Good PC Build? Also Vista Ultimate 64 or 32

Q: q6600 Raidmax Aztec Case 530watt PSU XFX 780i Mobo XFX 9600GT XXX Alpha Dog 2GB Crucial Ballitx RAM 2 1gb sticks 2x 250GB Hard Drives SATA 7200RPM Seagate Samsung 22x DVD Burner

A: What do you plan to use your build for? Gaming? If so, the C2D E8400 is better than Q6600. If more general reasons, go for the Q6600 and overclock it! If you want to overclock a bit, make sure get a decent mobo and power supply and an aftermarket heat sink. The Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro is an excellent $$$/cooling, and usually < $30. Unless you really love the nVidia 780i chipset, the Intel P35's are a more solid choice. Are you married to your case? If you like the neon, go for it. But if you prefer a quieter case then there are much better options out there. I personally own (and love) the Antec Sonata III which comes with a 500W Antec PS for $100. The ATI Radeons 4850's are currently in the performance/$$$ sweet spot now and will blow away even the 9800GTX. If you're not in a hurry, I see them on slickdeals.net every once in awhile for about $150 A/R. Any DDR2-6400 RAM is fine if you don't plan on overclocking. 4GB (2x2GB) isn't that much more that 2GB so probably worth getting, but only if you go with Vista 64. You will only see ~3.5GB with Vista 32. No reason to get 2 250G HD's unless you plan on RAID 1 (mirror). Just get a single Western Digital 640GB. They are almost as fast as the 10K RPM Raptor's at 1/4 the price.

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