[FSav176]

Im starting to finalize my final choices for my first build. Any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated. The computer will be used for some gaming nothing to crazy and music and movie storage. I will also be using windows xp.

MOBO:
This is the part thats giving the most trouble. Really have no idea which to go for. I will be doing some OC'ing but nothing too crazy. I was looking to spend about a $100. My two choices right now are

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

or

ASUS P5Q SE LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU:
Ive been debating the quad and dual core for a while. I figure Im going to go with dual and upgrade to quad later on when it becomes more widely used.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500

Case:
I have no preference for case. I dont care what it looks like at all. The reason I chose this one is because newegg offers a combo deal for it with the cpu.

XCLIO WTBK ADVANCED Fully Black Finish Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower

RAM:

CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Power Supply:

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

HD:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

GPU:
Just going for a cheap card for now. Will upgrade later.

EVGA 256-P2-N751-TR GeForce 8600 GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card

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I just want to point out that you say this machine will be for movies, so the 8600GT is not what you want. It would be able to handle 720p movies, but not 1080p/bluray. It would skip crazily. I recommend you get either an 8800 or 9800 model nVidia graphics card. I'm sure one of the higher end ATI models would suffice too, but I'm a nVidia man and so don't really care much about ATI and don't pay attention to what models they have out.

Fenor

[Fenor]

I just want to point out that you say this machine will be for movies, so the 8600GT is not what you want. It would be able to handle 720p movies, but not 1080p/bluray. It would skip crazily. I recommend you get either an 8800 or 9800 model nVidia graphics card. I'm sure one of the higher end ATI models would suffice too, but I'm a nVidia man and so don't really care much about ATI and don't pay attention to what models they have out.

Fenor

[FSav176]

I should have been more specific. Its not to play movies but rather to store them. I play the movies through an apple tv.

[kamille316]

It kinda depends on the games you play but I recommend at least an Nvidia 8800GT (or 9800GT) or ATI HD3850. It would play games quite better than the 8600GT. But since you said you're going to upgrade later, then I guess its alright though you could use the ATI HD3850 for HTPC or something.

Since you're gaming, dual core would be sufficient however the computer case you selected has a combo deal with the Core 2 Quad Q6600 (not the one you selected) and this processor is also good for its price so you could get that as well.

Kamille