Going for it!

[Rapid-D]

Hi all.

Just decided to go for it and get myself a new machine.


My current specs are
Asus A8V Motherboard (AGP)
Nvidia 6600LE
400W PSU
Maxtor 250GB (PATA)
DVD RW
Floppy Disk Drive
AMD Athlon 3700+


And heres what I've gone for after browsing at these forums for a while.

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £48.99
(£57.56) £48.99
(£57.56)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £105.99
(£124.54) £105.99
(£124.54)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)

Sub Total : £504.94
Shipping : £9.95
Vat : £90.11
Total : £605.00

Will these work together nicely? are there better alternatives? I'm looking for the best price and peformance. Is there anything else I need to add?

[Budget is around £850]

I have not entered a graphic card yet as I'm still generally undecided in which to get.
The 8800GTS looks nice and I can afford it, but the price seems too high compared to some of the Ati cards which are cheap, and way better than what I have already anyway. The Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 XT is only about £160 would that be a better option? will it also last me a long time?
My resolution is 1680x1050 so I'm still unsure.

Any help appreciated!

 

[Rapid-D]

Get the OEM version of the CPU and get a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro as your cooler. You'll like a lot.

The best deal at the moment in the GPU market is the ATi X1900 Pro. If I were buying now I'd get that now and take the rest of the difference between that and the 8800 and save it for a DX10 upgrade late next year when there are more cards out and choices are better.

Thats what I was thinking. I dont like going for the best as they are always overpriced for tech heads. I'll go with your advice and get the X1900 Pro then sell it later for a mid range dx10 card when dx10 games start to appear.

Any other suggestions would be great.

 

[Rapid-D]

Thanks for the help guys.

Last few questions:

For the graphics card, should I generally go for the 512mb or the 256mb?

Final one. Would the 520W psu power a 8800GTS just fine when I come to buy one?

Thanks again Happy New Year all .