I NEED HELP, IM A NOOBIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For that kind of money go for an i7 system;

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz - $295
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3Rl X58 Motherboard - $200 - $15 rebate = $185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

OCZ 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1333 - $155 - $10 rebate = $145
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB - $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024E GeForce GTX 280 - $315 - $30 rebate = $285
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Antec Three Hundred Mid Tower Computer Case - $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W PSU - $120 - $40 rebate = $80
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

LG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner - $22
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Total after rebates = $1182

Much better processor, DDR3 instead of DDR2 and 2 more gigs of it, bigger hard drive, better video card, better case, best brand of PSU. If you want to keep it to $1200 before rebates, not after, then go back the the gtx 260 and the 750 gig HD.

With your original build since the 790FX is a crossfire motherboard, not SLI i'd go with a HD4870 instead of the GTX260/216. Unless you're a big AMD fan i'd go with the i7 build that jyjjy proposed....except that Gigabyte motherboard is also not SLI capable so i'd go with a HD4870 GPU there also to keep future crossfire alive.

Going ATI isn't a bad idea. HD 4870 or for a lil more than the gtx 280 I came up with you could even get an HD4850x2

Actually X58 supports both SLI and crossfire, so he's good either way.

Only some x58 boards support sli .


But FWIW stick with Phenom ll and a 790 FX mb . Much better value for money , and very competitive too .
Asus make great motherboards .
Theres some sense in sticking with ATI cards , but if you dont want to crossfire its not a big deal which gfx card you choose .
Mostly by the time you want to add a second card its been replaced by something much more powerful anyway .
Its a nice build .

How is it better value for the money? An i7 is much better than any Phenom II and what I suggested is only $61 dollars more(cpu+mb)
If you are saying DDR3 isn't worth the money at this point because DDR2 is dirt cheap you have a point but there is a serious performance advantage with i7 + DDR3 and on a $1200 budget it certainly makes sense IMO.

+1 for i7 with the budget. since you can afford the best, why not get it.

i7/X58

yea thats the problem these days. when you want the best performing gaming system the CPU to go with is Intel these days and if it is just $61 more than the AMD Phenom II then it a no brainer if you want a top system that is futureproof with DDR3 memory. if it was like $100 more i'd stick with the AMD Phenom II

ok sounds good i guess helps me out a lot. ill get that processor then the i7 but what mother board would be the best one to go with that? and im proly going to be going with a GTX 260 or 280 graphic card, not sure which one yet...

I'd say get the antec 900 instead of the 300 noted earlier. the 900 gives you a little bit more room and better airflow. It pays off when you get some of those longer cards and the heat they create.

+1 for Kubes suggestion for the 900..

+1 for the i7 build. You may want to look at the Asus p6t instead as an X58 mobo

Here's $15 off the Asus p6t - EMCABCHFK

Here's $10 off the i7 920 - EMCABCHGG

I also love the Antec 900.

Make sure to check for combo deals. I noticed right now at newegg the graphics card that you have selected and evga's x58 mb has a $35 combo deal going for it.

Aslo like huron noted check for the email promitions that are sent out each day. They ussualy have some pretty good parts they offer on there. For example the wd black 1tb is on sale. Just wanted to bring a few of these notes to your attention to save you as much money as possible.

P ll is better value because the web is full of benchmarks showing how it performs in the real world gaming against Ci7
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=79635

So come down off your intel fanboy high horse and save a few hundred $ on your next build

The web is full of them so you choose to link to a forum thread with cherry picked benchmarks?
Every major tech website has compared the Phenom IIs with the i7s and the core 2 quads. The results are that over all the Phenom IIs aren't usually quite as good as similarly priced core 2 quads much less i7s.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-ii-940,2114....
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=349...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom...
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-phenom-ii-x4-920-and-...

And by hundreds of dollars you mean $61 right? I like AMD and have always used their chips previous to my last build. One of us is clearly a fanboy but it's not me...

Like this cherry picked benchmark you linked to
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-phenom-ii-x4-920-and-...
or
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-phenom-ii-x4-920-and-...
where the Pll has the edge over Ci7?

Or
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom...
where the benchmark is skewed by running at low resolutions so the i7 comes out tops? A creditable bench would have been run on monitors that people actually use on high end gaming machines .

The Ci7 doesnt look invincible . It doesnt even look better .
Your links remember . Did you not bother to read them?

And since you asked I have a C2D computer for gaming , but if i was building a quad core today it would be a P ll

Yes I read them. They ALL conclude that the i7 is better. ALL of them. Read the conclusions of each of them, they aren't confusing(except for the anandtech one. Their conclusion doesn't even bother mentioning the i7 because I guess they don't consider the pIIs to be in the same class of chip.)
And yes, cherry picked, exactly. I posted the Phenom II reviews of the 4 tech sites I read most frequently. You apparently went through the reviews I posted an found a single benchmark of ONE game where at a high enough resolution the phenom has a 3 FPS advantage on the i7? And another where you have a quibble with the testing methodology for gaming performance? Give me a break.
If you aren't an AMD fanboy then why are you tearing apart articles to find any circumstance in which the Phenom had any minor advantage and massively exaggerating the price difference? On top of that smugly suggesting I didn't read them when they ALL conclude in plain english exactly what I'm saying?
The i7 is faster in almost every situation, often to a large degree. That's simply a fact. It's easily worth an extra $61.

