Some PC Building Advice Needed (for my Gaming Rig)?

I've decided to get a new CPU/Ram/Mobo combo for my primary gaming PC. This is why I turn to you all: Could any of you offer some options to me? I'll tell you what I have, currently:





Antec 550w Power Supply


DVD ROM %26amp; CD ROM Drives


An 80GB SATA hard drive


NVidia GForce 6800 series video card





Now, while the video card is a little dated, I figure I can upgrade that at my convenience. What I think I need is some rocking guts. Will my PSU work for a new rig? I can always transplant the 550w into the media PC (I've needed more power for it for quite some time) once I get a replacement mobo for that. Then I can get a PSU that will be more appropriate for a new rig.





I don't want to break the bank, of course, but I also don't want to cheap out - my wife has given me very rare clearance to make sure this thing is good enough. She doesn't completely ';get'; my gamer crap, but she lumps expenses like this into a comparable category of ';boy toys that keep my husband sane.';





So, any thoughts?Some PC Building Advice Needed (for my Gaming Rig)?
For the CPU, Intel is much better in the price/performance ratio than AMD. The Core2Duo and Quad chips are the best bang for your buck right now. I would suggest the Q9300 CPU by intel. It costs around $260. It uses 45nm process so it runs cool and doesn't waste power.





Any name brand (Asus, Abit, MSI, Intel, etc.) motherboard with the P39 chipset will do, unless you are overclocking there is no need to spend over $150 on the motherboard.





The memory bus on that system will run at 800MHz base clock speed. So go with either 2Gig or 4Gig of PC6400 RAM, make sure the latencies are 4-4-4-4. Once again, get name brand like Corsair, Crucial, Viking, OCZ, etc.. As long as it meets those specs it should be fine.





Good luck on your new build.Some PC Building Advice Needed (for my Gaming Rig)?
Upgrading the vidoe card would give you the most performance boost. I would go with the 8600GTS because it doesnt break the bank and is a decend card. I would also go with a dual core processor. I am an AMD fan, but Intel has better performance and the best motherboard on the market are asus motherboards so you can't go wrong there.

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