Please review my build

thehammer44

Distinguished
Jul 20, 2009
4
0
18,510
I’m going to be building a new rig for gaming that I will later upgrade (If needed) in about a week.
My price range is looking like max 1,200- 1,400 (cheaper is always acceptable)
Any comments, recommendations, or suggestions are much appreciated

As previously mentioned I will use this rig primarily for gaming but will also be doing on and off Photoshop

CPU
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad Core Processor - 3.20GHz, Socket AM3, 6MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB, Retail, Processor with Fan
245.99

CASE
Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Black Case
139.99

MoBo
Gigabyte MA790GP-UD4H Motherboard - AMD 790GX, AM2+ 128MB DDR3 Side-Port, ATI Hybrid, CrossFire, PCIe 2.0, Gigabit, USB2.0, RAID, HDMI, DVI
139.99

DVD Writer
LG GH22NS50 DVD Writer - DVD+R 22x, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6x, DVD-RAM 12x, SATA (OEM)
29.99

PSU
OCZ ModXStream Pro Power Supply - 700-Watt, Modular, Dual +12V Rails, SATA, 80Plus
94.99

GPU
XFX Radeon HD 4870 Video Card - 1024MB GDDR5, PCI Express 2.0 x16, CrossFireX Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV

RAM
OCZ Reaper 4096MB PC10666 DDR3 1333MHz Memory (2x2048MB)
64.99

Hard Drives
Hitachi 7K1000.B Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200RPM, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM
79.99
WD VelociRaptor 150GB SATA HD 10K/16MB/SATA-3
179.99

For this build I used Tiger Direct however all websites are good

Overclocking: Probably
Crossfire Multi-GPU: Later

Monitor Res: (1440x900, 1600x1200, 1920x1080) will be 23” screen so probably the later of the three.

Thank you for your time! (please excuse any errors in typing)
 

astrodudepsu

Distinguished
Jun 11, 2009
340
0
18,790
Not a bad build

few suggestions;

HDD: ditch your choices and go with WD Caviar Black of the appropriate size for you. 1TB and 640GB have the highest platter densities and are most highly recommended. AND they aren't that much slower than the Raptors but are much cheaper!

PSU: I'd probably pick up a 650W Corsair unit for about the same price as the OCZ you have listed. But that's purely personal choice.
 
Much better board/CPU combo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.212580

Saves you $80 off the newegg prices and means you can use DDR3 ram which you can on the board you chose, take some of the money you saved and swap the ram for these as they have low latency
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227297

For the price of those 2 drives you can get two caviar blacks and drop them in Raid 0 for better performance
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

Then swap the 4870 out for a 4890, it will handle your resolution better.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150368
Since you have the space in the budget i selected the overclocked version which will perform significantly better than the 4870.