Maybe you just cant count .
Your list of cpu , mb , ram = $625 IF you get the rebates .

the OP's list of cpu, mb, ram = $466

Been a while since I was at school but that looks more like a difference of $159 . IF you collect the rebates . And thats with the OP buying a very expensive 790 FX mb

No use denying it . You are a fanboy

You're a fanboy if you don't think it's wiser to buy a i7/x58 for the small $ increase.

Can you please have a discussion of computer parts without you being such a smug ass? thnx
The ram is also much faster and there's more of it. I went with 6 gigs because it fit within his budget. Cut that down to 3 gigs of DDR3 vs 4 gigs of DDR2 and you shave about $70-75 dollars off the price difference.
None of this changes that an i7 build fits with-in what he wants to spend and it's a good bit better than a Phenom II system.
If he had less money to spend sure, go with a Phenom II or a C2Q system. If he had come in with a $1000 budget that's exactly what I would've recommended. He came in with $1200 so I recommended the best system he could buy with that money. What exactly is your problem?

Can't we all just play nice??

lol...+1 on the i7!!

+1 for jyjjy's i7 build

Looking beyond the scope of games...PII doesn't compare to the i7 in anything. For games, its a much closer race but for encoding/editing and that kind of thing i7's take the cake.

man these AMD fanboys are savages. guys its just a small $61 difference and DDR3 ram is the future. open your eyes clouded by the AMD logo and you will se what is the logical choice for future proofing a build

man these intel fanboys cant count . guys its a $159 difference and no matter how you twist that its still $159. open your eyes clouded by the intel logo and you will see that there are alternatives to intel

i see the alternatives but when you buy a PC you want it to last as long as it can without being outdated. if you go with DDR3 your PC will not be obsolete quicker.

you are right . ddr3 wont be obsolete quicker . it will be obsolete at exactly the same time .

There is no such thing as future proofing . Last years "future proof" computer is slow . The year befores "future proof" computer hasnt got a chance of running todays games on reasonable settings .

The sweet spot is always what you need to get the result TODAY .
And in gaming atleast Ci7 is not performing better than C2D, C2Q , or Pll .

E8500 gaming machines often embarass Ci7 machines. The Pll is capable of doing the same .

The OP had a good build, that would have been fine . He could have saved $60-70 on the mb which was overkill but other than that a great gaming build . And already $159 cheaper than the i7 alternative.

Are intel fanboys so insecure they need everyone to worship their little silicon god?

It's not though, this is what shows you are a fanboy. You ignore every point I make. That's for 6 full gigs of DDR3. As I pointed out before if you half that(3 gigs of DDR3 is still better than 4 of DDR2) the price difference goes down 70-75 dollars and the price difference is then $80
There's no reason I should have had to say that twice. If it was PII vs C2Q fine, argue about it but PIIs are not comparable to i7 and telling someone they are is misleading.

nothing built will be future proof, technology changes too fast. You can try to keep ahead of the curve though. DDR3 will replace DDR2 on the socket 1366 boards. It is the way of the future. If you can afford that kind of budget, go with the latest and greatest = DDR3 + i7

when did you make a valid point? Was it when you tried to ignore the different over all system costs by forgetting to mention that both need RAM?
Or was it when you tried to argue that i7 was a gaming beast by providing links to benchmarks that show Pll's pulling ahead in some games?
Or was it ignoring the OP listing a MB that is about $70 more than he needs to pay for?

And I still havent seen a benchmark comparing a Ci7 with 6gig of RAM to a Pll with 6 gig of RAM . I wonder if the performance difference in productivity apps would close a little .

You could be right that ddr3 is the future , but since it offers a tiny speed boost to a system at best Im sticking with " it isnt worth paying for "

So fanboy 3 of my last 4 pc's were intel based . But I dont think i7 is value for gaming and my personal choice for a quad gaming build would be Pll

You are "special"
No offense

you are very ordinary
no offense

Damn I made my first topic into a huge war   10 points for me hehe. Well boys I think I decided on what I am going to do... so here it goes.. Still debating on mother board and graphic card so ill take any suggestions.

CASE: Antec 900
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

PSU: CORSAIR 750TX 750W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

VIDEO CARD: ATI HD 4780 1GB (SAPPHIRE)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CPU: i7 920
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

MOBO: I CANT DECIDE, WHAT YOU PERFER?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

MEMORY: G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HARD DRIVE: Western Digital 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CD/DVD: LG 22X
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

MONITOR: ACER 20"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

TOTAL: $1,561.90 W/O Rebates... and would not like to cross this price  

Looks Good?

also reason I am going with a cheaper monitor because I have an acer 20" now and just love it. had to give away my 22" Gateway HD to my mom because it drove me nuts playing first person shooter games on that thing, its too bigg in my opinion.

