Man, when you got a big ole mortgage and bills up the wazoo, when you pull the trigger on a new build, I think you tend get a little nervous "..did I make the right decision..?!.."  LOL  

Here's my $800 build for gaming, will upgrade new CPU down the road a little when prices drop a little.

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP (old: crappy POWMAX whose side panel is always off)
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L (old: Albatron PX915P)
MSI NX8800GT 512M OC (old: GeForce 6800 GT)
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX (old: Themaltake Purepower HPC-420)
Intel Pentium E2160 (OC@3.0) (old: P4 Prescott @ stock 2.4Ghz)
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) (old: 2x512MB PC3200 (total 1GB)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s (old: MAXTOR 40GB)
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner (old: IDE LiteOn DVD burner 16X
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm Case Fan for top part of case / exhaust (old: NO CASE FANS, only one was side panel, and I took panel off)
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler (old: used the stock P4 cooler)
VANTEC HDC-502A Aluminum Aluminum Hard Disk Cooler (old: never used a HD cooler before)

I'm feeling a little nervous after ordering, the pressure is on me to build this thing!  Lotta money for us!

Hopefully, in a few days, ya'll will be seeing me playin Dod4, Chrsis, Company of Heroes, BF2, etc..

Think I did pretty good?  That old rig lasted me almost 4 years!!

You may see me again real soon when it starts the part where I start to overclock....

The arctic freezer 7 is a really tight fit but you can get it on. I had to use  a lot of pressure, but don't give up!

Looks good to me. Good luck with the build!

With that CPU OCed to 3.0GHz you would problay be better off saving that CPU upgrade money and then instead upgrade the GPU in about a year or two since It' mainly a gaming rig.  Just my 2 cents.

 
Funny you should mention that, I had originally spec'd a CM HyperX2 (or something close) as the CPU cooler, but read a lot of reviews saying it was a huge pain to get on, etc.. so figured the Artic would be easier.  LOL  Guess not..

 
If my OC'd CPU is still around in 2 years, that sounds like a good idea! Guess it depends if I can keep the temp's down that long and that little sucker doesn't start crashing my box, or break all-together..

Use a roll of duct tape to support the motherboard and push real hard (if needed) until you hear that click of the pin going in.
Don't be afraid to push down on the pin. Check the back of the motherboard to make sure it went through properly.

Looks like a smart and budget build, quite the opposite of the TH one that they just setup. This build is about in line with what I'd spend $800 on. GL with the build and report back on how it all went together for you. We all can learn from other builds.

I'm going to bookmark this... I have a VERY similiar build going but was going to choose the 590 over the 690 case.  Do you like the 690?

The 690 is rated pretty high, almost as high as the popular Antec 900 case.

 
Will do!  I plan on taking a lot of pictures as I go through the build too, I'll blog it all on here..    My first build in like 4 years, and only my 2nd start-from-scratch build ever! PHEW!

 
It looks good, and looks to have good airflow.. and with the amount of fans you can add to it, it looks great for the price - $79.  Never seen the case though other then a picture.  However, I've read on multiple hardware forums this case is highly rated, and highly modded.. There were other similar cases I also thought looked good, had good air flow/fan positions (front, back, top, bottom, side) but those were all over $100 bucks.

 
It would be nice to know long term stability for this CPU with a hefty OC.  I helped my bro build a very similar system to yours, same mobo, cpu, bu we havn't OCed yet.  Our goal is only 2.6-2.8GHz using the stock cooler in an antec900 case, problay gona do it a couple weeks before AoC goes live.  If you can keep the temps from getting too high I'm sure it would last longer than you would even want it to before you absoulutly needed to upgrade,  and by that time your problay better off with newer technology and rebuild anyway.
 
Im kinda in the same boat is you except my rig is a full AMD.  Went with a low end good OCing cpu thinking I was going to upgrade it within several months when prices drop further.  But now I am problay better off upgrading my 3850 512mb instead if I am looking for a pure game performance increase.  GPUs are changing so fast it makes my head spin.  Two months after paying $220 for my card it's now down to $145 after rebate and current $220 cards blow mine away.

 
Can't agree more!
 
Man, few days after I bought the MSI 8800GT (fact OC'd), I found a EVGA 8800GTS for $10 more. Now I totally feel like I'm behind the curve and should've gotten a better one.  In a FEW months, it's going to drive me CRAZY. My last GPU (6800GT) lasted me quite a while, but when I got it, it was much more $$$ then 8800GT I just got, so this new one may night last as long.

Looks sound and steady for gaming.