Sorry about getting back to you so late, here is the rig I ended up building (well ok I didn’t build it, but picked all the pieces I wanted and the store put it together for me):
Mobo: Asus P5k Pro
Processor: Intel 6750 stock speed
VGA: Asus 9600GT 512mb
RAM: Corsair 2GB 800mhz
HD: Seagate 500mb 32mb cache 7200.11
DVD: Sony DVD burner with lightcribe
Screen: Asus VW222U 22" widescreen
OS: Xp Pro 64 bit multi language version
Case: Coolermaster T05
Standard keyboard and a G7 mouse which I already had
PSU: At the moment I can’t recall, will fix this when I get home and can see the box.
All told was about 40,000NT. Was on a tight budget as our trip back home to the States last Xmas was expensive (but I did pay off my debt from university woot!).
Works like a dream. Granted, my last computer was a 6 year old laptop so that’s my perspective of moving up to this rig. Not interested in overclocking anything as it runs and loads things faster than I expected.
Have tried out various games, Oblivian, Half Life 2, etc, all run awesome at 1650x1200 (I don’t recall what the exact ratio is but whatever the 16x10 one is, sorry my math sucks). Oblivian with everything set at max and with HDR runs like a dream, I set some of the settings to high instead and the FPS went up quite a bit but didn’t look any worse for wear. Sorry at the moment I can’t give any specific FPS as I don’t really know how to.
LostSwede: I realize the 8800 is better than the 9600 but it was quite a bit more money than I could spend without sacrificing some other part.
Wasn’t interested in Vista and despite people warning me that 64bit XP sucks I’ve had ZERO problems with it. Every program and device I’ve tried to use it with works perfectly. Have had no driver issues and it loads damn fast from boot, haven’t actually timed it yet but will do so when I get home tonight from work.
Also bought the 64bit version because of the MUI ability. When I log onto my account everything is in English. When my wife logs onto her account it’s all in Chinese. Her English is fluent but she prefers to have things in Chinese, so that’s why we went with this OS.
Sadly because we live in an older building our ADSL speed isn’t very high, I’ve tried to download the 3dmark06 to test my system but it’s something like 500mb and would take forever to download. I’ll probably download it at a friends and burn onto a CD or something.
Have yet to burn a DVD or CD as 1) I’ve never burnt a DVD before and have no clue how to yet alone what kidn to buy, DVD-R, DVD+R, bah. 2) Have been spending most of my time oggling at the graphics in the games I’ve been playing to do much else when I have time to use the PC.
I use some Asus program to monitor the temps, everything is stock speed and in the case I only have a 120mm and 85mm fan. The CPU is generally around 30C and the mobo about 40C. Is that normal? It doesn’t get too hot even after running a game like Oblivian. But then again it’s not summer yet.
Overall I love this system, especially because it runs perfect for everything I need and wasn’t too expensive, especially since it included such a big monitor and the OS.