Not a bad choice, however my recommendation would be:Don Cavanaugh wrote:Hello All,
After considering your inputs I am going with this setup for hardware:
ASUS P5N-E SLI Mother Board
If going with ATI cards go 965/975, If going with Nvidia go Nvidia all the way. This of course is driven by SLI/Crossfire requirements.
If you can swing an E6600 you might be better served...Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13 GHz CPU
Good card...ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
Good choices all but I like Seagate over HitachiCorsair 2GB PC2-6400 C4 DDR2
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 250GB SATA
Corsair CMPSU-520KX 520w PSU
ThermalTake Matrix VX VD3000BWA
Lite-On SHM-165H6S Dual Layer DVD±RW Writer
I wouldn't buy with the intention of overclocking IMHO unless you have done it before. Many opinions you'll get are from the "hardcore" overclockers some of which will save $60 on a CPU and spend $300 (or more) in cooling and accessories to get it to churn out the fastest Pi calculation or 3DMark scores (braggin' rights). This isn't a bad thing by any means as people have been doing it to cars since the turn of the century and whatever makes you happy is your thing, but it can bias recommendations. At the opposite extreme are the "I'll never overclockers" who will absolutely refuse to even consider "juicing it up" a bit to get a little more performance for the buck they spent. This also biases recommendations somewhat but is not bad either. Then there is the middle ground that feels "I will buy the performance that I KNOW I need and if I can boost it somewhat, well cool, but if it doesn't work I'll still be happy".PS - I will be asking about overclocking in the near future, once I get everything up and running...
Sorry to ramble but this quote from the original post sticks in my mind;
"Hi All,
I am looking to put together a new PC for myself for home office use and an occasional game. I also download pictures from digital camera from time to time and burn CD's "
This requirement doesn't define the need to overclock IMHO. If overclocking is a "nice to have" then I would go with an E6600 as it has the 4mb cache and runs great at stock speeds but is still overclockable without a huge effort. If you really are interested in getting into overclocking I would still get an E6600 (unless you just can't afford to) and play with it a bit for overclocking and, as you learn the ins, outs, and complexities of overclocking, buy your next system with overclocking in mind.
My 2 rusty pennies...
