Opinion Sought: New Gaming Rig to be Assembled

[rajs]

Want to put together a new machine from components (shown further below) and send my Dell back (Pentium D 820 2.8GHz with 7800GTX GPU and 1GB RAM, etc) -- because after fixing everything up the best 3DMark05 I can get is ~ 6500 rating.

Would the machine I am looking to assemble below after overclocking it a little would do any better and give me higher framerates? Feel free to recommend other components, etc as I am coming back into building a PC after a 8 year layoff of doing things like this.

New Rig I am considering to replace the Dell Dimension 9100 Pentium D 820 2.8 GHz, 1GB RAM (533MHz), eVGA 7800GTX, etc.

Primary purpose of this machine is to play GAMES ONLY. I have another machine that I use for normal purposes (a PowerMac G5 -- and yeah yeah I know ... don't rag on me *grin*)

NEW COMPUTER I AM CONSIDERING ASSEMBLING:
PARTS I AM CONSIDERING PURCHASING - please let me know if I missed anything to get this fully assembled please or you can recommend something better in its place that isn't A LOT more $$$

Processor:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice Socket 939 -- OEM (hoping to overclock this using air cooling only)

Processor HSF Combo:
THERMALRIGHT XP-90 with a Panaflo FBA09A12M1A 92mm Hydro Wave Fan
Arctic Silver 5 Paste

Motherboard:
EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard

RAM:
QTY 2--* CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory -- Model #: VS1GB400C3

Hard Disk:
Maxtor DiamondMax10 -- 300GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM Model #: 6B300S0

DVD Burner - Dual Layer:
PLEXTOR Beige IDE DVD Burner Model OEM Model #: PX-740A-BP

Sound Card:
CREATIVE Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value PCI - OEM

Floppy Drive:
SAMSUNG White 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive - OEM Model #: SFD321B/LEB

Keyboard:
Can you suggest a nice normal one -- I loved the old IBM keyboards. Prefer nothing spastic looking

Case:
Ultra Dragon (Chieftec) ATX Case (don't know where to buy from though)
or
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Model #: CAC-T05-WW

PowerSupply:
ENERMAX Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA ATX 485W Power Supply Model #: EG495P-VE SFMA

Wireless NIC:
D-Link DWL-G510 PCI 2.2 Wireless 802.11 b/g Adapter

ITEMS I ALREADY HAVE AND WILL USE IN THE MACHINE:
Graphics Card:
eVGA 7800GTX factory overclocked Version with Batlefield2

Monitor:
Dell 2405FP 24" LCD

Mouse:
Logitech MX518 Mouse

GamePad:
Belkin Nostromo n52 GamePad

Headphones:
Sony MDR-3000 (--Ray Samuels Emmeline HR-2 Headphone Amp (--- Sound Card line out.

 

[DougLite]

I'm blind, my bad.

 

[rajs]

DougLite -- It's there ... near the bottom of items -- an ENERMAX Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA ATX 485W Power Supply Model #: EG495P-VE SFMA

 

[deathstar550]

You could save a bit of money (~$40?) by going with an NEC dual-layer DVD writer instead of a Plextor. From what I've heard, NEC makes very good, reliable drives. Might be something you'll want to look further into...

EDIT: Oh, one more thing! This might be needless worrying on my part, but personally, I'd bump that PSU up to the Noisetaker 600. Seems like you'll be doing lots of overclocking, benchmarking, and what not, so that big headroom is certainly nice to have. Again, look into this further... you'll probably get more detailed information from the Overclocking forum (and who knows, I'm probably way off base and the 485W is more than enough for the system ).

 

[rajs]

So .. does anybody think this will be better performing in games then the Dell I have?

Thanks

 

[turbominnow]

So .. does anybody think this will be better performing in games then the Dell I have?

Thanks

Honestly,
I dont think you will be able to tell the difference. You already have a 7800, adding addtional mem or a better processor does little to affect game performance. Depending on your resolution.

because after fixing everything up the best 3DMark05 I can get is ~ 6500 rating.

I would never buy a computer just to get a higher rating on 3dmark.

 

[deathstar550]

The system does seem to be an improvement (gaming-wise), but like turbominnow said, I doubt you'll see much of a difference... except perhaps in Battlefield 2, where the 2 GB RAM will smooth things over when you crank settings really high.

 

[pr0nasaurus rex]

You may be bottlenecked by your CPU; with a 7800GTX, I'd recommend a 3500+ or better.

Also, 6,500 in 3dMARK 05 is pretty miserable for a 7800GTX. Put in a beefier CPU, and then you should be able to score close to 8,000.