Planning a Build (finally get to!)

[wngman]

Well I might finally be able to upgrade my system after 5 years. This is my last summer before I graduate from college and I made a little extra money from some freelance jobs and am thinking about building a new system.

My current system used to be a Dell, but I have changed just about everything on it except the motherboard and the cpu :p . It will definitely be nice to have something faster than a P4 2.4 GHz.

So here is the ultimate system I put together pretty quickly. As for budget, I'm thinking between $800 and $1,000. I don't need any peripherals and am waiting on the monitor (fingers crossed for christmas :) ). Also, I'll be keeping my DVD-RW drive and my storage HDD (a 320GB SATA Seagate I got last summer).

Case : Antec Performance One P180 Silver Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129154) $134.99

Motherboard: XFX MB-N780-ISH9 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI Intel Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813141005) $249.99

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017) $199.99

RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122) $79.99

Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002) $114.99

HDD: Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136011) $174.99

Sound Card: HT OMEGA STRIKER 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001) $79.99

Video Card: Not sure at the moment. Got suggestions?

Alright so the total of those components is $1,034.93, so I need some suggestions on where to cut down costs. I plan on spending a decent amount on the Video card, around $200 - $300 possibly, so I can actually play some current games.

Besides games my usage would also be photo and video editing (less so of video), and then the basics (web, office, etc.). I have a copy of XP already, and will most likely dual boot XP and Ubuntu.

What do you think? I can use any suggestions, esp. for Video Cards, also cooling options/heatsinks, and places to cut prices. Basically I'm trying to build as good a pc I can within my budget. Also, is there anything big happening in the next few months that I would benefit waiting for? I'm not sure if I will be doing this very soon, or in a month or 2 after I save up some more.

Thanks in advance :)

[IM back!]

that PSU might be overkill go for 600Watt if you dont have the $$$.

that case is nice but you can get a good case for less.

ram is overpriced look at pricegrabber.com

cut the sound card you dont need it the 780i has good onbord.

with all that you suld be able to save $140, the video card I recommend is a hd 4870 its the best thing out there exsept the gtx 280 with is 2x the price and only 20% faster. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161236

[Yoshi Fan]

Right now, if you lower the price, the Radeon 4850 is a good card for the price right now. Only 214 dollars for this one, and there are others just like it, even cheaper. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131111

If you wanna go the nVidia way (Which is my way, really.. the Radeon is just really nice for the cheap price right now) the 9800 GTX is a good card, and with this one you get CoD4.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150292

And like above me said, there's no need for a soundcard if it has onboard.

[wngman]

Hey thanks for the quick replies :) I will definitely take them into consideration

[hockey man]

ram is overpriced look at pricegrabber.com

Unless it is $20 cheaper, it usually is cheaper just to buy it all from one place because of shipping. Do you really need a Raptor HD? That could be one area that you could save some money. The raptor is faster, but price/gb it is a lot more expensive than a standard drive.

[wngman]

hey hockey man, yeah I agree about the Raptor, I'm just going to get this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822135106) instead.

I also found some cheaper Corsair RAM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184) with a mail-in rebate that comes out to about $65.00

I think I'm also going to go with the 9800 GTX with the free game :) I've been an nVidia guy for a bit, plus I might also do SLI in the future.

My total now after rebates ($95!) is $1076.42

I'm considering doing a triple boot system (XP, Vista, Ubuntu). Does anyone suggest partition sizes? I was thinking 25GB for XP, 40GB for Vista, then about 10-12 for the Linux.

[Yoshi Fan]

Depending on which one you use most, really.

I have 25GB on my XP partition, and I only have 7 GB left. I partitioned about a month ago, too.