So it has been roughly half a decade since I last had to consider buying a new PC or even bother keeping up-to-date on the current affairs and latest hardware for gaming PC's. However with Windows 7 coming out sometime this year and with my current gaming PC begining to get a little long in the tooth as the ARMA 2 demo showed. I've been looking into possible specifications for a new gaming PC.

Now I'm not looking to create a supercomputer here. Nothing Skynet-ish or Transformer-ish in nature, just a robust and reliable gaming PC that doesn't feel absurdly overpowered to run games and everyday use of varied applications and programs.

Below is what I came up with while looking through ComputerPlanet and customising my own build from some preset configurations they have. In total the below build comes to £747.50 inc VAT which seemed rather reasonable to me. But the big question is if the parts I picked below are considered 'OK' or 'good enough' for todays PC gaming market.

	Computer Case	Cooler Master Centurion 590
	CPU	Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (2 x 3.0 GHZ) 1333FSB - 6 MB
	Motherboard	ASUS P5N-D S/L 1333FSB (NVIDIA 750i)
	Memory	Corsair XMS2 4GB PC-6400 800 MHZ (2 x 2 GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR2)
	Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 - 896MB - 2xDVI/VGA (XFX)
	Power Supply	OCZ 600W Stealth XStream - Low Noise
	Hard Drive 1	1 TB (1000 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB
	Optical Drive 1	Samsung (S222A) DVD PLUS/-RW 22x Dual Layer - Black (IDE)
	Sound Card	Motherboard Integrated 5.1 Sound
	USB Ports	4 X USB 2.0 Ports
	CPU Heatsink	Speeze QuadroFlow VIII - Low Noise
	Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included) & Windows 7 Upgrade Voucher

Just glancing over it, it looks pretty good.

With RAID...RAID 0 treats multiple hard drives as one large fast drive. RAID 1 is a redundant setup where essentially you have two duplicate drives so that if one fails, you still have all of your data.

1 TB is so much, I only have 150 GB right now :P

I have the same graphics card, and it works great with every game i have tried in 1080p.

That looks like a pretty solid build. Should run 99% of games maxed out at 1680x1050.

As for RAID configurations, it mostly has to do with fail-safing your data. IIRC RAID 1 is duplicating the data from one drive onto another. Or maybe that's RAID 0. : /

W/e, one does that, the other distributes the data between drives for faster read times. Other ones combine that. And then there are like a billion other configurations that are entirely unnecessary to 99.5% of the population.

So essentially RAID 1 / 0 options are only needed or to be considered if you have two or more drives installed? I take it that is why the site automatically chose 'No Configuration' in the RAID options for me then since I picked one single drive? Does choosing no RAID option have any ups or downs?

And while 1TB seems like absolute overkill. I figured it is better to have more space and not use it than find myself wanting more space but not having any like I am experiencing now.

Cheers for all the responses so far, feel free to rip my build apart if you want. The more feedback the better, I've got roughly five years of revision to catch up on lol.

Not having any RAID configuration is fine. It's only necessary if you are worried about losing any important data (in the case of RAID 1), or if you have boatloads of space and want slightly better performance out of your multiple drives (RAID 0).

Also, your build looks fine. Mobo's got 2 PCI-X x16 slots in case you ever feel like throwing another 260 in there. Corsair makes solid RAM, the E8400 is pretty amazing for a dual core proc, and OCZ power supplies are really reliable (I have a GameXStream). The only thing that stands out to me is your heatsink, as I've never heard of Speeze before, but that's not really anything to worry about. So no worries.

Only problem i see is that 32bit vista. Should have got the 64bit if its OEM. The key will work with 64 bit discs if you find one but without it that 4th gb of memory is wasted.

Looks good, but I would get 64bit vista to utilize all of your ram.

That setup is very close to what I ordered and just received today.  The company I ordered from (AVADirect, not an option outside the US?  I dunno) did a fantastic job with the wiring and stuff.

Anyways, I ordered some different stuff, a Gigabyte mobo instead of Asus, G.Skill RAM instead of Corsair.  Only major difference is I got a GTX260 core 216, might be worth looking into, probably can't cost much more ($10-$20?)

Crysis is running at around 30fps on all very high without tweaking, so yea specs should be good enough, at least for a while.

" Only problem i see is that 32bit vista. Should have got the 64bit if its OEM. The key will work with 64 bit discs if you find one but without it that 4th gb of memory is wasted. "

You should get a quad-core, if you ask me.
And if you're getting Vista, you might as well get 64 bit.

Other than that, great.

" @Diamond: Just curious, is your mobo the UD4H model? "

Silly not going i7. Also go Vista 64bit not 32, limiting your RAM until Win 7.

Antec 900 FTW.  They're cheap and keep the system very cool.  Only downside is dust.

I probably should point out I am in no way going out to order or buy this PC build today, tomorrow or next week. Infact I won't buy a new PC until Win7 is officially out on shelves. This is more of a "hey guys and girls, I've been out the loop for so long I need some feedback to find out if I'm going in the right direction with what a new gaming PC should have". And clearly I'm half-way there it seems, the feedback from pretty much all of you has been great.

