Parts, Prices, Places

Before I had listed the parts that I decided to buy for this build. Now I will explain how I came to these decisions as well as the prices and where I bought them. I don't claim to be an expert on this (seeing as how this is my first time) so I would not take my opinion as the best there is. All I know is that I like the decisions I have made and they all make sense to me. Prices are based on 5/14/08 prices and the stores were decided based on total cost of the product (with tax and/or shipping), not just base price (listed are base prices). Newegg is definitely one of the best resources around, being responsible for perhaps 75% of my decisions.

We'll start off with the case:
Cooler Master Centurion 590 - $69.99 - Micro Center (store pickup)
This case came out fairly recently; I believe March 2008. When I saw this case I immediately noticed the fact that there is a possibility for 9 fans (3 in front, 2 left side, 2 top, 1 rear, 1 left side 80x80x15). The top fans for me were a must. It just made sense to have fans blowing the air up out of the case when heat wants to go there anyway. The 9 modular drive bays in the front were also definitely a plus. Only problem is that you need a hard drive cage to install fans in the front. Cooler Master only provides this case with one hard drive cage, meaning only one fan can be installed in the front (others are available on Cooler Master's website).
I saw a person build with this case, and he just used zip-ties to secure a second fan in the front. That's what I'm going to do.
At first when I wanted to build this pc I noticed the Raidmax Smillodon case. This thing was so sweet. It had a removable motherboard tray, easy access side panels, decent airflow, and it looked pretty nice. After reading a few reviews I found out that large 8800 video cards had trouble fitting in the case, and I noticed no top fan. The top fan became a real selling point for me when I saw my friends build (he made his summer 2007) with the Antec 900; look it up, people love this case. For me, the 900 was a little to pricey, and I just could not have the same case as my friend (we sort of frown upon matching electronics).
The Centurion 590 received some really good reviews, and the construction just made a lot of sense to me. Power supply on the bottom, plenty of room for fans, and modular drive/fan bays in the front.

Next decision made was the motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 - $88.99 - ZipZoomFly
I know that a lot of people say that the processor and video card should be chosen before the motherboard, but this decision came pretty simple to me. I knew that I was going to get a Socket 775 processor, I did not need SLI, DDR3 RAM support was also not necessary. I went to Newegg to see what I could find for under $100. This board came up immediately, with rave reviews and plenty of people saying that this overclocks well. That is a plus, but I was not sure if I was going to do that with this machine or not. I then went in search of cheaper prices and sure enough ZipZoomFly had a better deal. I don't know if it was a sale or anything, but I took advantage of it.

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Q6600 Kentsfield- $199.99 - Micro Center (store pickup)
This is always said to be an important decision. First I decided that I would not spend upwards of $250 total on this part. I went to Tom's Hardware and looked at some charts with the processors that were in my price range. The chips that popped out at me were Core 2 E8500, E8400, and Q6600. Between the 8500 and the 8400 the answer soon became clear that there was a large price difference for a small performance improvement. If I were to buy a Dual Core it would be the 8400 right now. Now I just had to decide between 4 cores or 2. For gaming the 2 cores had the slight edge in tests because most programs to not take full advantage of multiple cores yet. The decision to go with the quad was partly due to longevity reasons. I figure that a lot of programs are going to begin to multithread and I want to take advantage of that in the future. Also, my friends build had the same Q6600, I wasn't going to be outdone by a machine almost a year older than mine. Plus, who doesn't want to be able to say that they have a quad core?

Video Card:
EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT 512MB - $189.99 - Newegg (with $30 Mail in rebate, so $159.99)
This decision took me almost as long as the choice for a case did. I knew my price range was around $250 and I had heard from friends, and a little from the web that nVidia was the way to go. This left me in the range of the 8800 series. I was quite pleased when I found the 8800GTS 640MB for about $225. I also found the 8800GTS 512MB for about $250. I started to look into even more in depth reviews, and it turns out that the 8800GT 512MB outperforms the 8800GTS 640MB. This was found on a few third party review sites. The forums at Tom's Hardware were also helpful, but sadly the charts did not have the GT 512MB, since it was a fairly new card. I also found out that the GTS 512MB was not all that much better than the GT. I realized now that I have the ability to overclock this system, which was not the original plan, and seeing the $30 rebate sealed the deal for me. This meant I was going to get a video card at $60 under budget. I was excited. Oh, before I forget, I haven't had to deal with them yet, but everywhere I read about video card brands, EVGA gets rave reviews for having amazing customer service.

CPU Cooler (these are going to get a bit shorter now):
Masscool 8WA741 92mm - $20.99 - Newegg
This decision was pretty easy for me to make. I did not want to spend an arm and a leg for a CPU cooler, and I knew that my case was going to have excellent airflow. I looked at Newegg and just searched for best reviews. This one came out very close to the top if not at the top. I did not want a 120mm fan monster sitting in the case, blocking the vent for a side panel fan. I went with the 92mm fans. Also, I quickly made the decision to go with a vertical fan over a horizontal fan because I felt like the vertical fan would block less of my motherboard, and that means the fan can blow in any direction I choose to install it. When I looked at the heatsinks that had fans blowing outward, it just did not make much sense to me seeing as how I was going to have an intake fan blowing cool air right at the heatsink. With the masscool, I had plenty of room for a fan on the side panel, and I could have the heatsink blow the hot air right into the top exhaust fans or the rear exhaust.

