* Next-gen. Here I Come... *

[redsox]

I was going to order an Alienware, but I am daring myself into building my own computer. I have spent the last couple of days looking through different sites to learn about building one and this is what I have come up with. I am going to be using this setup only for gaming and I want to be able to use this for at least 3 years or so. Any help y'all can provide me with would be great.

CPU

AMD Athlon 64 X2 - LINK

MEMORY

Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB) - LINK

HARD DRIVE

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM - LINK

VIDEO CARD

XFX GeForce 9800 GT - 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, (2) Dual Link DVI, HDTV, VGA Support - LINK

MOTHERBOARD

Asus M3A78-T-T Motherboard - LINK

DVD/CD DRIVE

Sony DRU-V200S/BR DVD/CD Rewritable Drive - LINK

MONITOR

Samsung 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - LINK

COMPUTER CASE w/POWER SUPPLY

Power Up 5511 Silver ATX Mid-Tower Case - LINK

COOLING FAN

PowerUp P4 CPU Cooling Fan - LINK

__________________________________________________________________________

CONCERNS/DOUBTS:

- Is the CPU that I picked good enough to last at least 2-3 years?

- How good is the motherboard? I made sure that this will support the Athlon X64, but beyond that I am not sure what else I would need to look for when choosing.

- How good is my video card? Is an onboard memory of 512MB too much? I am not sure how to validate 512MB. What kind of games would require that? I don't intend on playing Crysis, but I would love to have a graphics card that can run that game smoothly on all the settings maxed out.

- I have read that an ideal wattage for a gaming computer is around 500W, but some sites mention that 500W may be too low. I don't want to get a higher wattage and end up making the system way too hot. How can I determine this based on my system?

- Is the fan reasonable for this kind of setup?

- Sound Card - I read that most motherboards include on-board sound. Would it be better for me to go ahead and buy a new sound card? If so, which one would y'all recommend?

- I will also take a look at newegg to compare prices with TigerDirect.

[BigPaPa]

get a Phenom its only a few bucks more

Also Ditch tiger direct, Newegg has cheaper prices and almost always gives you free shipping on your entire order.

The above is mostly opinion what is not opinion is that you WILL need a better Power supply.

450 W is wayyy to low id recommended a 650 minimum and and optimally 750+ if possible.

Other then that, you wont have any super computer or anything but youll be able to run just about any game to your hearts content at a passable frame rate.

[redsox]

Thanks for the reply man. So, would my current fan suffice or would I have to update that as well?

[redsox]

Here's round 2. If you guys think I can save on any of these components, please let me know.

CPU ($144.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103249

Memory ($74.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146785

Hard Drive ($49.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136098

Video Card ($129.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814150316

Motherboard ($74.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...-L0A-_-13135085

Should there be any concern that there is only 1 x16 PCI-E slot?

CD/DVD Drive ($24.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827151171

Monitor ($139.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824009127

Computer Case/Power Supply combo ($209.99) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDet...st=Combo.159608

From what I can tell, I get a total of 4 cooling fans (3 installed inside the tower and 1 that is part of the power supply). I probably shouldn't need any more correct?

Total - $849.92