Hello there all you clever people,

Heres the deal, I am about to splurge on my first high end system (2000-2500 USD) and have decided on the following:


Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450


OCZ OCZ2RPR10664GK PC2-8500 DDR2 Dual Channel Reaper Series 1066MHz 4G Kit CL 5-5-5-18 Memory

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer

Antec TPQ-1000 TruePower Quattro 1000W


Now what I have not been able to decide:

Motherboard: Dont have a clue what to get for the components I decided on. Would love to keep Overclocking as an option.


Hard drive:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digi [...] 050&sr=8-1

or

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ [...] 8&v=glance

or something else?

Performance is much more important than size. I have a 750 GB Seagate I am keeping for files.



I am also keeping $700 freed up for the next gen GX 280 from nVidia.


Any help on motherboard and hard drive would be great. Price of both should not exceed 300 for the MB and 200 for the HD.


Thanks people!!!

If you only want one GPU, then check out the X38, the X48, or even wait on the P45 (expected soon).

If you want SLI, then you have to go with 750i, 780i, or even 790i (but most of those you need DDR3).

I have the 780i by MSI and it's great.

Check out the hard drive charts here at tomshardware, and look around for the comparisons of WD Raptors vs standard 7200 rpm drives. I hear that the difference isn't as great as many would think.

Good luck on the build. That's some serious $$ for a nice computer.

Memory for OCers : Crucial or Corsair. ( I have bad experiences with OCZ products)

Mobo : GIGABYTE GA-X48-DQ6 (still with DDR2, crossfire) or ASUS Striker II Formula nForce 780i SLI (still DDR2, SLI). DDR3 is still too expensive. (both cost a little bit less than $300 by newegg.

HDD : 150GB WD 10000 rpm (less than $200 by newegg, but I don't think this will worth the money) .

Is 2500 including monitor, keyboard/mouse, speakers etc? Or is it just the main components of the computer.

I was trying to figure out how to do a new build for that much, just computer components alone I was thinking nvidia 790i, ddr3 ram, a 9800gx2 and a Intel extreme processor and I was still going to have money left over.

Components have really come down, even for the best of the best high end stuff. The industry is no longer moving at a break neck pace as it used to. video cards, processors and even motherboard tech is crawling like a snail. It's a bummer.

You know its bad when you bought a top of the line computer in Dec 2006, and you can still buy the exact same one today, although just a tad cheaper. Pretty sad if you ask me, especially with the economy like it is. I WANT to spend money, but why if t won't get me anything much better then I have now?

Thanks for the replies guys.

I am not looking to get into SLI or Crossfire. And I seem to be leaning towards Intel and nVidia.

So forget that ram huh? hmmm and the HDD? well that changes alot of things.Might as well start over I guess.


2500USD includes all factors of the PC including monitors, speakers etc.

I guess you can say 1800 for the components which are:


Motherboard:???

processor: Intel 945

Ram:???

Case: Antec P1

Power supply: Antec Quatro

Graphics card: New GX 280 as soon as it gets out.

Does the new P45 offer any serious advantages over others? is it worth the wait or should I just get one of the recommended motherboards?


Thanks a ton people, really apreciate you taking the time!!!

I have been thinking....hmmm only 1 GPU?.......you can go with the crazy configuration till $2500 but I think this (below) is more than enough.

Proc : Q9300
Mobo : ASUS P5X38 (comes bundled with a separate (not onboard) PCIex1 SupremeFXII 7.1 HD-Audio card, so that you don't have to buy extra soundcard to get a decent quality).
RAM : 2x (2x2GB DDR2 800 Crucial Ballistix).
Case : Antec 1200 (expensive) or Coolermaster cm690 (cheaper but good).
PSU : Corsair 450W or 550W (only for 1 GPU)
HDD : Seagate 500GB 32MB 7200.11
CPU Fan : Zalman CNPS9700LED
Keyboard : just pick one that suits your taste
Monitor : ViewSonic VX1940w 19" 2ms 1680x1050 (19'' is maximum to a 1 GPU configuration)
Speaker : Creative GigaWorks S750 THX 7.1
Drives : Samsung SH-S203B, and/or buy a blue-ray drive if you like.
VGA : gotta wait a few weeks from now. But remember that X38 is a crossfire chipset.
OS : VISTA Ultimate 64bit