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[The Fifth Horseman]

If I understand correctly, and you're talking about using them as one would a 1Tb HD, then I'm I intend to use them seperately

Nope, you're thinking of RAID-0. RAID-1 is the mirror matrix, where both drives have the exact same data.

would it perhaps be a better idea to go with a Quad Core setup? And how about a physics card?

Quad Core is not utilised by most games yet AFAIK. Don't see much point.
As for Ageia PhysX, IMO it's just a fancy gizmo. Some sources claim that using it might actually adversely affect performance. Personally, I'd just spend that money on a better motherboard or graphics card.

[_r.u.s.s.]

Originally Posted by Doubler

By the way, I'm probably going to have it assembled anyway. I'm low on time during most of May, but I can't manage without a PC during that time.

come on, it takes about a few hours=P unless some friend will do it for you, of course..

btw why would you spend money on soundcard? your motherboard in-build RALTEK would do the job perfectly=P

but hey, quad core is not only for games. the OS can allways handle threads in processes in much faster way with more cores. but i don't think that you'd need such a thing if you were a casual user of "internetz" and play games occasionally

the 1GB graphic card is ok if you're going to render stuff with 3d editors and such. or going to play crysis at utlraOMGshadersgraphics for a few hours, but meh, i'd go for the 512 if it was way cheaper

btw, if you are already buyng those 3 GBs of rams (woah o_O), you could already buy 2x 2GBs and squeeze the maximum from winXP, which it can handle

also, if you are buyng the cooler to keep the machine 'cool', you don't need it that much, since there are gonig to be in built ones in your case, unless you're buyng it to keep it silent, or you are living in south africa with 35'C heats, or something

[Doubler]

Well, I'm still using those HD's separately :laugh:
This will be especially usefull if and when I decide to dual-boot Vista.

Someone else just described that physics card to me as 'an expensive paper pusher' - I guess I'll pas then.

I'm getting a seperate soundcard because I prefer it that way (old habits...). And because it's supposed to come with a small performance boost :wondering:

The 1Gb card is odd. According to a test I've read online it's noisier, cooler, insignificantly faster then the GT but slower then the GT TOP, except on lower resolutions where it's a bit faster - the 1Gb is actually the cheaper card! (because I'm looking at the more expensive range of GT's, I guess)
I'm confused. What is the PCI-E thingey worth? I can apparently get a GT TOP 512 for a slightly lower price then the regular GT with PCI-E. Here's the cards:
-Asus EN8800GT TOP/G/HTDP/512M
-Asus EN8800GT PCI-E 512MB

Also, 4Gb apparently only works well for 64bit systems :wondering: - Since I'm sticking to 32bit, I'm advised to stay with 3Gb.

Finally, I intend to use the pc for a wide range of gaming (from Paratrooper to games not announced yet), internet, office functions and media functions (TV, DVD, photos, etc. - I forget to add the TV card to the last list, so I'll add it at the end of this post*).
I'm guessing quad-core is more usefull when you're working with graphic software and editing tools and such?

*TV-card: Pinnacle PCTV Analog Pro PCI 110i

[_r.u.s.s.]

Originally Posted by Doubler

-Asus EN8800GT TOP/G/HTDP/512M
-Asus EN8800GT PCI-E 512MB

can you link us to the store where you are looking for those? i'm confused now. both cards should go in to pci-express slot, where else?=S agp?

in any case, since you spend this much in to pc, why won't you rather buy some 9800 geforce instead of older 8800?

btw, you said that you are going to dual boot vista, then i'd recommend the 4gb even more
edit: nevermind, jsut read that 32 bit vista has problems with it as well

[Doubler]

Well, I consider this price to be quite high enough :amused:
Besides, the 9800 hasn't fully matured yet.

Here's the store I use for selecting parts:
http://www.norrod.nl/ws_a_index.asp?...p_id=2&sel=175
Mostly because they have a very handy PC configurator tool that consists of drop-down lists of parts and an emmediate price calculation.

Take a look at the lower regions of that Asus list. It starts at the tenth from below, then down. These are the cards I'm considering:
Asus EN8800GT/HTDP/1G €211,50 - Note the much lower memory clock speeds
Asus EN8800GT TOP/G/HTDP/512M €212,00 - Apparently the TOP cards aren't readily available
Asus EN8800GT G/HTDP/512M €239,00

[The Fifth Horseman]

I'm confused. What is the PCI-E thingey worth?

PCI-E = PCI-Express = an expansion bus type that succeeded AGP. Higher bus bandwidth, and allows for multiple devices (unlike AGP, which only allowed for one).
Modern motherboards don't have AGP slots anymore, but some graphic cards are produced in AGP version every now and then.

[_r.u.s.s.]

so i 'd pick this or this one of course, but rather the 512

[Doubler]

Ok, I think I've settled then, although I still wonder whether a 500W PSU will do:

 
Case: Antec Sonata III Silence 500Watt
PSU: Antec EarthWatt EA500 in the case, no additional cost
Motherboard: Asus P5E
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500
-Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX2
RAM 1: Kingston ValueRAM 1GB 800MHz
RAM 2: Kingston ValueRAM 2GB, 800MHz
HD1: Western Digital Caviar RE500Gb (SataII)
-Cooler: Nexus Silent HDD brackets
HD2: Western Digital Caviar RE500Gb (SataII)
-Cooler: Nexus Silent HDD brackets
Videocard: Asus EN8800GT TOP/G/HTDP/512M
Soundcard: Creative Soundblaster X-fi Xtreme Gamer
DVD1: Samsung SH-D162C DVD-ROM 16X
DVD2: Lite-On DH-20A4P-21C DVD Rewriter 20X IDE zwart
TV-card: Pinnacle PCTV Analog Pro PCI 110i, NL 
Cardreader
 
OS: MS Windows XP Professional
 
TFT: Acer P203Wd
Keyboard: Logitech Media Keyboard 600
Mouse: MS Basic Optical (black)*
Speakers: Creative Inspire 280

Thanks for the help Fifth and _r.u.s.s.

[_r.u.s.s.]

no problem =)
of 500 W will, i'd pick even lower=P but i'm used to kindaa.. 'weaker' PCs. but still, i dunno, it should work with lower voltage

btw i'd never pick optical. whether a laser or good ball mouse, optical sometimes behaves just buggy

and "creative 2.0 inspire"?! what?! with that you can throw your super ultra awesome sound card out of the window and use the onboard one. 5.1 or 6.1 definately. it's not that expensive and you are just throwing your money away with the sound card then

[Doubler]

The calculators I checked put me between 500 and 550. So there's not much room for movement.

As for the mouse, I'm not even sure I have room to use it :laugh:
I plan to replace it with a trackball as soon as I find a comfortable one. A laser mouse tends to be expensive.

Finally, I can't practically use such a sound system... yet