How did I do

Well I have held out for over 7 years now with my current rig, making minimal upgrades. It is an Alienware with a Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 1 gig ram, and, brace yourselves, A GeForce FX 5900 ultra gpu. Yeah. I can barely play TF2 and WoW anymore, and it is incappable of even installing CoD4.


But holding out paid off, as I was able to save up quite a bit more than I would usually spend on a new PC


So this is what i have come up with, keep in mind this will be strictly for gaming, nothing else. I and am really looking forward to finally being able to try CoD4 and all the other powerhouse games like Crysis and whatnot.


System Configuration:
Chassis: Digital Storm 850Si
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Power Supply: 750W Corsair HX (Dual SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz (1333MHz Front Side Bus) (6MB Cache)
Motherboard: nVidia 790i Ultra Core 2 Quad (nForce 790i Ultra SLI) (DDR3 Only)
System Memory: 4GB DDR3 Corsair at 1600MHz DHX (High-Performance)
Card Reader: - No Thanks
Hard Drive 1: 150GB Western Digital Raptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Hard Drive 2: 150GB Western Digital Raptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed)
Raid Option: Setup hard drive 1 and hard drive 2 in a Raid 0 Stripe Configuration (Expert)
Hard Drive 3: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Wireless Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card(s): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB
TV Tuner: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Extreme Cooling: Liquid Chilled FrostBite CPU Only
Internal Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Blue Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes)
Modifications: - No Thanks
CPU Boost: Yes, Overclock the processor as much as possible with complete stability
Graphics Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Memory Boost: Yes, Overclock memory timings (Includes Memory Fan Kit Installed)
Windows Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) (For Enthusiasts)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Benchmarking: - No Thanks
Pre-Install Game: - No Thanks
LCD Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: Logitech 2.1 System (Black Edition) (Model S220) (Includes Subwoofer)
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty



$3500 was supposed to be my max amount to spend, but i really really wanted a liquid cooled CPU for OCing so I went up to almost $3800. I have a 24" Dell E248WFP Wide Flat Panel Monitor and other HD's I can put in if I ever run out of room with this setup.


Oh and I am quite impulsive so I already purchased it (been looking around for a while though) but I am assuming since its the start of the weekend that they wont be building it until next week at the earliest so I could still change some things if absolutely necessary.


Any thoughts? I will be out of town for the next few days so if I don't respond right away thats why. Thanks for any input.

Two things. Just by reading reviews, it appears that Crysis performs better with a quad core cpus. Also, I agree with DST4ME on dropping RAID 0. It's a risk best left for competitive gamers (pros) IMO. Too easy to go astray and then have to reformat.

Nehalem is suppose to clock at higher speeds, maybe something to think about.