Need advice on a sensible gaming system...

Couple questions: Do you wish to overclock? If yes, what's your goal? And, at what resolution will you be playing at (size of LCD)?

I'm going to assume you want to overclock a little. I'd recommend two things, again making an assumption you don't want to go hardcore and don't have too much experience with this. First, get the E8400 instead of the E8500. Second, get DDR2-800 memory instead of DDR2-1066. E8400 with DDR2-800 will allow you to overclock up to 3.6Ghz from stock speeds of 3.0Ghz. When overclocking, you'll want a heatsink like the Xigmatek to keep temps down and it's a great price/value.

For your video card, 4850 is the minimum to get right now. It's the price/performance king. Especially with an X48 motherboard, you'll want to use an ATI graphics card (4850 or 4870) so that you can then add a second one down the road (Crossfire) which has very good performance scaling. Your 750W PSU will handle two 4850's just fine. Wait for Black Friday or Boxing Week sales, and I"m sure you'll be able to get a great deal on 4850 clearances.

Great build, good luck with it!

totally disagree.

first off, the E8400 is 174.99$ and the E8500 is 189.99$ on newegg.

for a 15$ jump. you get a 164mhz jump. that is GREAT DEAL. i do not know why anyone would get a E8400 over a E8500 at this point in time, that is just beyond comprehension.

you can stick to DDR2 800 if you're only going for an increase OC to 400, if you're planning to go beyond, get the 1066. OC-ing is not too difficult and 1066 ram isn't that much more expensive.

so lets say you OC to 400fsb, you'll get 3.6 with the E8400, and 3.8 with the E8500. so in reality, if you OC, you'll get a 200mhz increase! and everyone knows clock speed is very important for gaming if you want higher FPS.

your build is great, i'm glad you're the few people that actually do research on this forum and get quality parts before they go spamming a every thread. good luck and enjoy your great system

Oh, and my monitor is actually quite small: HP Pavilion vf15 (I think the max res. is 1024 x 768.) I'll get a bigger, better monitor sometime down the road when it's feasible for me to do so money-wise, but right now my cap is $1100 and the build listed above pushes that to the limit.

I think that the Lian-Li I use like this one is the choice of those who like cool temps and good looks and light weight.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811112068
The E8500 with DDR2 800 or 1066 is good.
I have the DS4 of X38 type, and it does overclock well if you wanted to in the future, it is mostly automatic, you shouldn't have to for a long while with that setup tho.
I have the 8800GT and still recommend it as a lot were sold and they don't always test every card for every game or mod that comes out, I learnt that with my 7900GTX, which has driver probs in Desert Conflict and Desert Combat mods.
Always use 120mm or larger fans as they are powerfull and quiet by a margin of 3 to one over 80mm or less sizes. True. Three or four 120mm fans is adequete for most installs. Lots of air in and out.
I would not advise to overclock, nothing but probs in the long runfor little payback, maybe 3-6 frames per second in average games, unless you have to goof with the machine every day to feel good about it.
I can render Crysis VERY well, better than anyone I know, cause I am not limited by LCD large resolutions, I play at 1024 on a 21" CRT monitor, and have like 25-35 frames per second with Helder [HP] Pinto's nice high quality mods for Crysis using the games GPU and CPU benchmarks. His map Vulcano is great gameplay also, just follow instructions to a T.

I wouldn't pay $15 to go from the stock speed of the E8400 to the stock speed of the E8500... the reason one would buy the E8500 is because it has a slightly higher multiplier, and the only reason one would actually need the higher multiplier is if they wanted to do a really high overclock... which our friend Viking obviously isn't going to be doing.

So sure, I'd recommend the E8400 and save the $15! I'd still recommend overclocking a little though because it is so easy, especially if it's just a couple hundred mhz (say up 3.2 or 3.4ghz). Either way though, this processor will not bottle neck the system (as everyone knows graphic cards are what limits computers these days...not processors).

As for the DDR2-800, just doing a really quick browse of OCZ 4gb kits on newegg you can get good 4-4-4-15 memory for $90, so that's another $20 saved.. Considering you won't be pushing the limits of overclocking, why not save another $20 here?

I'm not saying aznguy's recommendations are wrong, I'd agree if you were more of an enthusiast who likes to push his rig as far as it'll go. But when considering your needs, I'd say get the E8400/DDR2-800 and you won't notice ANY difference over the E8500/DDR2-800 (or 1066) - other than the $35 you'll have saved

EDIT: I'm also a big fan of the case Spunks linked. Great value!

Cheers