A good soundcard then? I can't see anything else left.

 

water cooling?

 

I like this.

http://www.coolitsystems.com/index.p...=132&Itemid=79

standalone unit, no maintenance, no fuss.

 

zalman
those koreans sure know how to make a good air cooled hsf

 

watch out, the 8-series is being updated and filled out in march for the arrival of ATI's new cards

as far as the processor goes the dual core will run fine. the quad should be better than 2+2logicals for SMP conditions like ripping/encoding, but for games 2 is perfect for now.


2 gigs of ram, thats a minimum for me now, make sure you have room for at least 4 in the future, and you're set.

 

can i have your old one?

 

i don't buy latest and greatest cpu/vid cards anymore so it wont bother me. I buy based on price level. 2gb has been a min for me for the past 3 years and worked out fine. i'm not after building a "benchmark" machine.

 

nope. still need it for when I have to test stuff for work.


sound card... unless i find a mb with a built-in one


I just read the review on the new 9700. I'm not so sure if I would like it. My other goal is to build a system that is not as loud as my current one.

 

the 8800 is the latest and greatest chip right now

h:

what i'm saying is that they are filing in the lineup, meaning they will be coming out with a 8600, 8400, 8300, and so on... so if you don't need something to knock your socks clean off, you might be better off waiting. you can have full DX10 compliance without needing the top of the line chip

 

sure but the price difference between the different versions of 8800 is 300-600bucks. $300 is my price point, which gets me the 320MB version of 8800. when your trying to drive 1920x1200 you could use the extra ummph from the 8800 gpu.