Considering AMD Phenom $500 Gaming Build...

DVD Drive: $30
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200AAJS 320GB $66
GPU: SAPPHIRE 100226L Radeon HD 3850 512MB $100
RAM: mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $88 - $25MIR
Case, CPU, MB, PSU Combo: Antec NSK4480B (With 380W Antec Earthwatts), BIOSTAR TFORCE TA780G, Phenom 9600 $240 - $10MIR

Subtotal: $519.94 - $35MIR

Thoughts? I really like the look of this Newegg combo with the Phenom 9600.

A Q6600, P35 mobo, case, and PSU would come to $350. I realize that the Q6600 is a far superior processor, but for the price, that is an amazing deal.

I can't justify the extra cost of the 9850BE, honestly. The Phenom 9600 was slammed with the TLB bug, which ruined its rep, but it would never affect the average user. It makes for a nice bargain for a quad-core chip, though. The 9850 isn't much of a better OCer either. The combo deals comes with solid parts, so I can't really fault it.

Thoughts?

flyin15sec has the right idea to get the most for the money

If you are not in a hurry you can get many parts with rebates and instant savings and get the same system over a few weeks at about 10 percent savings

It is worth looking at the efficiency of the power supply
some of them run hot and noisy for the same pricing
seasonic has a quiet and cool design
some antecs also are quiet designed

Hold up, you are wanting a gaming build? Then dump the 3850. It's a good card but there are better for the money. Look at an Nvidia 9600gt, newegg has one for about 100. Also, maybe consider going to a dual core like a 5200+ or a 5400+ and getting a 4850 video card instead. A dual core would still run well, and if gaming is the primary concern, then I think personally, if your processor is reasonably fast, your video card is the much more important factor here. If the processor is dual core or better and reasonably quick, you should be fine. Or for a balance, maybe look at the phenom x3 series chips.