Thoughts on my build?

Looking for suggestions. Building a gaming-centered media center PC. Will by hooking it up to TV via HDMI, hopefully running games at 1080p. Looking for the best performance I can get with about $2,000.


mobo option 1: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard ($290)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131365

mobo option 2: Gigabyte GA EP55-UD4P - $170
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128400

Boot Drive: 80GB Intel X25-M 2nd Gen - $290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820167016

Drive 2: 1TB WD Caviar Black - $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136284

Drive 3: 1TB WD Caviar Black - $95

GPU: Sapphire HD 5870 - $380
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102856

Case, PSU - Antec 1200 + Antec 750w PSU - $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129063

CPU - i7 920 ($280)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115202

RAM: G.Skill 2x2GB DDR3 RAM - $79
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231190

disc drive: LG Electronics GGC-H20L ($80)
http://www.google.com/products/cat [...] sa=title#p

fan/heatsink: Prolimatech Mega Shadow - Deluxe Edition 775 / 1366 / 1156 ($80)
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] _Item.html

Might need a 2.5" to 3.5" enclosure for the SSD, but will try fitting it before I jump the gun and buy a $30 piece of plastic.

Which motherboard would you guys recommend? Any compatibility issues here? Thoughts on getting 8 GB of RAM to start with instead of 4? Thanks.

Thanks very much. Should have probably noted that I may use this rig in the future for video editing, so I'm hoping for a build that will perform encoding tasks well. I won't be buying the parts for maybe another two months, just checking right now to make sure I have a good list of components. Thanks again.

I'm leaning toward the 920 because it seems to me to be a more future proof choice. Looking for this thing to last a long time, as I don't see myself having this kind of money to throw into a PC for quite a while after this.

D'oh! I feel stupid for picking out a dual channel set instead of tri

Don't know why that slipped my mind. I appreciate the suggestions, but I'm not very familiar with mobo performance, so I couldn't pick out which one you linked would be the better value. For one thing, I'm not sure how PCI-E 2.0 speeds work out in terms of performance. I know GPUs fit into PCI-E 2.0 slots and I know crossfire will support multiple ATI GPUs, but I don't know what significance 16x, 8x, and the like possess. I'm assuming 16x represents a faster data transfer rate, but then what would be a good board for upgrading to multiple GPUs in the future (say, adding another 5870 when the price drops)? I'm also looking to be able to install at least 3 HDDs, but I don't know how much of a difference there is between PATA/SATA/SATA RAID. I haven't had to worry about desktop components for a long time-- nearly four years now-- since I've been using laptops, mainly, for school and such. Now that I have some money, I figure an upgrade was in order, but I'm a little lost (but doing my best to catch up!). I've found a lot of answers on this site along with a few others, just finalizing things now. Appreciate any and all help.

Oh, one more thing: I'd like to not have any Asus bloatware installed or have to install it via a driver disc, though I fear that may be unavoidable should I get one of their boards. I'm using an Asus G1s right now, and until I uninstalled all Asus utilities they gave me nothing but trouble. I imagine they haven't improved. Would you happen to know if the software on the included utility discs is easily removed?

Eh, guess there is another snag here, sorry: I'm looking to build a performance machine, so I'm hoping for low RAM latency. The Corsair set you recommended looks alright, but how about this set?

I'm not sure about how much of a correlation there is between bus speed and latency; for example, this set is DDR3 1600, but has a slightly higher latency. I'm assuming the higher price indicates better performance, just looking for the sweet spot between both. I'm a little hesitant to shell out $200+ for 6 GB of RAM, but I suppose this is an important investment. [on thinking about this, I realize speed is limited to CPU FSB, so my RAM would only be running at 1366 regardless of other factors... correct?]

Aha, I think I'll get this set. Looks like a great value for the money.

$290 for a mobo, wow, I hope they include anal lube with that....

I could get a nice Phenom 2 X4, mobo and 4gb of ram for the cost of that mobo alone.