Rate my gaming/multitasking pc.?
Windows XP Media Center Edition (32bit)
Motherboard: Asus P5LD2
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.as...
Processor: Intel Pentium D 925 3 GHz
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=...
Video Card: GeForce 8600GTS: Over Clock Edition
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.as...
Memory: 4Gb (4 x 1GB)
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.as...
Seagate 250GB sata hdd
350watt power supply
Answers:
A few general observation comments.
Power supply is a bit of a lightweight.
CPU is OK for a budget gaming system.
MB has a lot of features, but doesn't support SLI which your video card does.
Your video card implys interest in overclocking, but at first I was concerned that the low cost RAM you selected likely wouldn't overclock well. However since you selected RAM faster then your MB is rated for (DDR-800 as opposed to the MBs DDR-667) it'll likely overclock fine.
I can't say for certain about Media Center Edition, but XP is notorious for being difficult to install on a SATA drive.
Suggestions:
If you plan on this being your "Box" for a while, I would seriously consider a meatier power supply.
If you plan on adding/upgrading as time/money allow it's biggest room for improvement would be an additional video card and a MB that supports SLI. If this is your intent definately get the largest PS you can afford.
Find someone who's installed Media Center Edition on a SATA drive, confirm it will work. If it doesn't an option might be to install it to an old EIDE drive then copy the install to a SATA drive with partion magic or other such product.
I noticed no CD/DVD drive in the build.
Summary:
The system should do what you want it to, although I'd definately up the PS to 400-450 watts. You may not be able to play all the games at max settings and likely won't want to multitask heavily while gaming (No unthrottled massive DLs while playing a CPU intensive game)
nice pc. But I would of gone with a 512mb video card. It would improve it a whole lot better. The dual core cpu and the 4gb of RAM is nice touch.
uh.AWESOME! lol
Personally, I think you need a better power supply, more wattage, make sure it's a heavy one. As for 4 GB's of RAM, that's kind of excessive, even for a gaming rig. 2GB would have sufficed, but I do think the PSU needs to be exchanged for a better one. Other than that, it's alright.
go play any game you wish at any setting you so desire. When you upgrade to Vista you are even DirectX 10 ready. you are set for a long stretch, and it looks like your RAM is even expandable to 8GB...meaning the core machine should last well into 2015.
More power and more cooling options would be a plus. And if you wanna get REALLY crazy add a twin GPU for SLi graphics. Totally unneccesary though.
First off, why would you buy a Pentium D? They're the crappiest dual core you can buy. They run extremely hot and get blown away at gaming by the Athlon X2 (not to mention the Core 2 based chips).
You don't need 4gb of RAM, I would go 2gb and invest more in a better graphics card. Any 32-bit Windows system (XP and Vista regular) can only support at MAX about 3gb of RAM. So you're wasting money on the RAM.
The 8600gt may be DX10 capable, but with it's weak graphics processing unit (GPU) and only a 128-bit memory interface, you won't be playing any DX10 games with the settings high enough to notice the DX10 improvements/features.
You need to post your budget ($508, right?) at tomshardware.com and anandtech.com forums and you'll get proper advice, similar to what I'm giving you.
A much better system is something like this:
$76 - Penitum e2140 (overclock to 2.6ghz)
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.as...
$30 - Upgraded CPU cooler
$80 - 2gb DDR2-800 RAM kit
$130 - Gigabyte P35 motherboard (Quad core upgradeable)
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.as...
$115 - x1950pro graphics card
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