Hi guys,

Just a quick request for some last minute approval on my PC purchase. After much umming and aahing (most of the latter with stagrrr's mum) I've settled on the following:

Antec Top Quality Sonata II Quiet Black Case
Albatron GeForce 7600GT 256MDDR3 Dual DVI/TVO PCI-Express
Western Digital 74G SATA Raptor 10000 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache)
DDR2 2Gig(2x1G) PC6400 800Mhz Dual Channel Turbo RAM PQI
Asus P5B 775, CORE2EE, P965, 1066FSB, PCIEI6, AUDIO, GbLAN, ATX
Intel ATX E6600 CORE 2 DUO /2.4GHz/4MB CACHE/1066FSB/LGA775
Samsung 16xDVD -/+R/RW Dual Layer OEM Black with LightScribe

Things I'm not sure about and would love some affirmation on:

1) Will the Antec Sonata's 450W power supply be enough for all the bits I have in there? Could I squeeze another HDD in there?

2) PQI RAM sounds like it goes through lots of testing and should work OK - I've been told by Umart that it should work fine. Anyone got any comments about it, particularly in ASUS motherboards?

3) I realise the video card isn't top of the line but basically I just want to be able to play mostly older generation games like BF1942/Vietnam, Enemy Territory (and other Quake 3 engine games), plus things like C&C Generals and the odd strategy game. Will it hold up? I am planning to upgrade next year for ET:QW so just want something to tide me over until then.

Thanks for any feedback anyone can provide!!!@@@###

i'd wait and get a wii.

I have that case/power supply with a similar system.

Seems to be fine...but i don't know much about power supplies. Never really had a problem tho?

Nice i like it. Going large with the raptor hard drive - For me too expensive

get another 74gb raptor and put them in a raid 0 config.. do it for the space and the speed.. you'll be stoked at loading times, spesh with 2 GB of ram.

I don't reckon that's much to throw at a 450w power supply trog, definitely bung in another hdd, a nice fat one - 70gb isn't much

Nice i like it. Going large with the raptor hard drive - For me too expensive

I was originally going with the 36gb one to save a few bucks, but then I looked @ my work PC and saw how much schlock I had in things like c:\windows and c:\program files and decided I didn't want to f*** around with installing programs onto a d:\.

get another 74gb raptor and put them in a raid 0 config.. do it for the space and the speed.. you'll be stoked at loading times, spesh with 2 GB of ram.

Not interested in speed that much that I'm prepared to a) drop another jillion dollars on an already-expensive hard drive or b) dick around with RAID 0 which has pwned my data once too many times (ie, once).

I don't reckon that's much to throw at a 450w power supply trog, definitely bung in another hdd, a nice fat one - 70gb isn't much

Yeh was planning on a ~300gb thing just for general data storage stuff, but haven't decided if I want to put it in this machine or if I should just drop it in my linux box - that way stagrrr can more easily access my "home movies", if you know what I mean (of me and his mum, if you don't).

Seconding raid-0, faster than a $2 hooker, specially with raptors

raid-0 makes some tasks faster. doesn't increase random access speed I don't see it as that awesome for a windows/programs drive.

Probably be better to just whack in a 2nd big capacity drive.

The 450W supply will be fine with an extra drive. I'm assuming no overclocking will be done in that regard.

Why are you upgrading now instead of waiting until DX10? I suppose the card is cheap and easily upgraded, but the money you're spending on this card to only use it for a few months is money best dumped into the Wii :)

trog, technology has probably advanced since that last thread.. haha

Why are you upgrading now instead of waiting until DX10?

The 7600GT costs about $240, a small portion of the overall cost of the system that is easily replaceable once the DX10 cards are mature.

There's always something better just around the corner, but if you keep waiting, you'll never have a computer.

Also I believe trog gave reasonable justification as to why he is getting an average video card~

He doesnt want to play f***ing mario brothers so why suggest a wii.

There's always something better just around the corner, but if you keep waiting, you'll never have a computer.

Bingo, dingo!

Powersupply is fine. You could squeeze a few more than that in. I've got a 450w running a 7800gtx and 5xsata + dvdr without an issue.

ta guys for all your help. I've made the order now so I'm going to lock the thread in case someone comes along and says it's all wrong :)