Looking to build a gaming rig...advice/critiques welcome

[cyclohexane]

I think you should go with an X38 and CF HD 4850s. The HD 4850 is faster than the 8800GTS and the X38 is a more solid and reliable chipset than the 790i.

HD 4850

ASUS P5E

Intel chipset + Crossfire support is a far more potent combo than anything Nvidia has to offer with the recent release of the HD 4800 series.

I also agree that 1000W is way overkill. Under full 100% load, all those components together wouldn't be consuming more than ~400W-450W. So not only would you be wasting your money, but you're PSU would not be working at full efficiency. PSUs work at their maximum efficiency at 50%-85% load. Anything under or above that, and they produce more heat and draw more power than necessary.
The PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W is a reliable unit from probably the best respected power supply manufacturer with all the connectors you require plus plenty of power in reserve should you wish to upgrade in the future.

And as for DDR3, I've said this many times. DDR3 does not offer any performance increases over DDR2 on the current Intel FSB-based platforms because of the bandwidth limitations that the FSB poses. Memory bandwidth can never be higher than the bottleneck that is the FSB, that is why DDR3 cannot be fully exploited until Nehale is released, or AMD released a DDR3 supporting chipset.

Thanks for the advise. I'll be checking out all of the information you just threw at me tomorrow morning (just got off work, wanted to see what people said before bed.) I might downgrade to the DDR2 mobo's and go ddr2 memory, we'll see. Your definitely right about the Nehale utilizing the ddr3 ram, I read about that earlier today, and even if I did go DDR3 ram right now, I'd have to invest in another mobo to get the correct socket.

I'll be back in the morning with what I have decided. (And I am sure that the PSU is going to be downgaded )

i would agree with a few of the past post.you spent a little to much if you would have used newegg and geeks you could have saved about 600$ i am betting.

Catch me up, what is geeks?

 

[freestyler105]

Looks good. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is coming out soon, and since you're not building for a while, you should get that. It's set to be a really amazing card.

And really, with that kind of budget, you may as well go for an X48 motherboard.

 

[cavemangrinder]

Catch me up, what is geeks?

I believe he would be referring to geeks.com

 

[Cabbs]

I think you should wait for Nehalem.

 

[cyclohexane]

I think you should wait for Nehalem.

I heard that's going to be like $1,000 if not plus dollars I read a few reviews that said it's going to cost as much as the Intel Extreme's.

I believe he would be referring to geeks.com

Thanks. All I knew was newegg. I'll someday get out of the noob state. LOL.

 

[worshipme]

I heard that's going to be like $1,000 if not plus dollars I read a few reviews that said it's going to cost as much as the Intel Extreme's.

2.66GHz Bloomfield part is already confirmed at $266 in 1000 quantity. So that's around say, $300 to the consumer. Bear in mind you will have to shell out on an expensive motherboard and DDR3 RAM. The mainstream Nehalem platform is due in Q3 2009.

 

[cyclohexane]

thanks for the information. guess, i was reading a bogus website.

I updated the MOBO, RAM, VIDEO CARDS, and PSU. Check it out and tell me what you think.