I was motivated by 11B's post to finally start picking out components... they're all chilling in a Newegg wish list. I think I got everything I need... no graphics card in my list as I'll just be re-using my 8800gt for now. I don't want to buy a new card with Fermi so close to release.

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $209.99
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail - $288.99
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ - Retail - $159.99
Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail - $69.99
Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M160G2XXX 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM - $429.99
LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM - $26.99
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $99.99
Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail - $64.99
___
total: $1,350.92

I vacillated a bit on the SSD... it was between the 160GB intel one and the 128GB crucial one. What finally swayed me back to the Intel was that the price per GB was slightly in Intel's favor, plus it's higher performing from what I could tell. The extra 32GB of space would be nice for application purposes.

The other hard drive is for everything that can be slow, like porn and documents. Mostly porn I'm sure. The PSU is 550 Watts which I think should be plenty to push a single graphics card. It'd probably be plenty to push 2. The rest of the components I think speak for themselves.

Looking super sweet man so jealous of the day you get that!

Hmm, I need to start looking in to SSD's. I mean, I understand how they work and so on but for gaming does it make a lot of difference? I guess there is research to be done!

Are there other things in your list that you'd have chosen over what you currently have written? (Cash allowing, I mean)

Yea we did some research back in the Pevils topic. The biggest impact of SSD is on the load times of course and then some games showed a few frames per second (below 10) increase as well at 16x10 and 19x12 resolutions. Above 25xXX the fps gain disappears since other components are bottlenecking by then. The SSD that showed FPS gain were the ultra expensive ones though, atleast then, I havent checked up on the benchmarks of the newest releases.

Nothing to say about your build other than that it looks great. Reliable manufacturers and not nibbling on the less flashy but altogether essential parts like the mobo and PSU...can hardly have any criticisms on any of that, right. The DVD drive is the only thing you seemed to 'meh', and rightfully so. It's not like we even used DVD drives for almost anything anymore. I think I open my drive about once every two weeks, usually to copy some music to my pc from an old CD. Other than that it's USB and flash sticks and digital download, really. Guessing it's the same for you.

I guess the joke " Hey is this the IT helpdesk? yea the coffee cup holder broke again" is not such a joke after all.

Haha, yea. I rarely use my DVD Rom drive any more... to install Window, and then to install a few apps or games. Most things come from disk images, direct downloads, or USB drives.

Regarding game performance of SSDs, Peltz is on it. It's mostly for load times... of Windows and then of the games. Plus level transitions (where it's actually loading stuff from disk) should be significantly faster. I don't expect any measurable impact on the actual game performance though.

As for parts, those were actually all my first picks, though I didn't care about the DVD-ROM at all, and I didn't care too much about the case. I mean, if I had unlimited funds, I'd have gone for the level 10 case.


The hard drive I probably would've bumped up to 2 TB as well, but honestly 1TB is plenty for my usage. So yea, that's pretty much my ideal system even if I had no cash constraints. I'm still thinking of updating my 19" widescreen LCD to a 24", but that can wait.

That case looks scary. Skynet.

haha, yea, freakin' sexy. But too expensive. I could get a high end graphics card for that price.

Damn it. Now your gonna make me get the intel 160 ssd. EPEEN SHOW DOWN!

haha...you get your return yet? Mine still hasn't hit the bank. Stupid slow ass IRS.

To Satis - haha I filed after you and already received my return, for that matter already spend a huge amount of it.

No



Buy that man a some beer plox thxs

lol...actually replaced the keg of bud light with a keg of Shiner on Friday. So yea, I've got all the beer I need (at least for now).

I still want my freakin' refund, damnit.

... And later on the news, a local man, who goes by the internet alias "satis" was arrested today 0900AM local time because of tax evasion. The man claims to be innocent but we all know the truth is ...