I understand 4GB of Ram won't physically be used by a 32bit OS. However I was under the impression 32bit used around 3.5/4GB of Ram? Seems alright too me, I've got little love for Vista or 64bit OS's. So hence the waiting on Win7 which I hear is pretty badass and should recognise 4GB of Ram on the 32bit version?

As for either going for a Quad Core or a newer i7 CPU from Intel. I did consider a Quad Core (i7 isn't one of the options to select from for this particular priced configuration) but honestly I can't imagine I'd have much use for a Quad Core. I'm not seeing Quad Core's as vital components for most new PC games, I think Dragon Age is the only one that mentioned it. Either way if someone could recommend a similar priced Quad Core to the Dual Core I have picked above, then please do :)

It looks fine, but you might want to opt for the e8500 and get so much more from a OC. Also, I would get a good soundcard too. if your on a tight budget I would pick up a cheap second hand tested card from somewhee like CeX, 

It is true that games are now being coded to run on multi core CPU's much better now, Intel sent reps around to some of their business partners in the development community early last year in February, to help improve techniques and utilize the technology better.. the benefit should be seen in games later this year. 

Just like everybody has said, your build looks great.  You've got some pretty informative answers here.  But one thing I suggest (and I personally plan on doing) is holding off building until USB 3.0 is out.  By that time, 7 will be out, the core i7's are going to be lower, and the graphic cards I want now are going to be dirt cheap.  You've already said that you plan on waiting a few months to build, but if there is one major piece of tech to look for (imo) is the USB three-oh.

The Q6600 is close price to an E8400 and if you spend a little more a Q9550 is about 80 bucks more for a Quad 2.83 which is what i'd go with personally if you aren't going i7. As it's the second best CPU that isn't an extreme model for a socket 775 motherboard and is significantly cheaper than a Q9650.

Also i7 isn't on the selected menus because it requires a different motherboard due to socket types as well as DDR3 RAM.

And personally wouldn't go with a 1TB drive; i'd go smaller and get a second drive as a TB for storage. OS drive for games and apps and a storage drive for media.

Don't know the exchange rate or whatever but thats what I came up with from your site for an i7 build;

Ex VAT:

FREE DELIVERY!

	Computer Case	ANTEC Nine Hundred Gamers Case - Black
	CPU	Intel Core i7 920 D0 (2.66GHz) 8 MB 4.8GT/s
	Motherboard	Asus P6T SE (Intel X58)
	Memory	Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) XMS3 1600MHz CAS 9 (DDR3)
	Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 - 896MB - 2xDVI/VGA (XFX)
	Power Supply	OCZ 700W Game XStream - Low Noise
	Hard Drive 1	500 GB SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 16MB
	Hard Drive 2	1 TB (1000 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB
	Optical Drive 1	ASUS (DRW-2014L1T) DVD /- RW 22x - Black - Lightscribe (SATA)
	Sound Card	Motherboard Integrated 7.1 Sound
	Firewire Card	1 Port Firewire IEEE 1394 (Built In)
	Networking	Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
	USB Ports	10 X USB 2.0 Ports
	CPU Heatsink	Zalman (CNPS9900) Blue LED Tunnel Flower ** ULTIMATE COOLING **
	Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included) & Windows 7 Upgrade Voucher
	Security Software	No Security Software Included
	Backup Solution	Standard Operating System Backup

That looks pretty great. That is a lot better than my computer and I can run Crysis at Very HIgh/High specs. You should do great with that for about 4 years or so.

I went with the same card he originally had; would personally go GTX280 or GTX275 if gaming at 1920x1080 however. Also went with a pretty basic on the motherboard because if you aren't gonna be running 12 HDDs and junk that board is good. And I run that same exact power supply for 2 Graphics cards; GTX280 and 8800GTS G92 (Physx Card) and it's done great; I like to be extra safe and go with more power than is currently needed.

However yes that system should be rock solid for a few years; maybe in 2 you'd want a graphics card upgrade as thats what I generally do every other generation of card or so I go for the next mid level 200-300 card.

Once more games are multicore enabled I will be personally upgrading to a Q9550 (or Q9650 pending price) and cooler master V8 from an E8400 (OC'd to 3.6 currently) and ZEROTherm Nirvana. Wish I would of waited for i7s to be released before I built my system; o wells.

Gtx260, core 216 version, it has more cores and runs faster.

Yeah the next post is correct, I forgot it was called stream processors or whatever, you know what I mean.

Data Storage i'd say run Raid 5; buy a 3rd drive and get more storage out of it and you can always expand to more drives. Raid 10 is even safer if you are that worried, personally run 5 Hard Drives with 0 backup; many of the drives are old as well if they start to act funky i'll be sure to get a new drive to back up to.

Core216 doesn't have more "Cores" it has more stream processors; 216 compared to the 196 or so on the standard model. Worth the premium cost for a 216 model however compared to a regular. Could also go to a GTX280 if you plan to play at 1920 reso or greater.

Your PC's gonna fly..