Here are the parts I just ordered, for the price of €1377, please rate, it'll be used as a Linux game developer PC :) CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 Memory: Corsair Memory Kit 2048MB PC6400 (2x1024MB) Graphics Card: Asus GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 Silent, PCI-Express Hard Disk: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB, SATA II DVD RW: a NEC DVD writer, SATA interface Case: Antec P160 Windowed, Silver PSU: Antec Phantom 500 Monitor: LG 17" TFT monitor Speakers: Logitech X-230 Both the graphics card and the PSU are passively cooled (the PSU has a fan that works only above 45°C) So how would you rate it? Does anyone have a similar passively cooled 7600GT card, and is it stable during heavy work?

Looks good. If you have good airflow in the case, the passively cooled card should work. Usually the NVIDIA control panel lets you set guard temperatures where it will warn you, so you can monitor stability yourself.

I don't like your speakers, though. Try something like this system for better sound :-)

Quote: Original post by hplus0603
I don't like your speakers, though. Try something like this system for better sound :-)

Are you trying to compare a $50 piece of gear to $1700+ piece of gear? Or is that the wrong link?

Quote: Original post by hplus0603
I don't like your speakers, though. Try something like this system for better sound :-)

Heh, those cost more than my whole PC.

As long as I can recognise the music that I play, I'm happy with the speakers. If I had a LOT of money, I would buy something like that :)

E6600? That's gonnna be faaaaast.

I'm looking at a similar system, but with a 6400

Quote: Are you trying to compare a $50 piece of gear to $1700+ piece of gear?

Pretty much, yeah. At least I didn't point him to the $3,000 5.1 version :-) And that's the absolute low end of their product line. But I digress...

Yes, I agree the E6600 is the best price/performance point right now.

The next thing I would add (if I couldn't add the good speakers :-) would be a second hard drive, so I could run the hard drives in RAID 1 mode. RAID 1 guards against hard disk failures and makes read latencies lower. But it does not guard against viruses and other corruption like that, so backups are still necessary.