Just a few bits left to decide on...

GasserOfMattoon

Hi all,
I'm going to be putting together a system over the next couple of months and need some advice.
I have a budget of €2000 to €2500, I already have a case and monitor so I'm doing up a list of components to fit that budget.

The machine will be used for general use and some gaming (COD, Warhammer, Civilization), but at the same time keep it as quiet as possible (I have an Antec P182SE, which should help ).

This is a provisional so I'm open to any advice/alternatives.

Parts and Approximate cost

CPU Intel Q9650 3GHz €470.......(was going to go for the extreme version, but it's €400 extra)
Heatsink Thermalright Ultimate Extreme €60

GPU ATI HD4870 1GB €260..........(which manufacturer??)
Heatsink Accelero S1 Rev2 €50

PSU Enermax Modu82+ 625W €125

Hard Drives 2 * Velociraptor 150GB €340

Fans 4 * Scythe S-Flex 1200rpm €45

OS Vista Ultimate €300
(or Ultimate OEM €170)

That puts me at about €1650 (or €1520 with OEM Vista)

Now I still need to decide on,

Motherboard Don't know where to start, should have onboard audio, SATA II... really I just want to make sure I get something reliable.

RAM DDR2 (DDR3 still too expensive I think), would 4GB be enough, would like to leave room to upgrade to 8GB if necessary, so 2*2Gb modules?

DVD RW I have an external drive that I use to burn DVDs so I just need something quiet.

Any advice on the above three?
Are some GPU brands better than others?

Part of the budget will be taken up by bits and pieces like Thermal paste,
Keyboard & Mouse, SATA cables etc. Don't need a sound card straight away if the Mobo has decent onboard audio.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

PaddyTheNth

Your storage space is relatively small I'd have thought. With GBs being so cheap these days, why not go for 1 raptor and 1 750GB Samsung F1 or one of the Western Digital ones? The Read/Writes that are really going to make a big difference to your experience are OS and Program related, so put those on the raptor and put your data/documents on the other large one that doesn't need to be as fast. Just a thought.

Motherboard - Gigabyte seem to have a good reputation at the moment. All the ones I've seen do 7.1 sound. Whatever you get, bear in mind that many mobos reputedly don't like it when all their memory slots are used. Haven't a clue why, its just what I hear.

Ram - no point going over 4GB unless you're using a 64-bit OS, and with a 32-bit OS you're only going to be seeing approximately 3GB. If you are using a 64-bit one though why not go to 8GB ram...it won't go to waste

GPU - I think Sapphire might be doing a dual-slot heatsink version of the 4870...they're definitely doing a dual-slot version of the 4850. These run cooler and quieter than the single-slot versions.

AlmightyCushion

Ditch the raptors. If you have the money get a good ssd (intel mlc's are meant to be great but very pricey and are only 80GBs) for os/apps/games and use a spinpoint f1 for everything else.
Also go with the oem version of vista.

GasserOfMattoon

Thanks for the responses, yeah I hear what you're saying about the raptors. I was just going to go for one for OS/Programs, but then I thought I'd use a second for PageFile and temporary local storage. I have external drives for longer term storage.
About SSDs, I've been watching the drives coming out but the more affordable one (OCZ Core, Supertalent etc.) seem to have a few problems and the Intel drives could be another while yet (and still expensive).
I think I might go with one velociraptor and a spinpoint for now, maybe in the new year things will look better for SSDs.

I will be going for 64bit Vista but I might just stick with 4GB RAM for now, guess it doesn't matter what I get as long as I stick with well known brands?

The thing for me though is motherboards, the more I read up about it the more I have to think about. I'm probably just overthinking it:o, yeah know, trying to set up the perfect combination of ram, cpu and mobo.
Think I'll do abit more research...

Thanks guys

AlmightyCushion

The raptors aren't much faster than the spinpoints which makes them rubbish value for money given the price difference so I'd just stick with the spinpoints. Personally I wouldn't bother spending much on a motherboard. A decent cheapo job should be grand. Gigabyte have some good boards for <€100.

I wouldn't bother with ddr3, 4GBs ddr2 should be fine on the ram front.

Given your budget, you may want to wait for nehalem. New cpus, triple channel ddr3 should easily max out your budget.

GasserOfMattoon

Yeah, you're probably right about the spinpoints, they're single platter drives right? See what I really want is a fast and quiet system, so I've waiting for SSD tech to stabalise abit ( and to give me a chance to figure out the pro's and cons). The idea of a responsive system the is no longer limited by moving parts is seriously:cool:

As for Nehalem, I think that's going to be the technology that I compare my system to as it gets older... same as it did with Core while I still had Pentiums. Makes me save my hard earned just a little bit harder;)

Blazer

Good mobo is theX48 in my sig below..Going for €163 on dabs.ie when I bought it...very happy with it ..although the overclocking features are different from what I'm used to with Asus boards..