Building a new rig.

I'm looking at building a new rig ($~1200) and I want to make sure several of my assumptions still hold.

I've heard that ddr3 doesn't give you that much of a performance gain, and I'm hoping that I can buy a top of the line ddr2 and get more bang for my buck.

On the other hand, Sata 3.0 sounds like its a good thing for me, especially since I'd like to run a RAID 0 setup again.

I've looked at both ramdisks and SSDs and I'm left wanting, they both have rather serious problems (and ramdisks are more or less unsupported now) so I'm thinking about buying 2 small 10k drives to act as my boot sector/games folder.

I've never really messed with overclocking, does the money spent on extra cooling come back as performance as much as just buying a better cpu?

I've been really pleased with my warranties (7 RMAs over 5 years) should I keep buying the same brands, or are replacement warranties pretty much the industry standard now? [kingston, asus, and bfgtech if you are curious]


I'm planning on running XP because being a slow adapter seems to have paid off for vista.
Because of this I'm not sure I need more than 2 gigs (even though I understand 3-4 is the standard now) Should I just buy one stick of high performance ram? I remember that dual channel really improved the performance ....back in my day?



Sorry for the ADD questions! Thanks if you can answer any/all of them.

Hi there

I personaly would get the ddr3 but maybe this would help you: What is the Difference between DDR2 and DDR3 Memory?

as for the hdd if your not going to do some hardcore stuff, just get 2 wd raptors 10k in raid..

Well for overclocking it depends, do you want more power out of your hardware or going to run multiple apps at once? Does the apps need the extra boost?

For the warranty part not sure on I haven't RMA anything ( knock on wood )

Have you try out windows 7? It's not like vista I have it and it's like xp but better.. Give the beta a try..


I hope I helped you some way, once I know what you want I'll get you a list

Do you want c2d c2q or i7?

I read an article on ddr3 on toms hardware that implied that the quality and timing is much more important than the format.

With as cheap as memory is these days, I'm thinking 2x 10k (I've heard the small SSDs are
AWFUL) and 1 TB drive.

I'm not sure what CPU I want, although it looks like i7 is the one to beat, especially since I'm thinking about overclocking, although I'm nervous about it.

I've been looking into benchmarks and apparently 10k drives aren't that big a deal compared to sata 3.0

Rough guesstimate of parts.



Mobo P6t 240 P6T Motherboard Product Details at PriceGrabber

CPU i7 280 Intel Core i7 I7-920 Quad Core Processor - BX80601920 - Compare Prices and Buy at PriceGrabber

RAM crucial 153 XMS3 6GB PC3-10666 DDR3 DIMM Triple Channel Memory Kit Product Details at PriceGrabber

1X gpu GTX 285 $280 BFG Technologies GeForce GTX 285 Video Card - BFGRGTX2851024OCE - Compare Prices and Buy at PriceGrabber

PSU 170
Storage WD Cavier 106 WD Caviar Green 1.5TB Hard Drive - WD15EADS - Compare Prices and Buy at PriceGrabber

Case Antec sumthin 119 Twelve Hundred Black Tower Product Details at PriceGrabber

Total -1348



Am I right in assuming that since the mobo has 3x PCI-Express x16 Slots I can later purchase two more gfx cards to extend the life of this beast?

I'm in no way set on this, just a high end so that I can start whittling down to the essentials.

Zendu, just in case you weren't aware, you can edit your posts to add information instead of posting replies.

The only reason I bring this up, is because you posted within half an hour later of a previous post.

To answer your question on the x16 slots, if you add video cards they need to be the exact same cards. Others can elaborate more on this. From what I've read, it just doesn't work when they're different cards.

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Any reason I should not get this?

Not really. But MSI, is'nt the best bet when it comes to AMD mobo's. And you might wanna swap the AMD cpu cooler for something better if you plan to oc? Scythe, and Noctua have some nice and quiet coolers for the AM3 AMD cpu's.

I say this is the better choise then:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA790GPT-UD3H AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

DDR III /1333/1066 are compatible RAM with the Gigabyte board.

For the HD 4890 card. Make sure the psu you have / intend to get is at least 500W and 32 A total on the +12v rail(s).