Hi, I'm planning on building a new gaming PC pretty much from the ground up, and would like to run through my plans here before I buy a bunch of parts and have something missing. Any input on the matter would be greatly appreciated! I'm starting with a barebone kit from Tigerdirect, this one in particular. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1647371&CatId=1683 The case seems nice, and while the CPU isn't the fastest by far, the inclusion of the SLi-ready PSU and mobo and the 512 ram attracted me. For a graphics card, I'm looking at a GeForce 6800GS 256 MB. http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16814125218 At first I was going to go with a pair of 6600's, but then decided that this single card was cheaper, and that I could always get a second one in the future, once more funds became available (or even a better pair altogether). I'm not entirely sure how the GS cards perform in comparison to the regular or GT versions of the card, as GS does not appear on any comparison tables I've seen. The GS cards are considerably cheaper (than GT), but does it take a large hit to the performance? If anyone has experience with this, please let me know. (I'll also check in on the gaming section for this) As for the OS, I'm going to get an OEM version of Windows XP Home SP2. I know it looks like I'm missing a hard drive and it's not a lot of RAM, but here's the solution: I'm going to pull RAM from my current machine (though not all of it), which is the same speed as the barebone's included chip. Hard drive is a little more complicated. I'm getting a 160 GB hard drive, but here's what I want to do: -make lots of backups -pull the 250 GB from my current machine, reformat the sucker, use it in my new machine -take the 160 GB, plug it into my old machine, use my Compaq restore disks to get Windows XP Home SP2 back on it, and possibly sell it. Hmm, looks like I'll have to pull the DVD drive too, or just get a new one. But that's not as important to me. As for the hard drive switching, I'm assuming I'll have to do it in this order: -make lots of backups -Plug the 160 GB into my current machine, and format it -pull the 250 GB -install windows via the recovery disks -plug the 250 GB back in, reformat -move the 250 GB over to the new machine, and instal Windows via the OEM disk (which I believe is bootable?) That's about it! Sorry for making it so large, but I wanted to include everything. Am I missing anything then? Is there anything I should watch out for? Any tips or pointers would be great as this will be my first home-built pc. Thanks!

I think you are making it more complicated than it needs to be. This is all you need to do: 1) Backup important data 2) Put 160 Drive in old computer and 250 in new computer 3) Use Recovery disks in old computer to restore it to "new" state. The restore CD/DVD should be bootable and should format the drive automatically 4) Boot new computer with XP CD and use it to format and install Windows Michael J