There isn't really any reason to replace onboard LAN because it makes very, very little system overhead. As far as sound. onboard is fine, most have 5.1 or 7.1 channel sound, but if you really, really need quality go with a Creative X-Fi.
On-board LAN these days is quite good, so unless you have to have a special NIC in use, don't bother. The on-board solutions are pretty good these days, but if you're looking at audio production, you're likely better off investing in a separate sound card. Same deal if you're an audiophile, as the on-board probably won't cut it.
