As you all know, Christmas is quickly approaching. I was talking with my dad about building a decent gaming rig. He agreed, and I began browsing Newegg for parts and started looking through their "DIY PC Combos". Although most seemed either way too expensive or unsuitable for my needs, I came across one that I thought seemed good. However, I have a few questions about it, and if you guys could help me out that would be great.
The combo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.563968For the sake of organization I'm going to break my questions down based on individual parts.
Case: No questions or complaints here really. From what reviews I've read about it this is a nice case for the price. If anyone has any other recommendations though I'll gladly take them into consideration.
Motherboard: I'm not completely aware of what makes a motherboard good or bad, but from what I've read other people have been satisfied with this. If anyone has a better suggestion, then go for it.
Video card: This is where the questions begin. In the combo deal I'd be getting two of these video cards, for a total of $270. Would this be worth it? I was browsing through other cards and found that I could buy a GTX 470 for an equal or lower price. Which would be better? From what I've read of MSI's GTS 450, that cyclone cooling system they used works really well and keeps temperatures relatively low compared to other cards, but I'm not sure if having two would be a better decision than having a better card such as one GTX 470.
PSU: I think my only major question about the power supply would be this: would 650W be enough to power everything in that combo? I'm no expert but that seems somewhat low for everything being put into the build. Other combos I looked at had somewhat higher power, but they could just be going overboard.
Processor: No complaints here.
RAM: Again, I'm no expert, but from what I know this seems like decently fast RAM. That being so, would I really need 6GB of it? In my opinion I think I would be fine with 4GB for what I need.
Hard drive: From what I've read of reviews on Newegg, this hard drive seemed like a hit or miss deal. A lot of people complained about it either being DoA or dying shortly after getting it. Regardless, most people who reviewed it had no problems with it, so I'm assuming chances of it failing would be somewhat slim. Either way if anyone has any better, cheaper solutions feel free to give them.
Optical drive: No complaints here. I don't need anything more than a $20 optical drive.
CPU cooler: From what I read of the i7-950, the only complaints people had were related to the heatsink that came with it. This CPU cooler is included in the combo, but do I really need it? I honestly don't think that Intel's default heatsink would be that bad.
That's about it. I'd end up saving $150.90 through the combo discount and mail-in rebates, but it wouldn't surprise me if you guys provided cheaper and better solutions for building a gaming rig. Thanks ahead of time.