Evaluate potential PC purchase...

[Shuemue]

Get the one that Isiolia will post shortly, it's a newer version of those, if he doesn't post, PM him, I can't remember which it is

[Isiolia]

That mobo should be pretty nice. AFAIK, there's no real point to DDR3 unless you're clocking it high. The UD3P is the SLI version of the board I built with (and my mom's machine), which I"ve been pleased with. Only difference in spec with the one you linked to is the DDR3 slots.

Antec makes decent cases for reasonable cost. I built using the 300, which is pretty cheap, but has a lot of ventilation and reasonable space. I've used their Earthwatts PSUs recently too, which seem good, if basic. Lots of variety in those areas though.

[Kohan]

This is a decent case considering that it's dirt cheap, and its tool-free system works very well. About two years ago, I built a PC for a friend with a Rosewill case (a higher-end one, but it uses the same screwless system), and it was a fairly straightforward effort.

Newegg.com - Rosewill R5717-P SL 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower Computer Case,with mesh air filters,adjustable vents & Tool-Free kits - Computer Cases

Though someone commented that the tool-free system is difficult to understand, it isn't really. First, you clip the sliders to the side of the big devices (e.g., CD drives) with their prongs clicking into the screw holes, and their tabs near their front. You remove the faceplate of the tower, and slide in your DVD-ROMs and such on the rails. And then--cabling aside--it's installed. Pretty simple. You'll be able to figure it out for the other parts like that.

The only unfortunate thing about that case is that it has only one fan. Another one would be nice, but there is no point to overloading on fans if you don't ensure that they have good flow. Air getting sucked through the front and blown out the back is the most common and is a perfectly acceptable cooling flow.

These are amongst the least expensive PSUs you're going to get without buying one of poor quality:

Newegg.com - Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 650W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply with Three 12V Rails - Power Supplies

Newegg.com - SIGMA SHARK SP-635 635W ATX12V V2.01 SLI Ready Power Supply - Power Supplies

The Sigma brand isn't one you hear people mentioning often, but they actually contain good components too.

[Maguspk]

Alright, think I'm at completion...

Going to get this motherboard instead at Iso's suggestion:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

...and this PSU at Kohan's suggestion:
Newegg.com - Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 650W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply with Three 12V Rails - Power Supplies

...as for the case, I went with this one because it clocked in at $49.99 after rebates and it looks nice and has 2 fans and a cool side ventilation, which I assume all amounts to a pretty well cooled case especially considering I'll have fans on my memory, CPU and video card too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133058

My total comes out to $1,010.91 but with about $130.00 in mail-in rebates I'm looking at a pretty nice PC for about $880 dollars. I'm feeling pretty good. Does everyone agree the PC is complete at this point and I can go ahead and start ordering the parts? I don't need anything else do I? (Going to reuse keyboard/speakers/monitor/mouse from my current computer)

[Isiolia]

Seems pretty good to go. If you want the blue lighting n' side window, then that case looks good. Should be fine for cooling. PSU looks good for the money too.

[Maguspk]

Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

Should I get that instead of the Antec PSU I posted? It seems like a really good deal, saving 135 bucks...

[Kohan]

Sometimes, "deals" like that aren't really deals at all -- they're unimpressive products being sold at an inflated price. You also don't see that brand name mentioned often around here.

However, that is actually an extremely good power supply. It's one of the examples of how a single +12V rail can be superior if the device is of great quality. If you want to spring for it, go ahead.

[Isiolia]

PC Power & Cooling is a very good name in PSUs.

[mootsfox]

Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

Should I get that instead of the Antec PSU I posted? It seems like a really good deal, saving 135 bucks...

$80 for that PSU? FUCK YEAH you should buy it.

They are owned by OCZ now, and produced by who the fuck knows. Anyways, it's a great PSU, and a good deal at $80.

I'm not really sure what you have selected at this point, because it looks like you are picking things different than your first post.

[Maguspk]

Final Build, already confirmed it and have it being shipped. Any comments on how bad I fucked up or how good it looks? Also, I decided to not get the 10000 RPM 300 Gb for my OS and games, I just realized how dumb it was to invest in such an expensive item for a marginal improvement, I might just get a second HD and go RAID 0 but for now the 7200 RPM SATA 3.0 GB/s seems fine.


Order Summary

XCLIO A380BK Fully Black High Gloss Finish SECC 1.0mm thickness ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
Item #: N82E16811103010
Standard Return Policy
$129.99
$79.99

EVGA 123-YW-E175-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813188026
Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
$179.99
$169.99

EVGA 512-P3-N975-AR GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16814130380
Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$139.99
$124.99

PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI NVIDIA SLI Certified (Dual 8800 GTX and below) CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
Item #: N82E16817703019
Standard Return Policy
$249.99
$114.99

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115036
Processors (CPUs) Return Policy
$187.99

CORSAIR Dominator 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-8500C5D - Retail
Item #: N82E16820145043
Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
$72.00
$52.00

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Item #: N82E16822136073
Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$59.99

SAMSUNG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model SH-S223Q - OEM
Item #: N82E16827151173
Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$27.99

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail
Item #: N82E16835186134
Standard Return Policy
$36.99
$26.99

Subtotal $844.92
Tax $0.00
UPS Ground $39.16
Promo code -$15.00
Order Total $869.08
Mailin Rebs $110.00
Grand Total $759.08

Also, I'm not missing anything am I? I am paranoid no matter how many times I look it over that I forgot some critical component...

Pretty happy about my Case though, it's really fucking sexy.

[Cephius]

Looks good, though if you start gaming hardcore on it you might think about getting 3GB of RAM. Otherwise you should be pretty happy!

[mootsfox]

A lot of I would have changed, but it's fine.

[Kohan]

Looks just fine. If you ever have any problems with the video card in the future, I recommend dealing with EVGA directly. They will take great care of you. Register your warranty with them ASAP!

[Maguspk]

Yeah, the only thing I'm worried about currently is the hard drive. I want better performance than a general 7200 RPM can give but I don't want to pay for the 10000 RPM drives which would be 200 bucks for 300 GB of space (That's like a second video card and like 4 GB of ram...)

Will I notice performance differences between a 10000 RPM and a 7200 RPM or is it really minute? I read about people saying the Raptors are "so fast" but I doubt the credibility of these people claiming it's so much better. I originally wanted to just do the OS/Games on the 10000 RPM and the rest of my stuff on the 7200 RPM but I just couldn't believe it'd be worth the extra bills just to see my PC boot up quicker, besides loading it really doesn't have much of a performance difference correct?

Anyway... I am currently looking into maybe buying 1 or 2 more drives for setting up either RAID 1 or RAID 3, don't know which yet. I like the security of RAID 1 since I have no idea how else I could backup my data efficiently, but I like the idea of RAID 3 because it stripes it with the parity so I can safely lose any one disk and be able to generate the entire array again.

Would you all just do RAID 1 or RAID 3? I've also read about RAID 0+1, which just seems weird to me when you have RAID 3 as an option RAID 0+1 seems stupid, to be honest. Almost no point to the RAID 0+1 besides being able to simply function without all the drives. Also in RAID 0+1 you only have 1/2 of the total disk space you're using while in RAID 3 it's just the total minus the parity disks capacity so in my case I'd probably have 1 TB in RAID 0+1 and 1.5 TB in RAID 3 and since RAID 3 only requires 2 more disks and not 3, I'd be more inclined to get it.