TheDave

I’m building a gaming PC as a christmas present for someone, I’m using the Asus P5G43 Barebone kit- LGA775, the full specs here: http://uk.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=uIqtErskUMIgZVDV , i’ve got to pick the cpu, ram, graphics card and Sata HDD.
But with the cpu and the gc im not sure about the current lines, if i can afford quad core should I instead of buying dual core? I heard this helps with multi tasking, running multiple programs- which I don’t think they do much of- just the usual email, web browsing and gaming- and some photoshop. Budget wise the total i’ll probably spend is around £450 or so now ive bought the barebone. I understand that lga775 is now more or less considered the budget option for intel now? in other words its on the way out? But i’d like to get the best I can out of it.

As for the graphics card, Its still pretty confusing; i found the ATi Radeon 5770 1024MB (PCIe) at £126- Novatech. Which i’ll probably go for, that or something else on a mid range line.

Ram wise. I need DDR2, I found a Corsair XMS2 dual channel kit of 4GB- 800mhz speed, CAS 5-5-5-18, the lowest I could find It seems to me a pretty good choice

Sound is onboard.

Finally power consumption which i’ve used an online calculator to do, for the time being, with some leeway for an IDE drive, possibly a SATA drive. etc, some usb devices, Totals at around 261w-300w (300 was with two SATA drives at 7200rpm) So what should I get? Finally finally, cooling- I’ll probably do it with fans as ive got some already but the case is quite small, how do I figure out how much cooling I need?

Theres a lot of questions there but i’d appreciate any tips.

Currently studing for my A+ exams, or the software component- the exam is coming up in July.
Afterwards I’d like to go over a few things and start the next relevant course and get a job as a technician.