New Computer Parts

Intel price cut inc, expect to regret an immediate purchase if you're buying now. Give it 2 more weeks for retail prices to drop to the new cut prices.

Massive waste of money. For less than that, get a 8800GTS 640MB and you've nearly doubled your investment.

Anything below DDR2-800 is a poor investment atm. Top of the line (CL4) DDR2-800 RAM can be found for about the same price as you listed, and you get much better latency at any FSB setting.

Also, for purchasing a new computer, you need to consider HDD beyond 320GB. It's not just a matter of capacity, but also performance. 750GB and beyond drives tend to have 32MB cache and degrade a lot more slowly in performance when you fill it up.

If you want a PSU for gaming, go with a 600+W at the bare minimum. OCZ has some powerful PSUs that ppl tend to speak highly of.

Hardware companies release hardware according to quarters. Q2 of 07 is comming up. AMD has also dropped prices pushing Intel to compensate.

Actually, the recent price cut on Core 2 Duo already propagated to the retailers. I just checked newegg and the prices listed right now are the new prices. The E6600 is at $235, man, that's a killer deal.

I didn't realize you were listing NZ currency prices. It still might be worth it to hunt for a 8800GTS, even if it means to get a 320MB version. You really don't want to build a new gaming machine without DX10 support now.

I will say this:  WindowsXP = 1 gig ram or more
Windows Vista = 2 gig ram or more. 
Minimum requirements.
I use vista on 1 gig

First of all, quad cores have been out for ages. In fact, Intel is lining up the QX6600-6700 at very competitive pricing. Whether quad core is really that important for gaming in the near future is a whole other investigation, though.

Also, it really isn't "wasteful" to wait for announced price cuts. In fact, the price cut that I mentioned previously was announced by Intel at the beginning of the month, and was promised to take effect this week. And it has. This kind of price cut (esp. with the launch of new products, the E6320 and E6420) is worth waiting for because they are quite significant and are different from regular small price adjustment from retailers. For instance, waiting for the E6600 for a week or two can already save you $90 (from the old $315 to the new $225), and you probably won't see price cuts of this scale again for quite a few months.

In the big picture, prices are always dropping due to a lot of reasons. Refined manufacturing technology will lower silicon defect rate and increase yields, and naturally lower manufacturing cost, and that is usually the primary cause of price drops in new hardware parts. Waiting for this kind of price drop is futile, as it is continuous and at best minor. Competition is another big factor in certain segments (such as the entry level and mainstream). Waiting for this kind of price adjustment is worthwhile, especially if news come out about a slated launch of new products. This is especially the case when the newly launched products are higher end parts that aim to be sold at large profit margins, as the lower end products in the same line will then get pushed down to lower profit ranges. The recent price cut from Intel is a result of a combination of AMD's competition (recent gigantic price cuts on X2's), and a preparation for Intel's own products (the upcoming 1333MHz FSB C2D's).

Ok I've redone my draft:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz 1066FSB LGA775 Processor OEM Pack       
Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB 7200rpm 8MB SATAII hard drive       
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Intel 965P 2x PCI-EX16 LGA775 ATX           
1GB Corsair DDR2-800 Dual Channel Memory Kit 2x512Mb (the timings for this is 5-5-5-12)
Gigabyte GeForce 8800GTS 320MB PCI-E graphics card           
ThermalTake TR2 550W ATX2.0 PFC 12 CM FAN[W0101]       

At this point, the reason I've chosen some of the manufacturers for the parts is that the majority is offered from the same retailer and therefore I will be able to receive some form of discount.
What do you guys think? Would the power supply and RAM be adequate for a Vista gaming system? Is the Hard-drive a good choice? It's a SATAII but only has an 8mb cache... is that alright?

Nimrodel - Combat Daggers <Shadowsong Vigil>
Meneldil - Resto Shaman <SSW>
Elfstone - Prot Warrior <SSW>

I've had the exact opposite experience personally Viserys. Having a seagate and a WD drive currently, the WD is quieter and doesn't generate as much heat.
But then, it's the same with graphics card.. Some have tons of driver issues with ATI, others with nvidia, so it seems luck of the draw.

<Bill_> it really, really hurts to say this
<Bill_> really
<Bill_> but prencher, you were right

550W will run your setup fine. You won't have room to SLi in the future on that PSU, but it is better to get a good psu than more power on a cheap one. The cheap one probably won't run as close to it's max anyway, and they usually don't deliver a steady voltage which is bad for stability and your hardware in general.

Okay... I've made those adjustments and I've gone WAY over budget and atm it looks like this:

Part Name    Price
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz 1066FSB LGA775 Processor OEM Pack    $381.77
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2 Drive 16MB Cache Store Capacity 500GB Cache 16MB hard drive    $223.88
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Intel 965P 2x PCI-EX16 LGA775 ATX    $377.00
Gigabyte GeForce 8800GTS 320MB PCI-E graphics card    $529.00
Thermaltake TR2 550W ATX2.0 PFC 12 CM FAN    $151.85
Total from OCZone    $1,663.50
2048Mb Corsair XMS TWIN2X2048-6400 DDR2-800 Memory Kit    $285.00
Total Cost    $1,948.50

I was hoping to keep it around 1700-1750 but I guess I will have to go over a little bit.
I was thinking of things to cheap out on in order to save a bit of money... without sacrificing any of the things I really wanted to keep I thought of the harddrive possibly and the power supply..
I could buy a smaller one now and then possibly buy a 500GB or bigger in about 6 months time when I need it.
Secondly, how would a 450 or 500W PSU sit on this machine? Or is 550W kinda the bare minimum?
I looked at the nForce 680i chipsets but there didn't seem to be toooo much of a difference atm that would justify me spending that much more money on a good one - I wouldn't need the overclocking capabilities or the 3 16x PCI-E slots

Nimrodel - Combat Daggers <Shadowsong Vigil>
Meneldil - Resto Shaman <SSW>
Elfstone - Prot Warrior <SSW>