and then I added an edit to that post.... saying that I wasn't sure it was better cause I noticed the AMD was x6.

4 gigs of ram, add another hundred.

I definitely agree on getting a quality PSU. Dang, that posted vid on the PSU not even meeting the rated power is scary. On the other hand, good psu's like corsairs usually are able to go above theirs by 50-100 watts.

I actually got a Rosewill myself, but I'm not anywhere near the 1kw rating, and I wouldn't test it above 900 watts either.

The hd5850 is a pretty great choice.


AMD is great until the end of their product line. Their best hexacore can only compete with the lower end i7 920/930. Of course, the 920's are a great value at the price. The i7 980's on the over hand....yikes.

Caviar green is definitely not for the OS drive. Go for blue at least. 7200 vs 5400 is a noticeable difference, and hard drives are already slow enough to be bottlenecks in a lot of systems.

A drive is a drive. As long as it works... :P

Hm, ram might be cheaper than 100, since the amd's still use ddr2, I totally forgot. Ram speed really didn't make a difference for me.

For a HDD I find that the Seagate Barracuda 7200.13 is pretty good and inexpensive.

RAM quality made a lot of difference for me. I tested this a while back. 4GB DDR3 1600 vs 4GB DDR2 800 gave about a 40% performance increase.

Thanks guys. I have now switched the hard drive on my list to the Seagate Barracuda 7200.13. I kept the power supply for 2 reasons:
1. I got an awesome deal on it with the case (the combined price of both is $70.00) and it comes pre-installed. Thus I was hesitant to change my arrangement for both the case and the PSU.
2. The reviews for the product dont mention any problems with the PSU other than a short connector to the motherboard, but that shouldnt be a problem if proper considerations are taken.


I have now ordered the case/PSU, mobo, and processor.

So you only need the RAM and the HDD in order to be able to start it.Oh and a DVD-ROM to install the OS.

Yep, pretty much. I got the processor and mobo in today. I found out that the RAM I had chosen was not compatible (the mobo only has ddr2 slots), but i havent ordered RAM yet, so I just changed it on my list. Here is the new RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820144255

100$ for DDR2 1066?

I used to have this stuff and felt that it worked pretty good. and it's about half the price, just because something costs a lot less doesn't mean that it's crap.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231144

just thought I'd let you know, if you are using the one that came with the raidmax case.... I wouldnt trust it. its only 500W and honestly, I would MAYBE trust it at 400.....

Well, its cheaper, but its 2x1 RAM, we want 4GB Ram, (2x2). $60+$60 is $120, thats even more than the one we chose.

I was reading one of the reviews....

Pros: works great , @ 1066. it need 800w power supply to run @ 1066.

Huh? I need a 800W PSU to use DDR2 ram? Wtf?

Also, I just got back from Nellnebs house, we mounted the CPU on there and we also attached the Mobo to the case we got today.
Thermal paste was already on there, wasn't really too hard to do but we spent nearly an hour trying to find the screws for the Mobo and eventually I discovered that they were in a little blue box hidden underneath were the optical drive will sit.
That was the easy part, we spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how to open the box!

Eventually we ended up breaking the box, but you get the point.

I told Nellneb to post the Pics on here for you guys to see how we are doing so far.

Thanks for your support, -Graboy

I would be worried about the power supply, but looking at the reviews for the case, nobody was having any problems with it in their gaming builds. So please stop telling me that you dont trust the PSU. Pics are included in the atatchments of what me and Graboy have accomplished so far. We have installed the processor on to the motherboard and mounted the motherboard on the computer case (yes it is on the spacer things). I have discovered a couple things: -My computer case looks freaking awesome -I hate little blue boxes that contain screws. (I spent 15 minutes looking for the screws, then another 15 trying to get the damn case open)