Planning to build a pc...

[Chippiewill]

I've decided to build a PC and although I'm not building it for a while I am am going to NY soon so I need to buy some things there to save on price.

I have a rough idea of which components I need and they are written down below. I have a rough budget of between £1000 - £1500.

Screen: Samsungs 22" Professional widescreen Monitor.. the SM223BW - £168
Case:Thermaltake Armour VA8003BWS Black Full Tower Windowed Case - No PSU - £96
GFX card: GTX 260 £200 (One of the various ebuyer ones)
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache* - OEM - £82
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3GHz Socket 775 4MB Cache 1333MHz FSB Retail Boxed Processor - £136
Fan controller: Scythe Kama-Meter Multifunction Fan Controller - 5.25" Bay - £40
Remote control (For MC): Cyberlink Media Center Remote Control - With Mini USB IR Receiver - £6
Keyboard and mouse: Logitech 2400 Desktop 2.4ghz Cordless Keyboard And Optical 1000dpi Mouse - Usb - £36
Speakers: Yatai 5.1 Black/Silver 33W RMS Surround Sound Speaker System - With LCD Front Panel/Wireless Remote - £28
Optical drive: Pioneer BDC-S02 Blu-Ray Reader 12X DVD?RWDL/RAM SATA Black - Retail With Cyberlink BD Suite Software - £90
OS: Vista premium - $199 (Buying in America)

I'm a bit unsure about which mother board and PSU to get.I think I need more fans but I'm not completely sure so could people please tell me if I need more (I think there are a few pre installed in the case though)

Also I know I haven't chosen the RAM but I can't choose until I know which motherboard I'm getting.

If anyone has any suggestions for improvements over my component selection then please post them. Also if there are incompatibilities then it would be really great If you told me!
.
And if anyone knows the names of good PC stores and NY then that would be great.

What would be great as motherboard spec if people can find it:

Extended ATX
4+ PCI, PCI express x16, PCI express x1, AGP slots
3+ 5.25" drive
4+ 3.5" slots
Supports 64bit
Can hold 8gb ram
Is one not optimised for crossfire

[N!ck]

Why not a crossfire mobo? Unless you're wanting to SLi you may as well get something like a P5K eg. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132275 or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142854

As for a PSU, i'd recommend a Corsair HX series eg. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/114945 or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/114941

You should be fine so far with the fans that come pre installed in the case.

Out of interest how come you're not looking at a quad core?

[Flisker]

Will the american version work in Europe?

[Chippiewill]

Ah, well I got a "How to build a PC book" and they advised against it as the only time where you get benefits from quad core is with multi threaded gaming since the processing power you would get otherwise would be lower...

At above: It should do

[Leetzgirl]

Ah, well I got a "How to build a PC book" and they advised against it as the only time where you get benefits from quad core is with multi threaded gaming since the processing power you would get otherwise would be lower...

Not really, it still used if you use alot of programs such as photoshops and msn at the same time

[Chippiewill]

Quote from the book:

Show Hide

Let's say you want to play Half life 2 on your new PC and you want superbly smooth performance - so you look at the intel core 2 Extreme X6800 which is a mighty quad core processor with a clock speed of 2.93GHZ apeice. That's bound to be a beauty isn't it? Not so fast, because there are two major flaws with that chip. The first and most obvious problem is it costs £620 and the second problem is that it's useless for Half-life 2.

It goes onto say that your better off getting a 3.2ghz for just £46 and buying a high end graphics card and ram thatll "blow a core 2 duo system out if the water"

Apparently the only use for a quad core system is if you are:

Ripping CDs, writing letters to banks, running virus scans and downloading files all at the same time, then a quad core is useful. However I am usually only running 1 sometimes 2 programs at a time that are particularly active so a quad core isn't going to help much.... (Ie paint isnt going to drain your CPU if you don't touch it)

At below: Placebo......

[Recursion]

LMAO at that book then.

[N!ck]

Quote from the book:

Show Hide

Let's say you want to play Half life 2 on your new PC and you want superbly smooth performance - so you look at the intel core 2 Extreme X6800 which is a mighty quad core processor with a clock speed of 2.93GHZ apeice. That's bound to be a beauty isn't it? Not so fast, because there are two major flaws with that chip. The first and most obvious problem is it costs £620 and the second problem is that it's useless for Half-life 2.

It goes onto say that your better off getting a 3.2ghz for just £46 and buying a high end graphics card and ram thatll "blow a core 2 duo system out if the water"

Apparently the only use for a quad core system is if you are:

Ripping CDs, writing letters to banks, running virus scans and downloading files all at the same time, then a quad core is useful. However I am usually only running 1 sometimes 2 programs at a time that are particularly active so a quad core isn't going to help much.... (Ie paint isnt going to drain your CPU if you don't touch it)

That was all true a couple of years ago, but these days Vista makes good use of a quad core CPU, and all new games are multi threaded anyway.

[Chippiewill]

Maybe, I'll have a look at some of the quad cores.

Woops wrong one...
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148545 Looks quite good Not to much more I guess

[N!ck]

Maybe, I'll have a look at some of the quad cores.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131950 .