first time building my own pc, need some advice

aenemic

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Nov 17, 2008
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18,510
Hello,

my pc died yesterday (pretty sure my mb is dead) and since I was going to get a new pc in a couple of months I thought I might as well get it now instead of trying to revive that old piece of junk.

since this is the first time I'm building a pc I'd like some advice and ideas before I decide upon exactly what parts to get. I have a friend who has built several pc's and just built himself a new one, so the whole building part is covered. just need to make sure I get the right stuff first.

I'm not on an extremely tight budget but I'm not going to spend everything I have either. the main purpose of the computer will be gaming.

the parts I'm interested in first and foremost are the following:

CPU: Intel Core™ 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz, Socket LGA775, 6MB, 1333Mhz
GPU: XFX GeForce GTX 260 576M 896MB GDDR3, PCI-Express 2.0, 2xDVI/HDCP, 448bit
RAM: Corsair Dominator TWIN2X8500C5D 4096MB, DDR2,2x2GB(KIT),DHX,E.P.P, CL5-5-5-15-2T

those parts are all at decent prices from where I'm likely to order everything. now I'm wondering mainly about the following:

1. what mobo would you recommend for this setup?

2. do you have any recommendations for parts with perhaps slightly better performance but in the same price range?

3. I have an Enermax Liberty 500W PSU in my old computer which I bought sometime last year. from what I understand, the GTX 260 gpu doesn't require nearly as much power as other high-end cards. but is my PSU powerful enough or should I go for a new PSU as well?

4. I'm going to buy a new midi tower as well - any recommendations? I want a clean, nice looking one, preferably black. I've looked at the Antec 300 tower and while it looks really nice and is very cheap it seems like it can be a hassle putting stuff in there. I wouldn't mind a tower with some of those new nifty functions like no screws, hdd boxes, space for cables behind the mobo etc. are there any towers with such features that aren't really expensive? same goes for fans and air flow, any recommendations there?

5. anything else I should think about? all input is much appreciated.
 

aenemic

Distinguished
Nov 17, 2008
2
0
18,510
er... I don't know what happened but for some reason my post ended up in the camera section. that's not what I chose, but oh well. I would appreciate a move to the correct location :)