Christmas Gaming Rig

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE:
Right after Christmas (possibly some post holiday discounts I could recieve).

BUDGET RANGE:
No more than $1000; the cheaper the better.

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT:
Gaming mostly, possibly some video editing with Vegas but it might just stay on my other computer, & general applications (Word, Firefox, etc...).

PARTS NOT REQUIRED:
Mouse, keyboard, speakers, case (ATX form factor), WD 250 GB hard drive (SATA), DVD writer/reader (IDE), & Samsung Syncmaster 712n moniter (17 inches).

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS:
www.newegg.com, but I'm open to suggestions.

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
United States

PARTS PREFERENCES: Would like comments to help me find parts that are a good match with my monitor's resolution.

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE ($189) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103674

Would like to know if a quad core is really necessary or if I really need it to be this fast, could I achieve the same through overclocking a slower stock CPU?

HEATSINK: Stock (Though is it good to get a 3rd-party one?)

PSU: Sunbeam PSU 650W (59.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817709016

Is this the best pick for the price & wattage or are there better solutions?

MOBO: Foxconn A7DA-S 3.0 AM3 AMD 790GX ($99.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813186168

It has two PCI Express 2.0 slots running at 16x, is this necessary in the future for running 2 Radeon HD 5850 or do they just end up running at 8x in the end?

RAM: A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820211409

Is this a good amount of RAM or do you think it's just a better idea to buy this now & another set on down the road?

GPU: ASUS Radeon HD 5850 1GB ($259.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121349

Is this the best card to be future proof or is this just unecessary for my monitor resolution?

CASE FANS: COOLER MASTER 120mm Fans (Package of two for $9.98) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103022

OS: Windows Vista 64 bit ($109.99) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116677

Unsure, I want Windows 7 but I'm unsure that by the time I make this rig if I will specifically have to get Windows 7 or if buying Windows Vista will still come with the free upgrade to it at that time (64 bit).

Total price: $808.93 w/o shipping (All prices listed above are from www.newegg.com)

OVERCLOCKING: I will probably end up doing so.

CROSSFIRE/SLI: Most likely down the road I will after a year or so.

MONITOR RESOLUTION:
1280x1024, I have no intentions of buying a higher res. monitor anytime soon.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
I want this rig to be able to play pretty much whatever I throw at it as of next year's games at pretty much all the highest settings & possibly some anti-aliasing thrown in there in the 40-60 fps range at least at my monitors native resolution (including some older games like Crysis/ Warhead, Oblivion, Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl, The Orange/Black Box, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Mass Effect 2, etc.). This will be my first custom rig & I don't want to spend any more money than I have to because I can always add onto it later but I want it to be somewhat future-proof in the end. I'm open to your comments on this build & suggestions on the components so that I can build the best gaming PC for the money. Thanks!

^+1, intel is a stronger option right now, but get a sata drive like this one, make sure you check for the best deal on the optical drive when you go to buy. I recently got a plextor drive, it was a fair bit more expensive than the rest but came with free shipping so it came out to be only a few dollars more in the end, and its dead silent.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827106289

Check back a couple weeks before you are ready to buy, combos come and go, and the price of the 5850 should have dropped a bit by then.

Though from the test results on this website I've seen that they perform almost exactly the same concerning gaming, yet the i5 is more expensive. Why is it that it's the better choice right now? Is it b/c it's the better overclocker or what?

by the way the benchmarks you've seen are made with the AMD 965 which comes at 3.4 stock and the i5 2.6, and its as you said their really close in performance, now what will you think is gonna happen if you put a i5 3.4 against a AMD 3.4....exactly so you might want to throw that into the equation.

the case i posted allow you for atx and micro atx, so no problems there, and by the way i went back up and saw that yuo say that you wont upgrade monitor, in that case buy a better mother board, and a less expencive card, thats an overkill, i dont even think that 5850 has vga support, therefor an 4850 will play anything at max at the resolution, sorry i missed that before, get this in stead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161294

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.273251

a 4870 since the 4850 are price so close, but i would deffenaly go with this in stead, upgrade the video card when you upgrade the monitor.

anything above the 4850 is a waste of money, the monitor you using is 17" not even 19, upgrade card when you upgrade monitor.