[locosway]

Originally Posted by wildhawker

Elrcastor is local and said he'd lend a hand. Hope everything works together well under win7.

I've heard good things about Windows 7, so I'm sure it will be fine.

Nothing beats a computer enthusiast when building a computer. It's like getting that custom rifle from your buddy who spent hours of his spare time making sure it was good enough.

[Mr.Poopypants]

Originally Posted by Telperion

I'd suggest you compare this against the ATI 5750, a newer card in the same price range. Performance will probably be better, and you will get native DX11 support, and a modern set of connector options (HDMI + Displayport).

For the cost, there is nothing that ATI produces that can touch a 9800GTX. nVidia has, for the past two years, absolutely prison-raped ATI at anything having anything to do with GPU production. ATI *may* be on the mend, but in order to touch the performance of the 9800GTX, you'd have to spend a fair amount more on an ATI product.

And keep in mind, I'm not talking simply about the hardware - nVidia's drivers are much more robust, much more user-friendly, and updated very frequently by nVidia. I recently purchased an ATI card after two years of nVidia ownership - I forgot how brutally frustrating downloading, installing and using Catalyst Control Center is.

If you really really wanna go cheap and get a great card, NewEgg has an ASUS 9600GSO for $40 after MIR. ASUS is actually fairly decent about their rebates, but if you don't mail it in you'll only pay $60 for it. It runs with 96 stream processors and 512mb of DDR3 - the memory is more than other 9600GSOs, but the limiting factor of the ASUS card is the 128-bit bandwidth. Regardless, if you are not running heavy games on 22"+ monitors, it's a smoking card for a smoking price.

[Telperion]

Actually, the card the OP originally linked to cost $120. It's hard to recommend a 9600/9800 that's now two generations behind to a new card in the same price range.

[wildhawker]

I ended up buying the Radeon HD 5850 since its performance seems to be the best bang for the buck out there and should stay relevant (not gaming relevant, but functional) for the next 4 or so years.

[Telperion]

Congratulations, I'm surprised you managed to score a 5850 ... it's been disappearing from stocks everyone. I expect it will be an excellent gaming card until the next generation of consoles arrive (2-3 years). PC hardware doesn't drive the gaming biz like it used to.

[FreedomIsNotFree]

WOW! Based on the components you listed, that is over $1600...without a monitor. It will be a great comp no doubt.

[wildhawker]

Things went together beautifully and the Win 7 OS has been flawless. Very happy with the outcome!

[FreedomIsNotFree]

Originally Posted by wildhawker

Things went together beautifully and the Win 7 OS has been flawless. Very happy with the outcome!

That computer will last you years. I always say...buy once,cry once. Or is that what my wife tells me.

[wildhawker]

[V8toytruck]

Win7 Ultimate has been 100% on my system. Mr poopy pants knows his stuff (thanks again for the help)

Antec 1200
i7 920
6gb ram
Megahalems Cooler

Intel SSD Next month!