I'm planning on building myself a new PC within the next two months. I'm building it around one of the new 45nm Intel processors. My best friend works for Intel, so he gets nice a discount on the CPUs (but no discount on motherboards, unfortunately). Unfortunately, he can only buy one of any model of processor, and he'd already bought a Q6600 for someone else. I took this as a sign to go for the high-end, and with 45nm supposedly hitting this month, I figured I may as well do it right.
I'll start with the parts I've decided on. The power supply on my current computer died last weekend, and I just upgraded it to a Corsair VX450W, which I like the look of a lot. I also got a new case to go with it, since I was hoping to make it quieter. I got the Antec P182, which I also like a lot. It was very easy to migrate my motherboard over, and I'm impressed with how far cases have come since the last time I built a computer. I also replaced the optical drive with a DVD burner, since it previously had a read-only DVD drive, and the new drive was only $30. I also replaced the video card, since my old card was getting very glitchy. I'm going to pass this computer on to someone else, so it was important for me to get it working well. Anyway, I said all of that to say that I really like the Antec P182, so I'll most likely get another one for my new system, and I like the Corsair power supply, so maybe I'll get the 550w model for the new system. I'll get an SATA version of the DVD drive, too.
What I need recommendations on are the motherboard, video card, and hard drive. I'm looking for solid Media Center functionality. I'll be running 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate. I'm also wondering who is running a version of Linux along with Vista. Is that working out all right? I've never used any Linux, but I thought I may want to try, just to see what it's like. The motherboard should have built-in gigabit ethernet, which seems to be a common feature anymore, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. As far as the video card, I don't want to spend a ton on one. Sub-$200, definitely, though sub-$150 is better. I won't do much gaming on my computer, at least not yet. I'm wanting to see what happens with display interfaces. That's also why I'm not upgrading my really crappy 17" CRT monitor that I got free from work. For hard drive, I was looking at a 250GB Seagate Barracuda. I store all of my media and documents on an external drive, so I don't need my main drive to be that huge. However, I would like speedy and quiet, so if you have a recommendation, I'm all ears.
I'm thinking I'll get 4 gigs of RAM. That should be plenty, right? Anyone have brand/type to recommend for my planned system? Should I really be looking at DDR3 to match with the 45nm processor? It's such a jump in price.
Anyway, I've droned on long enough. If you have opinions, I'm eager to hear them. Thank you for your time!