Of the 2 motherboard choices i'd go with the Asus. I like EVGAs support, but you'll probably need less of it with Asus.

Before you pay for anything have a read of this
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3506

A very interesting article on the relative performance of Ci7, C2Q and Pll in gaming

You dont get a much , and sometimes you get nothing by spending the extra on the i7

"However, looking through the performance results and game play experiences, we have to mention just how fast Intel's Core i7 is right now. It’s results were just remarkable in Far Cry 2 and it consistently scored at the top in CrossFire mode in the other games even though it has the lowest core clock speed. "

It's funny how you and the people who actually ran the tests and wrote the article come to a wildly different conclusion. I wonder why that is? They must be getting paid by Intel I bet.

If you are willing to go with the non"deluxe" version of that Asus board you can save $80. There's a $15 promo code(EMCLNLP44) making it cost only $220.
I'm not seeing too much different in the specification.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

@SpecialM

What do you use your computer for besides gaming? Do you do anything that is CPU intensive like video editing/rendering, photoshop, media file conversion, anything of that nature? If you do, the i7 will give you a huge advantage over the PII 940, if all you do is game on your PC, then PII 940 might make more sense if you are trying to save money.

Do note however that the i7 is still better in gaming, however not by a significant amount. If you spent the difference on a video card that that was $150 more, you would get much better gaming results, but other processes of your computer would not be as fast.

But then again, most monitors do not refresh faster than 60hz, so getting 110FPS won't look any different than 78FPS because your monitor will not be able to keep up with your system. And on top of that, the human eye cannot see anything faster than 40FPS anyway, although higher FPS will seem to look "smoother".

On another note, you chose a smaller monitor which will not need the massive power of say the GTX 295, and that HD 4870 1GB will probably play all your games at high settings with max AA, in which case you could put more money into a processor that would last longer into the future.

Just some things to think about.

+1
I am using this board right now and it has plenty of features, I think the only real differnce is it doesn't have SAS ports, which I don't need, and the southbridge cooler isn't as flashy. It overclocks fine, my i7 got up to 3.8 and was stable for 2 hours, but I chickened out and brought it down to 3.5, seems a lot safer to me if I want my processor to last longer.

thanks on the big speach kid helps out a lot brought it all down for me basically all i other will be using is gaming... but since mommy wanna pay so why not get the best right away you know? so those other 2 mother board i suggested arent any better then the one you using? I just wanna play games so it looks amazing  . If it aint that much of a difference between them sure i would get a cheeper board.

The other more expensive boards will probably overclock better, however mine overclocked just fine to the level I wanted. You only need those other boards if you really want to push the limits, but 3.5 is plenty fast for me right now. Make sure if you overclock you invest in a good CPU cooler and get some extra case fans to move that hot air out. Look at the Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme RC 1366 or the CoolerMaster V8 with arctic cooling MX-2 thermal compound for the best coolings solutions. Noctua has a good cooler out too, but its more expensive than those ones I listed and performs the same.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Dose that mobo really have a big effect on the games compared to the other 2 i suggested EVGA and ASUS DELUXE, I like that its cheaper and will save me some $$$. I will be using the HD 4870 card, would the 260 GTX core 216 be better with that mobo or it wont make a difference..? I also changed the case for a antec 1200 and added the cooling.

Actually the people who wrote the article thought
"When it came to actual game play experiences, we thought the Phenom II 940 was clearly the better choice in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Crysis Warhead due to minimum frame rate advantages and fluidity of game play. In the five other titles, we could not tell any real differences in the quality of game play between the Phenom II 940 and Core 2 Quad Q9550. Except for Far Cry 2 where we could raise the graphic quality settings without affecting game play, the i7 platform was no different than our two other solutions"

you really should try to understand the article before you quote from it

Its also worth noting that in the seven games they tested , with a single graphics card , at 1920 x 1200
the Pll was the fastest set up in 4 games ,
the Ci7 fastest in 2 games
and the C2Q fastest in one .
The margins are small and you'd have to be a very ordinary fanboy to think the Ci7 was some how better than the Pll in that situation . And you'd be a fool to pay close to $200 more to own a gaming pc that isnt faster .

Which motherboard better?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

or ASUS p6t

there both basically the same price... around $230

i also decided to go with a XFX 260 GTX Core 216 graphic card instead of the hd 4870

the mb's are both quality products . Either will be fine , but my personal preference would be the gigabyte

Yeah they are both good, they are direct competitors with each other. Gigabyte tends to have a little bit better customer service, but the Asus board is on special for cheaper right now. I'd go with the Asus board cuz you wont have to wait 6 weeks for your rebate to make them the same price.

It's really a wash. They both make good boards. I would go with the asus for the reason xthekidx mentioned. Gigabyte is also known for having flawed BIOS. If you buy the Gigabyte, expect to do a few BIOS tweaks.

thanks for all the help   finally got all my stuff together and now i gota wait like a week to order it   so excited!!!!!!!!!!!