Critique my budget gaming rig $800-900

[mk86]

Hello all, after scrapping my new gaming rig list about3-4 times i have come up with yet another setup that im hoping works out. I am looking for critiques, part replacements or whatever it takes so i get the best bang for the buck First let me just tell you I am from Canada and looking to buy all my parts in-store to avoid all S&H taxes, I got all my parts but the psu from pccanada.com which is the closest and at the same time cheapest store near me.

Setup:
Asus® Radeon EAH4870/HTDI/512M - Radeon™ HD4870 VPU w/512Mb DDR5 & PCI Express 2.0 (Retail Box) $299.99 $30.00 mir

Antec® Three Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case, Black $59.99

Asus® P5KPL-CM, Socket 775, Intel® G31 Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (uATX) $69.99

OCZ 2Gb PC6400 DDR2 EL Dual Channel Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC Rev 2 Edition (OCZ2G800R22GK) $54.99 $20.00 mir

Intel® Core™2 Duo E8400, 3.00-GHz @ 1333Mhz w/ 6Mb Cache (Socket 775) (Retail Box) w/ Heat Sink & Fan $179.99

320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ATA-100 7200RPM 16Mb OEM $69.99

OCZ OCZ500SXS StealthXStream 500-Watt Power Supply - SATA Ready, PCI-Express Ready $73.99 $20.00 mir



My last minute change was an upgrade from a 4850 to a 4870 , but i had to pick up a cheaper mobo. I don't plan to use crossfire, my main concern is will that mobo be good enough to handle this setup ? Thanks a lot guys... awaiting some responses.

[ShyguyXPC]

Mobo is cheap in price, but only has 2 Memory slots, would look at getting one with 4, so leaves room to add more later if needed, instead of completely replacing existing sticks...

would also maybe try to find a board with more expansion slots, that one only has 1 PCI-E 16x slot, & 2 PCI, the 4870, you'll probably want to leave some space between that card & any other cards you'd be using down the road... leaving only 1 PCI slot... it has a single PCI-E 1x slot on opposite side of 16x slot, which is good...

other than that the board looks good, although if it were me, I'd look at getting a full size ATX board, instead of mATX, but to each their own.

Rest of the components look good though... even the case, I recently priced together a 2nd Quad core build that I might want to build if I have the money, the other day, using that same case in my list.

[pullmyfoot]

I would go for a P45 based board. That board you have is pretty low end. If im not wrong it also does not support PCIe 2.0 which would be good to have with that HD 4870 you hae there. Other than that I would hardly call it budget. What you have there is solid stuff. You dont need to spend much these days to get top and hardware, and Id pretty much say your system is *almost* there


I would go for this board. Its a little more but its pretty awesome

Newegg.com - ASUS P5Q LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards


You could also save a little on ram. This set of G.skill prett much takes the cake with 2k+ reviews
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Or this. I have it and its awesome. $35 with rebates
Newegg.com - OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

[qrs321]

get the P45 board that pullmyfoot suggested. Good motherboards are key to a good system. Also get 4gb of RAM. The G Skill stuff that pull said is rock solid I have a set. If you can't afford those two things get a cheaper video card. Maybe a 9800GTX+ or something in between the 4870 and the 4850. Good luck