New rig in progress. Thoughts?

Keep these things in mind: I'm broke, and I already have hard and optical drives. So here's what I'm buying piece by piece (I have 2 so far haha). Oh and I'm running 32-bit XP.

Case
Mobo
CPU
RAM (2)
PSU
GPU

yeah i know, but are they that much better? the major difference i saw was in the stream processors. the comparison was 320 to 800. what other considerable differences are there?krazykarl0419

Imo all of that looks good except for the gpu as others have said but to me if you want that then you should go for it but if you are going to save up that much money for that gpu then why not save abit more for one of the other cheap new gpus that are out.

I don't plan on buying a new gpu at the moment cause my 8800gt superclocked 512mb is still running everything that I have at the moment and it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all.

I do plan and am in the process of buying parts and then eventually I'll put them to gether much like you I don't have much money and so I'm having to save month by month. When you think about it doing it this way isn't bad unless you or any body is in a huge hurry to get there pc up and running.

It seems like the more you wait the more newer stuff comes out and so that tends to make the older stuff come down in price. So from that perspective it isn't to bad to wait.

I'm like you so far well I only have one thing at the moment and that is a case mid tower case that seems to be simler to yours with the side window and about 3 places for fans to go and I think mine has a led light in the widow not sure though but I plan to buy a mobo and a cpu together but you know that is just a small piece in this so call puzzle.

Sorry for it being so long I just can't seem to type short on some of these.

yeah i won't be overclocking. if i do, it won't be anytime soon, and i'll buy the extra cooling when and if i do. and wouldn't a 2.4ghz quad do better than a 3.0ghz duo as far as gaming?krazykarl0419

No cos for gaming clock speed makes alot more difference not more cores.

4850/4870 instead of the 3870 and you're good to go

I just compared the 9600gt, 3870, and 4850. for the most part the 3870 is either equal or even better than the other two. they obviously had one (maybe two) things over the 3870, but I wouldn't exactly call them far superior.krazykarl0419

I don't know where you saw that but they must have benched the 4850 at idle.

Anandtech
The Tech Report

I just compared the 9600gt, 3870, and 4850. for the most part the 3870 is either equal or even better than the other two. they obviously had one (maybe two) things over the 3870, but I wouldn't exactly call them far superior.krazykarl0419

Mediocre case... it's ok, I guess...but i really like the NZXT Tempest and I can't resist reccomending it to everyone :P

I'd also reccomend going with an E8400 dual-core over that CPU. Higher-clocked dual cores of the same architecture perform better in games than quad cores. If you really want quad-core tho... try to get a Q9450 or better (Yorkfield architecture has significant performance benefits).

The 4850 is probably the best video card for your money right now, though I feel that a 9800GTX overclocked is about on par...