About LCD monitors, the quality of the scaling they can do varies a whole lot. But if you get a monitor that is an exact multiple of the resolution you want to use, then it should look fine (ie, if you want to run 800x600, you can use a 1600x1200 monitor just fine, there are very few other choices that fit this criteria). With the exception of exact multiples DO NOT but an LCD to be used scaled UNLESS you can find a review of the LCD that mentions its quality in such cases, or if you can go test it in person. I have had 3 LCDs, and only 1 could do ANY scaling that didn't suck.

About Power Supplies. A quality 550-600 Watt PS which has the ability to do 33 or more AMPS on 12V should be fine for any single graphics card including the 8800 GTX (don't know about R600 yet, since it is going to be a huge expensive killer it might need a little more. Truthfully even 550 is probably more than enough if you aren't using many hard drives and opticals (like 3+ HDs and 2 opticals). If you have 1-2 HDs and 1 optical you should be fine. Make sure whatever you buy has a 4 or higher rating at newegg.com.

About CPU, an E6600 or E6700 is great (even E6300 is really good, but for the money a 6600 is nice because of cache and speed jump). If you went AMD an energy efficient version of the X2 4200+ or 4600+ is probably the best choice, but even an X2 5000+, 5200+ or 5600+ might make sense.


Memory, 2GB, period. 1GB is decent, but 2GB is noticably better ... if money is not an issue, 4GB might be nice. the difference between 667 and 800 is less than ANY other choice you have (1 processor step is bigger, 1 video card step, 1 memory size upgrade, a better hard drive, etc).

Graphics Card: Right now the 8800 GTS is the sweet spot I plan to buy (for about $380-$420), but if you do get a really high res monitor (higher than 1600x1200) get the 8800 GTX so you can actually play games at native resolution and turn on antialiasing, and then you don't have to worry about the scaling on an LCD - just run maxed out all the time.

In fact, if you are getting a $1500+ monitor (dell has a few good ones) then maybe a $250 name brand 700-800 watt power supply makes sense. Then you can get either 1x8800 GTX now or ATI R600 (when it comes out), and add a second one SLI later if the games need even more power to run at native resolution. 2x8800 GTX in SLI can run all games maxed out at 2560x1600 ... pretty sweet. ATI's R600 should outperform a single 8800 GTX (but no telling how power hungry or expensive it will be until it come out). Either way I'm sure you'll be happy with your choice.

I recommend you add a few custom case fans for improved airflow, only because for $20-150 you can replace the fans that come with the case and CPU with fans that are bigger, better, and quiter.

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I've been away this weekend. [smile]

I never expected to get as much information as this from posting and I can't thank you all enough. Every single post has been very helpful for differing reasons. [smile]

I was planning on building a new system when I got back until I saw that www.cyberpowerpc.com would probably save me more money than buying parts from Newegg. I do expect to buy somethings from Newegg still on my next system, but I do suggest checking out cyberpowerpc and other sites like it. If you find something cheaper please post links :)

Also, here is some general advice:

RAM: low latency is often times more important than clock speed. Also, if you do want to go cheap then Kingston is good at all prices. If you have money, Corsair XMS has wonderful performance.

Hard drive: Cache is often times more important than rpm. The gold is in the drives with 16MB of cache. Although high rpm is nice too, just be aware of the noise and heat that goes with the faster spin rate.

PSU: These are complex, amp output on the rails is important, www.houseofhelp.com has some good tips on their forums. I suggest Enermax, Thermaltake, or some other company known for good PSU's.

Quote: Original post by hplus0603
The R600 is nice for DirectX games. Wouldn't want it for OpenGL, though.

What exactly are you basing that on?

The R600 isn't out yet, there are no public or leaked benchmarks (real at least) and I highly doubt that you have a review or developers board.

If you had been keeping up with R600 news you'd know that the drivers coming for R600 and Vista also include a full OpenGL driver rewrite (what ATi has been talking about for a few years now ;)

Quote: Original post by nts
If you had been keeping up with R600 news you'd know that the drivers coming for R600 and Vista also include a full OpenGL driver rewrite (what ATi has been talking about for a few years now ;)

Hmm... what about R600 and XP? Vista is still (and most likely will continue to be) a piece of bloatly crap. XP + X2800GTO will be quite good for only about 300$.

Quote: I highly doubt that you have a review or developers board.

Better than that -- I have some connections to the inside.

R600 is really looking very good. Can't say more than that.

It'd be interesting when they release the new GL driver -- it's about time! But the first (and second, and third...) release of any GL driver is unlikely to be solid enough, so I'd still expect some rough waters for a while.

Quote: Original post by hplus0603
Better than that -- I have some connections to the inside.

They told you that OpenGL wasn't working great? lol

Quote: It'd be interesting when they release the new GL driver -- it's about time! But the first (and second, and third...) release of any GL driver is unlikely to be solid enough, so I'd still expect some rough waters for a while.

It will start coming with the 7.2 drivers for Vista.

Quote:
Hmm... what about R600 and XP? Vista is still (and most likely will continue to be) a piece of bloatly crap. XP + X2800GTO will be quite good for only about 300$.

XP will get the improvements made to the Vista drivers, just not right away. Improvements made to CCC for Vista (7.1) will appear in 7.2/7.3 drivers for XP.

Quote: Original post by nts
XP will get the improvements made to the Vista drivers, just not right away. Improvements made to CCC for Vista (7.1) will appear in 7.2/7.3 drivers for XP.

Interesting. Oh well. BTW, the CCC is another piece of bloaty crap, I never use it. ATI Tray Tools is the way to go.

Also, about using a LCD at a resolution lower than native:

With NVidia, there's a setting that makes the graphics card do the scaling for you, so you don't have to worry about how the monitor will scale it. If you select "Fixed aspect-ratio scaled", the graphics card will perform scaling and filtering, while preserving the correct aspect ratio. (I.E. if you set it to 1024x768, it will display with black bars on the sides to prevent stretching effects.)

My monitor has native resolution of 1920x1200. I play most games at 1280x800 or 960x600, though, to maintain a perfect 3:2 or 2:1 aspect ratio.