Advice for a new mid level PC

Hello,
I am trying to home build a mid level, well rounded PC, and I would
like to have an advice from you.
The purpose of this system is general activities such as Internet,
media playing, Skype, P2P and gaming (I am no gaming maniac though, and
I don't need the top of the top).
Here are the components I have in mind (please consider that they are
taken from the catalogue of a shop next to my home, so maybe I could
find other better components, but these are easy to get for me).

INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6400 Socket 775
ASUS P5B
2 x DIMM 1GB DDR2 667 PC5300 KINGSTON
NVIDIA GeFORCE 7900GS
HD 250 GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA
MIDITOWER ATX COOLERMASTER CENTURION 5 + COOLERMASTER EXTREME POWER PSU
430W ATX 12V V2.1


Please let me know if you see something that might not work, such as
components not properly matched, incompatibilities or so...
Since I am not going to switch to Vista soon, I will not wait for a
DirectX 10 Graphics card, and I think that 7900gs may be a good choice
for good performance at a reasonable price.
As to RAM, I am very multi tasking oriented (ie: a game, skype, emule,
firefox, media player running at the same time) and I don't want to be
short of RAM, but if you think 2GB is a waste of money let me know.

I will appreciate any suggestion you could give me.
Lorenzo

"licarus" wrote:

I am trying to home build a mid level, well rounded PC,

Here are the components I have in mind (please consider that they
are taken from the catalogue of a shop next to my home, so maybe I
could find other better components, but these are easy to get for
me).

In my opinion, you should build your own only if you are familiar
with swapping components. I guess you are since you are able to list
the parts.

Not sure what your online store situation is, but you can get parts
much cheaper online. By buying online, you do suffer if you have
problems though.

I don't want to be short of RAM, but if you think 2GB is a waste
of money let me know.

I have 1 GB of RAM and would like at least 1.5 GB. Running some
medium-size applications and a game or two, at least 75% of my RAM
is used. Sometimes a particular application uses all of it and my
system slows to a painful crawl but that's happens rarely so far.
Lots of RAM is for running lots of applications at the same time, or
if you run a RAM starved application that you can't do without.

Good luck and have fun.








Lorenzo

your choices seem fine; here's a good write-up that you may find of value:

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2839

Anand has other guides too, check them out while there...

licarus schrieb:
....
INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6400 Socket 775
ASUS P5B
2 x DIMM 1GB DDR2 667 PC5300 KINGSTON
NVIDIA GeFORCE 7900GS
HD 250 GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA
MIDITOWER ATX COOLERMASTER CENTURION 5 + COOLERMASTER EXTREME POWER PSU
430W ATX 12V V2.1

Yes, the components are well chosen, indeed. Just be sure that the
Seagate HDD is a Barracuda *10* S-ATA model (which has more speed than
a '9').

Regarding the Asus P5B you may wish to look at the Deluxe versions
with the heat pipe cooling
http://usa.asus.com/products3.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=307&slname=Intel%20P9 65

Please let me know if you see something that might not work, such as
components not properly matched, incompatibilities or so...
Since I am not going to switch to Vista soon, ...

You are an expert, installing Vista not before SP2;-)

I will not wait for a
DirectX 10 Graphics card, and I think that 7900gs may be a good choice
for good performance at a reasonable price.
As to RAM, I am very multi tasking oriented (ie: a game, skype, emule,
firefox, media player running at the same time) and I don't want to be
short of RAM, but if you think 2GB is a waste of money let me know.

No, absolutely not. More than 1 GB of RAM is necessary for running
really *smoothly* 3D applications as, e.g.,
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
and virtual machines which, as you certainly know, share RAM between
host and guest OS, as, e. g.
https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=288&DownloadID=4864

Roy