Power Supply:
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W - $99.99 - Newegg ($84.99 after rebate)
If there was one thing coming into this build that I knew the least about, it was probably the power supply. All I knew was that I needed to buy my own, and not use anything that comes with a case. Luckily, my Centurion 590 did not come with one. I went to Tom's Hardware and checked out the forums. I did a search on power supplies, and one of the first threads to come up was a guy trying to build a budget gaming PC with a Q6600, and 8800GTS looking for parts advice. I read on, to find that a few power supplies were suggested. It turns out with power supplies, you need to watch for the 12V rail current rating. I compared the suggestions to the ratings on Newegg, and decided on this Corsair VX550. The price was also part of the deciding factor, I said I would give my self about $100 to buy the PSU.

Memory:
G Skill 4 GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 1000 - $74.99 - Newegg
I also did not know too much about RAM coming into this build. I just knew that good clock speed, and low latency and low timing numbers were good. Again, I gave myself about $100, but was always looking for the best price and value. I went to Newegg and searched to find the Gskill 4GB DDR2 800, and the DDR2 1000. There was about a $10 difference in the prices, so I decided to look into it more. I went to a few forums and found out that the performance difference is not that different, but that the DDR2 1000 RAM has the ability to overclock better (I'm not exactly sure on this one, so please don't just take my word on this). When I was ready to make my final decision, the DDR2 1000 ram had dropped in price. With Newegg ratings that high and such a good price, I just went with it.

Hard drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB - $64.99 - Newegg (free shipping)
The decision to buy a hard drive was a little weird for me. At first I wanted to buy a fast, well reviewed 500GB one. Many places I went would recommend the Western Digital Caviar line of hard drives. All I knew was that I wanted something either 7200 rpm or faster, with a 16MB cache. I went back to Newegg, and the reviews made it clear that I either wanted the WD or Seagate. I started to compare these two brands inside similar price ranges. I decided to drop my capacity to 250GB since I already had two other external HDs (one at 200GB and one at 250GB) one of which I was going to use as a second internal for storage. In the end, Seagate always seemed to be a step better than the WD in each price category, so I went with Seagate for the value.

Optical Drive:
Pioneer DVR-215DBK 20x SATA - $27.99 - ZipZoomFly
This was also a strange decision for me. Newegg was a little helpful, but the best reviewed drives were either IDE or a little on the pricey side. I wanted a nice burner, but did not want to pay over $30 for one. I went to other places and found the brand Pioneer was being mentioned a lot. ZipZoomfly had a very good selection of drives, just no customer reviews. I started looking at individual specs on each drive and just decided that this Pioneer was the best for the money I was willing to pay.

Monitor:
KDS K-2237MDWB Black 22" - $219.99 - Newegg
This decision was made almost entirely on Newegg. I wanted a 22" and my price range was around $250. I went for best reviews, and this one was about 7th from the top. I compared this one side by side with the other top contenders and found the specs on this one were just slightly better. I think the reason this got less reviews was just brand name. I heard a lot of good things about this monitor on Newegg and the price was a lot lower than the Samsungs or Acers.

Keyboard:
Logitech UltraX - $18.99 - Newegg
For peripherals, Logitech can't really be beat. If you buy a quality Logitech product, you know that it is going to be good. That was the first decision I made. I went in search of a simple, cheap, comfortable keyboard. This one fit the bill very nicely. I read all of the reviews and also searched for others online. The consensus was that this keyboard is not the best for gaming, but for everyday use it was quite, comfortable and functional. I realized that I won't have much time to play games during the school year, and also that I am not a hardcore gamer anyway. This keyboard was a lock.

Well those are all of my parts. I didn't review my case fans, but that's because I assume those are simple purchases. I just went with quiet, cheap fans. 19-30dB range sounded good to me. Again please do not take my word as an expert's opinion. I came into this build with very little information, and I'm pleased with the decisions I made. I'm sure there are better deals out there.

Now I'll give you the price totals:

Total for everything inside the case: $873.80 ($828.80 after rebates)
This includes, CPU, GPU, Mobo, PSU, Case, Heatsink, Fans, RAM, and Drives.

Total System: $1117.77 ($1072.77 after rebates)
With monitor, keyboard, and the DVI cable I forgot to buy (yea, sadly, KDS does not come with one). I was able to find a Monster cable for $4.99 at thecablesupply.com.

Grand Total including shipping and rebates: $1169.01
I am extremely happy with this price, seeing as how my budget was $1200. Throughout this whole process I was preparing my self for possibly exceeding this, but in the end I was able to restrain myself from paying the extra buck for a little more performance.

I received most of the parts from Newegg yesterday, and my second Newegg order along with my Zipzoomfly order should come in today. I'll take pictures and show all of the unboxing for each part later.

|:^)