building a gaming computer?

Question

this will be my first time building a computer and of course im looking to make it a pretty decent computer at that

i have no experience and want to know if im missing anything i need or if i need to make changes

COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP l ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM (X2)

EVGA GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Video Card (X2)

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series 70SB088600007 7.1 Channels PCI Express Interface Sound Card

COOLER MASTER UCP RS900-AAAAA3 900W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Power Supply

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (X2)

EVGA 132-YW-E178-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI FTW ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

Answer 1

Excellent case, but you might also want to look at the CoolerMaster 690.



Get the 275GTX (X1) or 285GTX (X1) and forget SLI.



Lose the Seagates and get two 1Tb WD Caviar Black HDDs.



You don't need 900W...it will be hot and noisy. Again, do not go SLI and get a nice PCP&C Silencer 750W.



Lose the Crapola Labs sound card and get an HT Omega Striker. Then hook that up to a nice pair of Behringer MS-20 monitors...fine sound, low price ($99 delivered at B&H Photo).



Get a Xigmatek 1283 HSF, or Zalman 9700.



I like the build, but I would change a few things. The E8400 is a solid choice, but you can now get a Q9550 for $229 at NewEgg, so think about that option.



EDIT FOR OP: OK, if you get the "retail" version of things, you get the cables; if you get the "OEM" version, you only get the item itself. Your motherboard should have all the cables you need. The hard drives will NOT come with cables, but your motherboard will probably have two or three of them included.



With regard to Duo versus Quad...I'd go with the Q9550...some future-proofing and an incredible buy at $229! This is a 2.83GHz chip with 12Mb of L2 cache, which is awesome. This is just about $50 more than the E8400, but the difference in multitasking will amaze you.

Answer 2

>

EVGA GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Video Card (X2)



This is just a rebranded 9800 GTX -- you either get the 9800 GTX in SLi (works out cheaper and gives you the same performance, or go straight to the GTX 260 (better bang for buck)



I also recommend getting a single (powerful) card first such as the GTX 275, then consider getting another one for SLi later when you feel the need to upgrade.



>Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi

I hope you have a good pair of speakers to go with that.



>Seagate Barracuda 7200.12



These apparently have firmware issues. Go for WD drives instead.



>Intel Core 2 Duo E8400



Good performance, but the LGA775 socket is not going to offer you any more room to upgrade in the future.

If I were you, go for the AM3 options offered by AMD (preferably a Phenom 2 x4 940.



Its slightly more costly than the E8400, but will last you much longer and is comparable to a Intel Core 2 Quad.

Answer 3

I'm seconding Yggdrasil on the graphics card. Definitely worth upgrading rather than going SLI. And while you're at it, you could then downgrade the Motherboard and grab yourself some more RAM and get a quad core :D

Answer 4

Thats Quite a Sweet Setup! should play PC Games no Probs

I Have the sme Graphics Card and it plays games nice and Smooth!

Answer 5

Looks like you might not have an oporating system, dvd drive, keyboard, mouse, nor speakers.

Otherwise everything looks good!

(If you can/want to, get another hard drive, or even an external hard drive as this gives your PC more room to work with!)