first time build help ($5000 to spend)

Give me your money and I will build you a 1000$ system...

No, seriously, don't get a 1000$ cpu, it's totally worthless with Crysis. GPU is making everything...

Get 2 8800 GT in SLI with 4 gb of PC6400. You can get OCZ XTC platinum memory for about 50$ for 2 GB.

[QUOTE="karasill"][QUOTE="JohnP78"]

Ok, I've been doing some thinking and decided that I will build two identical PCs. One for me, and one for my son for Xmas. He's a senior in high school and I think he deserves it. I guess I shouldn't blow all my money on unnecessary parts. So I'm building two identical computers in the $2000 range.

- Q6600

- 780i motherboard

- PC Power and Cooling 750W PSU

- DVD Burner and Drive

- 2x 500GB Western Digital HDDs

- 4GB Patriot Viper RAM

- 2x G92 8800GTS

- Thermaltake Armor Series case

- Vista Home Premium

Thinker_145

Raptor are overpriced drives. Seagate is the only choice for HD.

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

JohnP78

1. You don't need another cpu cooler, intel stock cooler can be OC at 33%.
2. You need a dual boot with Vista and XP.
3. Buy only seagate HDD, they are warranted for 5 years.
4. Only CoolerMaster for PC case.
5. Buy only OCZ for power supply and memory.
6. No need for anything except DDR2... unless you want to waste your money.
7. The same with your CPU, in Crysis only the GPU matter at high settings.
8. This is the system I would build if I were you. (I built 3 systems and bought numerous hardwares, I know the cies well)

[QUOTE="JohnP78"]

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

Redgarl

1. Buy only OCZ for power supply

[QUOTE="JohnP78"]

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

Redgarl

1. You don't need another cpu cooler, intel stock cooler can be OC at 33%.
2. You need a dual boot with Vista and XP.
3. Buy only seagate HDD, they are warranted for 5 years.
4. Only CoolerMaster for PC case.
5. Buy only OCZ for power supply and memory.
6. No need for anything except DDR2... unless you want to waste your money.
7. The same with your CPU, in Crysis only the GPU matter at high settings.
8. This is the system I would build if I were you. (I built 3 systems and bought numerous hardwares, I know the cies well)

Definitely get a coolermaster for the case

[QUOTE="Redgarl"][QUOTE="JohnP78"]

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

Thinker_145

1. Buy only OCZ for power supply

5 years warranty is the best I know., and their big advantage is that you can mod your cables at your wish. No need to strap cables that you don't use, you just leave them in the cardboard box.

[QUOTE="Thinker_145"][QUOTE="Redgarl"][QUOTE="JohnP78"]

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

Redgarl

1. Buy only OCZ for power supply

5 years warranty is the best I know., and their big advantage is that you can mod your cables at your wish. No need to strap cables that you don't use, you just leave them in the cardboard box.

[QUOTE="Redgarl"][QUOTE="Thinker_145"][QUOTE="Redgarl"][QUOTE="JohnP78"]

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

Thinker_145

1. Buy only OCZ for power supply

5 years warranty is the best I know., and their big advantage is that you can mod your cables at your wish. No need to strap cables that you don't use, you just leave them in the cardboard box.

You cannot beat the price/quality ration of OCZ. You get way more for your money with OCZ. Corsair PS offer the same quality at a higher price.

[QUOTE="Thinker_145"][QUOTE="Redgarl"][QUOTE="Thinker_145"][QUOTE="Redgarl"][QUOTE="JohnP78"]

- OCZ GameXStream 850W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX

- Coolermaster CM Stacker 832 EATX Black Tower Case 9X5.25 4X3.5INT No P

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 2 x galaxy or BFG 8800 GT OC

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core

- OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 4X1GB

- 2x 500GB Seagate HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

- Windows XP pro

- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI

Redgarl

1. Buy only OCZ for power supply

5 years warranty is the best I know., and their big advantage is that you can mod your cables at your wish. No need to strap cables that you don't use, you just leave them in the cardboard box.

You cannot beat the price/quality ration of OCZ. You get way more for your money with OCZ. Corsair PS offer the same quality at a higher price.

Do OCZ PSU have active PFC,85% efficeincy,overvoltage/undervoltage/shortcircuit protection and the best amps on the 12V rail to PSU wattage ratio that i have seen.The corsair VX450 has 33 and VX550 has 49.Also they are very quite.

Well, I was pretty set on buying the alienware until my buddy told me that I should just build it to get the most out of my money. That just made me so much happier that I could get something even more powerful for the same price. I'm really thinking about whether or not I should spend all the money now or saving it since I'm getting mixed opinions here...JohnP78

You can build a super fast, untouchable computer for $5000. Here are the parts I would get if you want the best of the best...

• EVGA780i motherboard, (if you don't want tri-SLI, go for x38 and get hd3870 crossfire)
• Intel QX6950 w/ Vapochill phase cooler (or go custom phase change if you can)
• 3xEVGA 8800Ultra Blackpearl
• G. Skill 4gb(2x2) DDR2 1066
• 4x Solid State HD's in RAID 0
• 1100w ABS modular power supply
• Lian Li case

If it were me though, I'd wait a couple of months and spend $5000 on the 9 series and new line of Intels.

I already have a monitor, speakers, and keyboard/mouse. I was going to buy a $5000 PC from alienware but a friend of mine convinced me that I can get a lot more for my budget.. So I'm still new to building so he picked out the parts for me today but I need more opinions to help me feel more secure about this purchase. He will also help me assemble it when the parts arrive. Anyway here is what I have so far:

- Thermaltake Armor Series case

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 3x EVGA 8800Ultra

- Intel QX9650 cpu

- Patriot Viper 4GB RAM

- Western Digital Raptor 150GB HDD

- 2x 500GB Westrn Digital HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

Then he's also giving me a Zalman(sp?) CPU cooler so I think I'm good with that.

This brings this build to $4905 from newegg. Is there anything missing and should I switch the OS to XP?

Thanks in advance!

JohnP78

I'd say you get rid of those 3x8800Ultra in SLI, too much money you could save for the new series that may come soon, everything else looks awesome.

I already have a monitor, speakers, and keyboard/mouse. I was going to buy a $5000 PC from alienware but a friend of mine convinced me that I can get a lot more for my budget.. So I'm still new to building so he picked out the parts for me today but I need more opinions to help me feel more secure about this purchase. He will also help me assemble it when the parts arrive. Anyway here is what I have so far:

- Thermaltake Armor Series case

- EVGA 780i motherboard

- 3x EVGA 8800Ultra

- Intel QX9650 cpu

- Patriot Viper 4GB RAM

- Western Digital Raptor 150GB HDD

- 2x 500GB Westrn Digital HDD

- DVD burner and DVD drive

- Windows Vista Ultimate

Then he's also giving me a Zalman(sp?) CPU cooler so I think I'm good with that.

This brings this build to $4905 from newegg. Is there anything missing and should I switch the OS to XP?

Thanks in advance!

JohnP78

buy an 8800gt and wait for the 9800gtx