Building a Top Notch Gaming Rig, need help/suggestions

Hello to anyone reading, I've built a few PC's over the years but nothing as high end and expensive as now so I'm looking for some input from fellow enthusiasts (btw this is my first post here since I just joined the forums). So here's what I'm currently looking at, please feel free to criticize constructively just don't post any troll rants ty:

MOBO: ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme
OR
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (only reason I'm thinking about the Extreme is because of the Lucid Hydra mmmmmm)

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T

RAM: 2xG.SKILL PC3-16000 4GB 2X2GB DDR3-2000 CL7-9-7-24

GPU: XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5

PSU: Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 800W

HDD: Primary
- OCZ Vertex 2 Extended Sandforce 60GB
Secondary
- WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 64MB Cache

Case: Fractal Design Define XL Black E-ATX

Cooling: Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H70 (I want to water cool my GPU as well so I may get a different water cooling kit)


What do you think? Recommendations? What do you like? What would you change?

P.S. Keep in mind that I live in Toronto so things aren't as cheap north of the border, plus I'm going to be price matching everything to save some $$$

Thanks!

In my opinion really no need to get the extreme version, I would save the money. The asus crosshair IV formula is already a super motherboard.

For video card I would upgrade that to a 6970 or 6950. PSU get a cosair 650-750 watt psu, much more reliable and 650 is all you really need for this build.

Great picks on the hard drives. If you want to water cool your gpu also you need a custom water loop, but much more expensive for quality.

What is your budget exactly?

Thanks for the quick response Marshmellow. The reason I wanted the 5870 is because I was thinking of getting 2 of them, plus it outperforms the 6950 if I'm not mistaken. But I'll look into those cards as well.

So do you think I should get a 650W PSU even with the possibility of getting 2 video cards? The reason for the one I chose was because it's very efficient, more-so than the Corsair AX series.

For water cooling the GPU I would really love to do it but it's not a necessity since I'm going to have good airflow in this case. My budget is between $1500-2000.

Thanks again!

with a budget of 1.5-2k why are you making an AMD rig? For that price you can easily put together an intel 1366 pc

i7-950 (microcenter has em cheaper than online)
asus p6t or evga (nearly any x58), gigabyte ud5 or ud7 mobo
g.skill 3x2gb cas 7 or 8 ram
vertex2 60gb (minimum) SSD for os and main apps
western digital caviar black 1tb drive for backup/rest of apps
case of your choice
corsair 750tx or 850 if you want to splurge
ati 6970 (only need 1)
depending on case (noctua d14 cooler), if case too small.. meghalem/true venemous x/cogage true spirit

Sorry.. didnt have time to actually price all of this out for you.

The above would kill the AMD setup you wanted to do, and if shopped right could probably be done within 1500.

Well with 2 video cards then you should definitely get at least 750 watts, maybe more to future proof the system. $1500-$2000 is a very very high budget and I agree you should go intel instead. =)