Hey guys,

I realise there is a plethora of threads from people asking for help with piecing together a new PC, and I’m sure the local Hardware Guru’s are sick of answering them all, But I thought I’d try my luck with my own thread, rather thank hijacking someone else’s…

Anyways, here the skinny of it:

I have about $3000 earmarked for a new PC, mainly for gaming. Don’t need monitor or anything else, just the Box with all the goodies inside.

So, this is what I have gleaned from other threads and various bits of research.

CPU: Intel C2D Q6600 (Overclock? 3.0ghz – ish)

VGA: 8800GT 512mb

Ram: 4gb of DDR2-800 (Will XP professional use 4gb, or will I need Vista Ultimate?)

Mobo: No effen idea, any recommendations? (It’s not worth it to go X38 is it? Stick with P35?)

PSU: Recommended size?

HDD: WD 750gb AAKS

DVD: Asus DRW-1814BLT

Case: Antec P182 (Just like the plain look, no bright lights all over it etc)

That’s the basic rundown, hopefully you guys can’t tinker with little bits to fine tune it a little :D

Also, a few related questions:

I’ve heard that having a 36gb Raptor with just the OS loaded onto it, and then the other hard drive for everything else, boosts performance? Any truth, or not really worth it?

From reading other threads, the Q6600 overclocks easily to 3.0ghz, what kinda cooling should I be looking at?

I read the Watercooling threads around here, and that could be an option (hate that damn fan noise when trying to sleep) but would OCing it to 3.0ghz generate enough heat to make Watercooling worthwhile?

I’ll be (attempting) to build this myself, and probally all be happening in January.

Well, that’s all I can think of at this stage… Hopefully someone has some ideas for me.

Thanks in advance!