Dragon system vs intel nvidia

Best strategy is just to spend enough to meet your needs - the pc world evolves to quickly to future proof a system . If you could give us your monitor resolution and budget roughly in dollars (or currency were you intent to purchase that would help us a lot - thanks

Check this on bang for buck:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/264181-31-best-bang-b...

600-700 GBP(British Pounds) on m/b, cpu and GPU.
Resolution is 1680 x 1050.
Just to let you know, I'm only building this rig for gaming purposes.
I meet my daily normal needs on my laptop.

you forgot memory.

how about,

i7 920 D0 £240 (or save £15 and get a C0 if you're not going to OC)
ASUS P6T SE £160
Corsair 3x2GB 1333mhz £80

so that's £480 and leaves £220 for a graphics card, If you're not going to OC it leaves £235 for a GFX card at which point I'd suggest spending the extra £30 and getting an XFX 4870 X2, but then you might need a new PSU.

so that's

2 x 4770's is really the best deal in the UK - even better than in the states - because you can get it for the price of 1 x 4870 1GB

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-94-566.575.554-...

at £160 for 2 x 4770's in CF - you really can't beat it. Otherwise the XFX 4870 X2 is a good deal now if you really need that power. But at 1680 x 1050 it is overkill - so the most I would spend if I were you is £160 on the GPU.

The i7 system is really good - but if you want you could save 100's of £ buy getting an AMD 940 system and not notice much difference in gaming at all. Check this out (better value in the long term really because entire system is about half the price:

CPU - AMD Phenom 720 BE - £115
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-Phenom-II-X3-720-Bla...

MOBO: AMD 790X - £75
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-MA790X-DS4-A...(x16)-DDR2-1066-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX

RAM: Corsair 1066Mhz 5-5-5-18 timing - £54
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-TwinX-DDR2-XMS2-PC2-8500-(1066)-240Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-5-5-15-EPP

GPU: 2 x 4770 in CF - £160

Total: £404 - that system will play any game at max settings (including crysis), especially if you OC it.

Compared to getting the i7 system (£640-720) you save ~ £300 - almost the cost of the system itself. For that kind of money you could by a new TV or get 2 x 24 inch monitors! Really it is overkill unless you need the performance, also if you save that money in the bank it will almost buy you a new system in a year and a half to two year's time that will trash the current i7 build. That would be much better value IMHO.

nerrawg, thanks for the suggestion, but on the GPU, is it better to have 4770 CF rather than a 4870 or even spend slightly more and get 4890? In other words, wouldn't gaming performance be better with a good single card solution than dual card solution with the inferior 4770?

Nope. Here is an article showing that they soundly beat a 4890 in all situations, and even kept up with the GTX280.

yeah... the new 40nm does wonders...

ur mobo has cr x8 and x8, so u need fx790 to do x16 and x16.

the difference between 2 x8 and 2 x16 is marginal at best:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-meets-pci...

No need to spend an extra £100 on it - that would be bad value