ADN

Yeah, I saw what you wrote @ first Drew, but to me, the monitor isn't as important...With all these HDTV's being HDMI ready, I'd just as soon figure you'd settle w/one of those instead of a dedicated PC monitor...Anywho...All of what jdog suggested looks Golden...I'd maybe add or sub out:

I like the 1TB for storage, but I'd stick a Raptor or a Solid State drive up front me thinks...

150 GB, 10,000 RPM -- Linkage

And for what its worth, if you're getting Windows 7, you may as well get the Ultimate version, probably only a few bucks more...Worth it IMO...

And, though I realize the ATI cards are good again, I'm still partial to nvidia

Sir Jig-A-Lot wrote:You could always get one of these chumpies for your gaming needs,Drew: http://au.gear.ign.com/articles/106/1065816p1.html

A 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo in that laptop isn't going to be good for games one bit. That's one of the lowest end dual core processors available.

Über wrote:I like the 1TB for storage, but I'd stick a Raptor or a Solid State drive up front me thinks...

150 GB, 10,000 RPM -- Linkage

And for what its worth, if you're getting Windows 7, you may as well get the Ultimate version, probably only a few bucks more...Worth it IMO...

And, though I realize the ATI cards are good again, I'm still partial to nvidia

The 1TB Samsung F3 is currently one of the fastest 7200RPM drives available. It's going to be cheaper than the 150GB WD Raptor. 10K RPM is merely good for searching. The Samsung F3 really ranks rather close in transfer rates.

SSD would be great but the better Intel X25 SSD drives are 40GB for $100 (NewEgg). That's giving up a ton of storage space. Windows 7 x64 will use need 20GB+ alone.

No need for Ultimate. It only adds BitLocker disk encryption and 32 languages. BitLocker is easily replaced by a free alternative, TrueCrypt. Professional is useless too because (compared to Home) it only adds XP Mode, ability to join a domain, Backup and Restore over a network and ability to RDP into it.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... ts/compare

None of that is worth the extra price. XP Mode is easily supplanted by VirtualBox, which is free. No need to join a domain at home. Most people will backup to an external USB drive, no need for network backup. There are also free backup solutions. RDP is useless because you can use VNC, which is free.

I know you got yours for free but if someone is going to pay for it, there really isn't a need for anything more than Home. ;)

No doubt, the F3 is great, but I've always opted for at least a 2 drive system...I like to be able to format without issue...Maybe running 2 of the Samsung drives in a RAID with another for storage would be better...

Since he insisted on this being a gaming PC, may as well make sure it'll live comfy for the next couple years at least...

And there are a couple more reasons to have Ult. vs the others, but yeah, the bottom line is if you don't know what they are and won't use them, great...If you're like, me, I live by the motto of better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it...

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp

Über wrote:If you're like, me, I live by the motto of better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it...

My motto is: "If you can get it for free, why pay for it?" ;)

Thank you so much for all your help. I'm trying to enlist a friend of mine to actually build it, as he has helped me with some computer problems in the past, and I'm going to be paying too much to trust it in my own hands lol.

Always knew I could count on the good ole' AF!

And stay away from water cooling and all that shit, overclocking, etc...You're not going to need to do any of that...Young guys may want to get into all that, its not necessary...