[zanikis]

First of all, yes these are noob questions & sorry for this long first post. I am preparing for tax time when I can finally build a decent gaming system and step out of this old crap pc (hd 3650 512mb agp/3.4 p4 prescott 1.5gb ddr crap ram etc..). I used to be experienced with building comps yet it's been a while since I had money so I am just now getting back into the loop. It will be a long time before I get money to buy again so I would like to feel confident I will be ok with these:

-Antec Nine Hundred Two
-CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Modular
-AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE 3.4GHz 125W
-ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 880G
-CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 CMX8GX3M4A1333C9
-HIS H585FN1GD HD 5850 1GB
-WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
-COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus With:
-ARCTIC COOLING MX-2
-APEVIA CF12SL-UBL 120mm Blue LED Case Fan x2 Push Pull
-ASUS MS236H 23" 2ms Widescreen LCD HDMI

The price for these parts plus other unmentionables comes to $1300 before shipping which is my max budget. I want to be able play WoW at ultra settings @ 1920 x 1080 with constant fps and pretty much any other game out there at least great quality. I would also like to do at least some moderate cpu oc and wonder if it would be possible with this set up.

[EarthDog]

Welcome!!! First I direct you to the Front Page article just for this type of stuff...

Second, I see you have a build already and the only thing that sticks out to me is the 8GB of ram. Unless you rock multiple heavy resource VM's, large renders/encodes, you wont break 4GB use, so save a bit of coin and go 4GB DDR3 1600 CL7.

[zanikis]

Originally Posted by EarthDog

Welcome!!! First I direct you to the Front Page article just for this type of stuff...

Second, I see you have a build already and the only thing that sticks out to me is the 8GB of ram. Unless you rock multiple heavy resource VM's, large renders/encodes, you wont break 4GB use, so save a bit of coin and go 4GB DDR3 1600 CL7.

Yeah, mostly gaming. I do want to have some headroom, and not sure how much it would take to do the other stuff I do like some video editing and whatnot. I forgot to mention I already have windows 7 64 ultimate, lots of people say it eats ram in forums. I love that article, gets me thinking more.

[Wathnix]

+1 for 4gigs of RAM, go with 2x2GB and add more later if you feel the need. You will just not use that 8gigs much, not worth it. Yes, win7 64bit does eat RAM, which is why you really need at least 2gigs for good performance and 4 gigs is the new sweet spot. You should be able to do some overclocking and reasonable upgrading with that rig. Enjoy.

[Knufire]

If you can hold out for 8 days...
http://www.electronista.com/articles...ng.october.22/

The Radeon HD 6870 will be out, which is said to preform slightly better then a 5850, however, in the lineup, it replaces the 5770, so it should be cheaper, or so I hope. Only way to know for sure is to wait and see.

[zanikis]

Originally Posted by Wathnix

+1 for 4gigs of RAM, go with 2x2GB and add more later if you feel the need. You will just not use that 8gigs much, not worth it. Yes, win7 64bit does eat RAM, which is why you really need at least 2gigs for good performance and 4 gigs is the new sweet spot. You should be able to do some overclocking and reasonable upgrading with that rig. Enjoy.

THANX GUYS! I appreciate the info from all of you, just moving to 4 gb of ram lets me get 1600 instead of 1333 as well as changing to a 25 inch monitor and adding a corsair h50 with the same fans as push pull That should be a huge difference, and yes i will watch for the new hd cards coming out soon. You guys rock!

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by zanikis

THANX GUYS! I appreciate the info from all of you, just moving to 4 gb of ram lets me get 1600 instead of 1333 as well as changing to a 25 inch monitor and adding a corsair h50 with the same fans as push pull That should be a huge difference, and yes i will watch for the new hd cards coming out soon. You guys rock!

There are much better options for a cooler at $80. Look at these: http://www.overclockers.com/premium-heatsink-shootout/, or spend the extra to go with an H70.

[zanikis]

Originally Posted by Knufire

There are much better options for a cooler at $80. Look at these: http://www.overclockers.com/premium-heatsink-shootout/, or spend the extra to go with an H70.

Yeah, i decided to get an h70 instead.