suggestions welcomed.

CPU
motherboard
gpu
RAM

thats the meat and potatoes of it. I could also use some advice on OSs.

XP, Vista 32 or Vista 64.

Please be objective as possible. Thanks a bunch guys.

Get XP pro, unless you really want Vista for some reason. XP pro will read 3.2g of your 4, so if you're dead set on using 4 gigs of memory then get Vista.

The motherboard is kind of cheap, I had a gigabyte that blew chunks on me. Also, I would get an SLI version just in case you decide to go that extra mile.

The ram is 5 - 5 - 5 CAS latency, FYI. Not a big deal I think, but slower than real "gaming" ram.

The video card looks good.

I was going to tell you to get a quad core until I started looking at clock speeds, and they're all low-ish. I've been told that quads are faster simply because they break up the workload of the threads amongst themselves, but I'm not sure I believe that.

--Locane

An SLI board also leaves a better upgrade path should you want a little more kick in your box in the near future without shelling out major cash.

Yeah, I went with the dual core just because of the clock speed and the FSB. I'm assuming this would give it a higher memory bandwidth.

Yeah I saw the ram timing, but its hard to find decent priced RAM with a 4-4-4 timing. This seemed like decent ram, relatively low voltage, and its on sale.

I was thinking about going to vista if for no other reason supposedly within the next 2 years microsoft is turning supposedly going to stop supporting xp (rumored).

The motherboard is cheap yes, but you have to cut corners somewhere. I don't need an auto overclocking feature, and I have had decent luck with gigabit in the past.


could possibly do this RAM instead... but i am slightly warry about patriot.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820220269
as for SLI, the computer is for a friend of mine, I highly doubt he would be upgrading to an SLI any time in the future. I will do a little bit more mother board shopping though just in case i suppose.

Meh, the mobo isn't super critical, especially if you're building it for someone and he's trying to save some dough. If he's not super savvy and counting his frames like an IRS agent then he's not going to notice the difference with any kind of ram you put in there. Get a good solid video card (you have one) and a good solid proc (you have that too) and if he has some extra, spend the money on a big monitor.

Seriously, bigger monitors are fucking cool, he'll like that more than a beast of a machine. There's something to be said for interface stuff, not just clock speeds.


--Locane

(edit, double sigged, lol)

could also possibly do this ram, look like a better price, better timing, and would only take up 2 dimms.

*edit doh*
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227269

You going to post a link?

bump

That's DDR2 800, you were looking for 1066 right?

Not that I'm quibbling, I'm running 4g of ddr2800 myself.

--Locane

blah, i didn't read. yeah you're right.

Well, I suppose in the case of Vista vs XP right now, the relevant question is: Is it being purchased? If yes, then Vista would probably be the better option. If not, there's no reason not to just run XP now and switch over in the future when/if Vista actually becomes a more attractive option. As things stand, it is really, really hard to recommend Vista to anyone. Maybe when SP2 rolls around...

it is indeed being purchased. So that brings the question to... xp, 64 or 32 bit vista. And if 32 bit vista... why no xp? If 64 bit vista what about all the compatibility issues?

Ugh, that's just a fancy overclock with an extra heat spreader. You're asking for trouble by buying that if you ask me. I've read too many newegg reviews on OCed stuff to warrant buying it.

If I buy vista I will probably install the 64 bit version. The main purpose of which being that Supreme Commander and a number of games tend to perform better under the OS, even though it has huge compatibility issues. I'd probably steer clear of it though if you're building this for a buddy who isn't savvy.

--Locane