been out of all this for a couple years, how does this look for a midrange build?
Looks good, the power supply looks a litle expensive.
I have never bought one that was “SLI Certified” however…
Unless you like building your own computers, and paying more, you can get a new dell with a quad core and a 19’’ lcd for under 1000…
I would suggest a better heatsink. Stock intels really suck. I live the arctic silver fans, they work well, and they come with arctic silver thermal past pre-applied.
Also, there are better deals out there on 4gb of ram, just gotta keep looking.
i’ve replaced a bunch of shitty psu’s, so i tend to get better ones.
yeah, i would prefer to build my own.
i wouldnt be overclocking much, still recommended? i’ll look into it.
the RAM has a rebate so it’s a bit cheaper
4 gigs is sufficient for vista 64 right?
Intels are fine on stock clocking… and a slight bump in OC’ing. Coolers are a must when you want to get crazy.
You can get a nice quad for that price though, and it will run cooler.
I’d spend some extra loot on a new GTX card… the 9800s are worthless once the prices dropped on the GTX 260 216. That card outperformed 2 8800 Ultra’s. A friend of mine just picked up a 216 for $250… which was a steal, and he should be installing his 295 today.
4gb is fine for Vista 64 but are you going to expand? 4 1gb sticks will be a little faster, and probably cheaper. (If you’re not going to be adding RAM in the near future.)
i figured a faster duo would benefit me more for gaming. i can always upgrade to a faster quad in a year or two when prices drop
the 9800 is actually $170 and it comes with farcry 2, but it looks like a 4850 may be a better deal
i’d like to be able to jump to 8 gigs if im having any problems
I see.
I still strongly recommend getting a GTX 2XX card. Leaps and bounds above the 9800. The 8800s were better than the 9800s.
The ram is fine. Ive had that exact ram before. It can overclock pretty well if you get your fsb high enough on the dual core to justify OCing the ram.
Also, since when are 4 sticks of ram faster than 2? From my experience, overclocking is actually more difficult when 4 dimms are occupied.
As far as the gpu…its good. If you want a better deal on one, here is an auction I listed last night. Yes the gtx 260s are better, but they also cant be had for sub $150. Tough call.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=230320487664
Save money, buy my video card, then buy yourself a zalman 9700 and OC that chip. If you go that route buy some ocz freeze or mx-2 TIM.
Also, where is your hard drive? DVD rom drives? OS?
He isn’t overclocking much… those 4 1gb sticks will be faster than 2 2gb.
I didn’t think there was any question to that? Unless things have changed in the last 6 months or so…
i’m using the hdd’s and opticals out of my current system.
i have vista64 home premium on my athlon64 system right now, i should be able to reactivate it on this one right? i better be, it’s only been on this one for a couple months 
I bought a Pentium D a long while back the stock cooler was a POS. It ran at full blast 24x7 and the damn thing was still idling with severely high temps.
I have since spent the extra $40(with shipping) for some better quality fans, and a good heatsink, and the computer is now silent.
Heat will ruin your performance and lifespan. Don’t skimp out.
edit: Are your old hdds and dvd drives sata? I sure hope so.
yeah, everything is sata except for 1 hdd and a cd-rom.
Weird. Ive been following the PC world for about 4-5 years now and have never once heard that. Any benchmarks to prove it?
Yes you should be able to reuse that copy of windows. Ive done so on many hardware switches.
I’m not a big fan of the Gigabyte boards. 2 people I know (myself included) have had troubles with the Gigabyte boards. I switched over to ASUS and am very happy with them. Check the timings on the ram lower is “gooder”. As boardjnky4 said, the stock intel heatsinks are cheap. The don’t mount very well. I recommend Zalman heatsinks. If you do decide to go that route Zalman’s have a back mounting piece that goes on the back (or bottom) of the MOBO. So this has to be put on before you mount the MOBO. Also I saw the Intel Quad Core Q6600 for the same price as that dual core on Newegg.com not sure if you want to go that route. That PSU is a little pricey.
Then buy a Fortron/FSP/Sparkle Power and be done with it.
How solid is your budget? for $1200ish you can have a kickass i7 setup with room to expand to tri-sli
i’ve built 3 or 4 systems using gigabyte boards, always went smoothly.
i tried an asus for my last 939 system, and the chipset fan failed after a year or so. asus was a pain in the ass to deal with and wouldnt send me another fan, so im staying away from them.
my case has an opening in the mb tray by the proc, so i guess i can always add a cooler if need be at a later date.
i think i am going to stick with the duo for now, once the faster quads drop a bit and more apps can use them, ill probably upgrade
psu is only 60-70 after rebate, so i dont think that is too bad
i could drop another $400, but i dont really need all that power.
i cant believe how pricey the i7 boards are
Plus you can go cheaper w/ the gfx card and still have a badass system