New build for a friend, take 2.

Well as some of you may have read it would seem some of my components were defective for my friends build that I would doing for him. So I RMA'ed what I felt were some potentially defective items and decided to start over with a new set of base components.
I'll need the following:
HDD
Case
PSU
GPU
Optical Drive
Floppy (doesn't really matter)
Memory
Mobo

I need to make sure they're all totally stable, compatable, and all for somewhere in the $6xx range (I'm getting his processor replaced so that's not a factor). He'll be using it for Call Of Duty 2 for now but so long as it plays modern games fairly well he'll be happy.

So I've already got the following:
CLT brand Flat screen CRT 17"
Gigabyte Neon Cooler 8 BL 939
Logitech internet keyboard/mouse
Logitech X230 speakers 2.1

RMA Processor in a little bit.
(3200+ Venice)

Here's a list of what I though would be good but I'll want your opinions and suggestions of course.

Corsair Value or that cheap XMS stuff
OCz Modsteam PSU, or some nice antec TrupowerII or smartpower PSU perhaps.
ABIT KN8 Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127222
LiteON burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106988
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119077
X800Pro video card
Seagate Barracuda 120gig drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148039

That should work out to be pretty good and stable I would imagine. Sort of a lowend highend thing going on. Man the X800Pro has really come down in price. From as much as $450 at launch to $186, nice!

Definitely don't skim too much on the PSU. I'd recommend getting a Forton AX500-A over the Modstream, plus I think the Modstream is priced at about $90+ or so, while the Forton is priced at $80 and would work much more stable.

As for the HDD, you should be able to do much better, at least get a HDD with 16mb of cache. The Maxtor DiamondMax Plus10 250GB w/16mb cache is priced at $90.

And everything else is about okay, if you have money leftover, consider getting 2GB of OCZ Value ram, it's about $190 though.

Thanks dude. Though I must admit the reviews on the OCz Modsteam seem to hint otherwise, I see on so many powersupplies how people say, bought this so and so, knew I should have gone OCz etc. Though I've heard Forton is a really good brand so I'll concider it for sure. What's the powerStream like? Must be good if it's in your sig.

I don't really think I'd bother with a 16MB cache, the chances of a cache hit are so slim with a 250 gig drive that that it's not really justifiable. Plus most people I've talked to seem to think Seagate is superior but I'm open to suggestions so I'll look into it
This will pretty much max the budget so a gig will be fine for now, yeah I know, I'm temped to go for 2 myself but he can't really afford it with all he's paying for restocking fees

I agree with every word darksparkz just said, except instead of getting 2GB of value RAM, I think you should save a little money and get 1GB of OCZ Platinum. Definitely go with 16MB cache, definitely get the Bluestorm instead, and the OCZ Powerstream is a favorite among the people on OC Forums. It has plenty of power for the majority of systems, and the new one is now Sli certified.

Okay well what makes the 16Mb cache so great? Oh and by the way like the title suggests it's not for me it's for a friend, if this was me I'd probably save for the 2Gb and wait for the M2 socket etc.

have you used a 2mb cache then an 8 mb?

it's faster
16 is faster still

Like techun just said, it's just...faster. That's pretty much it, they're pretty cheap too.

I don't doubt there are occasional speed boosts with the 16MB drive it's just I've heard a lot of bad things about Maxtor. I used to want to upgrade to the exact same drive but people said go with either Seagate or WD instead.
http://forums.techguy.org/t411233.html
This sort of explained that there's no major speed boost but doesn't really sway me either way. I'm on the fence a bit, I'll look for more reviews.

why not spend the extra $20-30 and get a very good POWERSTREAM 520w (OCZ) this wont be overkill or anything dumb like that which i know ppl are thinking... but... future proof ur self. dont think today, invest in tommorow...

-solid rails
- extreme quality
- OverClock anything with it.
- run SLI in future
-alot of security features to protect ur EQP.
OCZ ALL THE WAY
SNieX

Thanks man, yeah though PSUs looks like some of the best.
I looked at Maxtor drives on newegg and although a lot of good reviews pop up people gave a few negitive reviews on the 250gig model. Saying it failed early on and they should've con with WD etc. Not too encouraging. Well I'll keep looking though my eye is on a WD Caviar SE...

from what i hear people saying here WD makes some of the most unreliable drives. i have 2 80gb WD drives and they've been working perfectly for about 8 months now (*knock on wood*), but others on here think differently. i've never heard anything negative about seagate though.

also, make sure you get a 24 pin psu. when i built my pc i made the mistake of getting a good psu in 20 pin for $100 instead of getting one that would work just as well for half the price in 24 pin.

Thanks for the tip, yeah I was thinking that, I have extra cables at home in case but the OCz ones always come with all you need Yeah I was looking into Seagate too but the Caviar just got some of the best reviews in the price range. I'll talk it over with one of my friends.