Well i'm building a new gaming rig next week and before I order any of the parts I wanna see what you guys think of what I got so far. I'm gonna order all the parts from Newegg except the PSU and case which i'm ordering from Xoxide. If you guys have any suggestions on what I should add or take out please feel free to let me know and why I should. Thanks alot.


Total: $1737.94
- Case: Cooler Master Wavemaster (Black) $143.99
- PSU: Ultra X-Finity2G 600w $109.99
- Mobo: DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR 939 $149.99
- Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600 939 $253.00
- Video Card: XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 PCI Express $579.00
- Memory: 2gb kit Crucial PC3200 DDR400 $239.99
- Hard Drive: 2x WD Cavair RE 160gb 7200rpm 16mb cache $64.99
- Sound Card: Decided to go with onboard sound
- Optical Drive: Plextor PX-750A DVD-R/RW $89.00

Since this is a new build, my advice would be if you're going to go with AMD, go with AM2. At least you will be able to upgrade to the newer CPU's with AM2.

I would suggest if you don't want to go with Core 2, pick AM2. Also go with 7950 GT. Its alot cheaper and G80 is right around the corner and the GT is more than enough to hold you off. IMO go with a cheaper motherboard right now, maybe a Asus M2N-E or M2N-SLI. The reason being is that AMD's 4x4 platform is coming soon and that would require a new motherboard and the 4x4 plateform is the only reason to go AMD right now.

Ok so I thought about it and I'll most likely go with AM2 since it will be eaiser to upgrade in the future and it's the newest thing out there. Anyother suggestions. I dont mind paying that much for the graphics card as long as I stay under $1700. I was thinking with the hard drives what if I go with one 74gb 10000 rpm Raptor and then use the other drive as storage say 150gb -200gb, what do you guys think about that?

I'm in the same boat, building a new box on paper before I buy the parts, so this response is for me as much as you:

RAM: DDR400 instead of DDR2? I understand that 2 GB is a necessity. But I was under the impression the performance difference between DDR and DDR2 was substantial. I know it's a budget box, but then I saw your selection of graphics card, see below.

GPU: I like nVidia, too. But I would go for the 7900 GS. I asked myself, "are 10 frames per second worth another $300," and I said no. It just seems odd to drop so much money on the video card in an allegedly "budget" build. I mean, you can't pick up the 7900 GS cheap. It costs as much as the Nintendo Wii. But it's still, what, 30% the price of the 7950's?

PSU: Do you need 600 watts of power? Plan on overclocking? Cause I mean, $250 bucks between the case (a vanity, really) and the PSU strikes me as silly, when you can get both for sub-$100. I mean, I'm new and all, but the only CPU I know you need 500 watts of power to overclock is the Pentium D 805.