New Build - It's been a while

[merlocka]

Hello. Haven't stayed in-touch with the latest&greatest, so I thought I'd ask for comments on a build


This will be the "family" PC, so general office tasks, light gaming (WoW), photos/music etc... will be primary storage for all photos/vids, so reliability is pretty key.


GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro
G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
Antec Solo Black/Silver
2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA (raid 1 for peace of mind?)
PLEXTOR 20X DVD Super Multi Qflix Drive

This will be running Vista home 64.

I also plan to use a CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX power supply and a Gigabyte 9600GT (fanless) which I already have. Would probably upgrade video card later, but 9600GT should suffice for the gaming being done with this machine for a while.

Any thoughts?

 

[Proximon]

I have a few things I would change, although there is nothing very wrong with the build.

I see no real argument for going with an AM3 board at this time, except for some hope that a future CPU will make better use of DDR3.

Save yourself some cash and get this:
Giabyte 790X board with DDR2
Some Corsair 1066 RAM

Were you thinking of overclocking? This is a far better cooler at a good price:
Sunbeam CCTF

Were you concerned about size? Because the Cooler Master 690 is just a bit more and a far better cooled and roomier case:
CM 690

While your rig would be pulling under 300W I would think the Corsair 400W PSU would be OK, but it may need an upgrade if you change out the video card... it's certainly less than I would recommend for the setup as-is.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Since you are planning on using this as a family computer, I would suggest some RAID for peace of mind. You can get away with the motherboard RAID (built-in the motherboard). RAID 1 will probably suffice for the overall demand that you and your family will place on the desktop. If you are extremely cautious, you could go RAID 5 for extra data security (but performance will be noticeable "slower").

At any rate you should try RAID at least once and see how it goes. I'm sure there's probably some family photos no one would want to lose.