James Rohal

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2: Ideal for overclocking. Does not support true 3-way SLI. Placement of the PCI Express slots allows for optimal airflow in a SLI setup. The V2 refers to the missing SAS controller (thus making it cheaper). An SLI setup with two dualslot graphics cards would leave a PCI and PCI Express x4 slot open. Supposedly this board works well for a Hackintosh system as well.

Intel Core i7 920: Can easily be overclocked to 3.6-3.8GHz stable with a nice heatsink fan.

OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 1600: Good timings for the price with decent overclocks. A better choice would be Mushkin 6GB (3 x 2GB) 1600

Coolermaster HAF 932: Great airflow and cable management. Tons of room for expansion. No air filters included but they can be made cheaply using vent filters from Home Depot (True Blue) or even a cheap pair of stockings.

EVGA GTX 285 SC: Not really the best value, but this is the top performing single GPU graphics card. The SC cards are better suited for overclocking and can easily be overclocked to SSC speeds. EVGA also has a lifetime warranty on overclock products!

Cosair 850TX: Allows the possibility for a GTX 285 SLI in the future. Pretty solid with >80% efficiency.

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB: One of the fastest drives out there (besides SSD). The larger platter size makes this a great drive for the OS.

Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB: Extremely fast, silent drive used for storage. I read somewhere that this slightly outperforms the Caviar Black in reading and writing large files.

LG 22X DVD±R DL DVD Burner: Great reviews on Newegg. Works flawlessly in Vista x64 and Windows 7.

HT Omega Striker 7.1: Highly rated, works well in Vista x64 and Windows 7 and has no bloatware. High quality audio and digital out via S/PDIF.

Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme or Prolimatech Megahalems: The TRUE is one of the best heatsinks for the past 2 years. This is best paired with a high static pressure fan. Due to the machining marks on the base, it is useful to lap this. I am going to purchase the Delta AFB1212HHE 120x38mm fan if I get the TRUE. The Megahalems are made by those who originally made the TRUE but with an improved design and with an excellent mounting plate. I would pair a Yate Loon D12SH-12 with this.

Tuniq TX-2: This thermal compound (TIM) has no curing time and spreads nicely since it isn’t too runny. Supposedly one of the best. A good pairing is with the thermal compound remover.

BenQ 24″ G2400WD: One of the best gaming monitors with a 1920×1200, 1:1 pixel mapping, and a 2ms response time. Some other good choices are the Samsung T240 or T240HD (with TV tuner), or ASUS VH242H.

Logitech X-540: Good entry level 5.1 speakers. The next step up is the Logitech Z-5500 which have been known to go on sale as refurbished items.