Congrats on your move into the modern age Proletariat!

Here are some thoughts...

The 800W PSU is serious overkill for that system. Unless you actually intend on running a dual card SLI/Crossfire setup then save a few bucks and downgrade to that 650W Corsair PSU, it's a reputable brand that is of superior quality to that no-name 800W.

It doesn't look like you can do this but if I were you I'd downgrade from a quad Core i7 to a dual core Core 2 Duo that runs at 3Ghz or higher (E8400 or E8500, 'meh' to the E8600, it's roughly the same price as the Core i7 in your rig) and transfer the anticipated savings over to the 3D card by upgrading to a 1gig 4870 or 4890. The advantages of a quad core over a dual core are limited, especially with regards to gaming. On the other hand I don't want to discourage you from embracing new tech.

There's nothing wrong with the 1gig 4850, it's a great card. However it doesn't have quite the teeth as its higher end brethren and won't help you make the most out of a high end CPU. A more powerful 3D card will have a much bigger impact on your framerates and gaming enjoyment than a quad core CPU, especially if you want to game with eye candy features like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. So I'd pony up the extra $40? or so for one of its bigger brothers.

Beyond that it looks like a great system. By all means, pull the trigger and happy gaming!

Quote Originally Posted by Veho Nex View Post
Personally Instead of dropping for one large HD I'd go for one really small one for just the Operating system and then get another larger hd to store stuff on
That's not a bad idea. As Lemur mentioned problems will arise if the small HD isn't big enough to handle everything.

For the last several years I've relied on partitioning my drive; the smaller, 20gig C: partition contains the XP OS, page file (fixed size at 2gigs) & apps with everything else going on the D: drive. If I was running Vista (fat chance) then I'd consider increasing the size of the C: partition, possibly doubling it to 40gigs. Anyway this simple solution has made my computing life alot easier. First of all it makes periodic defragging of the C: partition blissfully quick and easy, my OS still runs like new. Best of all if my OS gets sluggish or flunky I can easily nuke the C: partition and re-install without having to archive the contents of my drive first. Sure, some stuff won't work afterwards but you'd be amazed how many games still run without all that nonsense. As far as installed apps go... well, I'm a minimalist. There isn't much going on in my System Tray, I don't have too many TSR apps running at any given moment. My rig's sole existence is to provide me with a hassle free, gaming experience and a means to surf, be productive and download stuff once in awhile. I don't even use Outlook for e-mails anymore, I do all my e-mailing via Yahoo & Gmail.

One thing for sure is I've learned to hate developers that insist on putting all the user info, settings and saved games in the My Documents folder. It not only messes with my way of doing things but it can make modding and fudging with config files a royal pain. How about applying some old school sensibility and keep all associated files in the install directory?!?