Since The Prices Dropped..

[Jd punk]

Im shopping once again - And I hope this time I dont have to wait and can order right away :p . Heres the list of parts I have,

Thermaltake Tsunami (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811133137) $109.99

Western Digital Raptor WD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822136034) $289.99

eVGA Geforce 7900GT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130016) $289.99

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16829102188) $111.99

OCZ GameXStream ATX12V 600W Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817341001) $139.99

ZALMAN CNPS 9500 AM2 2 Ball Green LED Light CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16835118004) $63.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Windsor 2000MHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Dual Core Processor (http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103735) $295.00

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 (http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813131013) $144.99

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145590) $198.00

I tried to save as most money as I can so I went with the 3800 X2, 7900 GT, etc. How does it look?

[Fozzik]

Looks great...but wait for the processor price to actually drop. In a few days (or if you shop at monarch) the price will be about $160.

[rabb1t]

OCZ GameXStream ATX12V 600W Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817341001) $139.99

The 700w is a better deal; particularly right now as it is the same price as the 600w. (Till the 31st.)

OCZ GameXStream (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817341002) 700w, 4x v12 rails at 18a vs. the 600w with 2x v12 at 18a.

I tried to save as most money as I can so I went with the 3800 X2, 7900 GT, etc. How does it look?

Some of those core parts look the same as what I'm going to move to in December. :D

Do remember you will have a 3 month "step up" window with that Evga card. I'd highly recommend that you keep an eye out for the series 8 in September and moving up to that through the "step up" program if one is affordable to you. You wouldn't 'loose money' in the deal unless there is a price discrepancy between the GPU at Evga's store compared to NewEgg. (They charge you the difference between their price and what you paid, so if their price is higher than NewEgg, too bad on you. However, I only saw a big difference with the 7800 series, which sold in very limited quantity, so the demand was unusually high compared to supply. Their 7900s were the same price at Evga as they were at NewEgg.)

[Jd punk]

If the GeForce 8 Series is coming out in September then Ill wait till then :), and by your best judgement with that setup do you believe that I can run Vanguard on max settings with little to no lag (Even at like 1024x780 or wtv that one is)

[rabb1t]

Max is always an unknown variable with unoptimized code, but dropping the res size would greatly increase the ability to reach max. In 1280x1024 or 1680x1050 you should be fine with a GT. :D

We can't say for sure till the code is optimized though. A "6800" was referenced as a "middle of the road" card, so you should be able to get higher or max settings. Increasing res will increase the GPU power requirements though.

[tolliner]

You'll probably have to wait till rev2 of the 8 series if not the 9 series before you can run max settings with a res above 1280x960.
If you wait till the 8 series you may even look at getting a 4400+ x2 or even the 4800+

For the hard drive: You can save some money if you get teh window-less version, because you wont be able ot see it in your case, unless you're planning on adding a window and mount the Hard drive sideways on the door

[Fozzik]

I'm pretty sure that is the windowless version. They just show it open on the front of the box. I think the version with the window is over $300 and called the Raptor X.

I might be behind the times a tiny bit on my raptors, though.

[Jd punk]

Since I use headphones, do you guys think I should buy the sound card later in time? Or is it a need to get? And Im going to get the AM2 4200 X2

[Nubb]

Since I use headphones, do you guys think I should buy the sound card later in time? Or is it a need to get? And Im going to get the AM2 4200 X2

Card > onboard. Offloading the work to the card would be my #1 reason. Plus they tend to be pretty affordable. The base-line of each of creative-labs products is more than fine for gaming. You don't need the fancier models packed with "features" typically never used by general users (including us gamers).

If on a budget I'd suggest the Audigy2 ZS (or ZX or whatever it's called). Else the X-Fi Music model is quite nice. Personally I don't suggest installing anything that comes with their CDs, but visit their website and get just the drivers (creative loves installing hundreds of megabytes of crap that I never use on my system. Plus the quality of their apps suck, imho).

[rabb1t]

Plus the quality of their apps suck, imho.

Maybe you need better ears. :p I can totally hear a tonal range change with the X-Fi switch between 'music', 'game' and whatever the 3rd one is.

If you want really nice quality sound and are going for like 5.1, then go with the X-Fi. If you can't tell the difference between a Frog or a Parrot and are going with 2 or 2.1 sound, the 2 ZS would likely be fine.

[Nubb]

Maybe you need better ears. :p I can totally hear a tonal range change with the X-Fi switch between 'music', 'game' and whatever the 3rd one is.

heh yeah I hear that plenty well. I meant the quality of their code. The little dialog for setting the options on the X-Fi excluded (part of the drivers package). I'm referring to the massive apps they love to install on your system (haven't installed them since around SB-Live, but it's like tons of crap and typically every one of them is running at start-up hogging resources and doing nothing worthwhile). You do recall back just a few years when you couldn't even get just the drivers. You had to install an 80meg suite of crap apps (just so you could install the drivers, then manually clean up the mess). Finally user pressure got CreativeLabs to just offer driver downloads.

Btw, I believe the Entertainment Mode has some issues. One of the modes definitely does/did. Read about it some time ago but I forget which was the problem child. I have mine set at Game mode, so probably it was one of the other two (Entertainment or Audio-Creation modes), I'm leaning towards the Entertainment mode.