Seeking help on a new desktop

If you're not wanting a gaming rig, you could really come up with a rig for much less than $1200. $600 could probably get you a nice AMD based rig with a lower end gfx card. But you mention the i7-920, which I do usually tend to recommend. So how important is the i7-920 to you, or would you rather spend half the money to build something that will do what you need?

For $1,200, here's what I'd suggest:

CPU/BPU: i7-860 and HD 5770 $420 after rebate
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 $135
RAM: 2x G.Skill Ripjaws 2x2 GB 1600 mhz CAS Latency 7 $230
PSU: OCZ Z Series 550W 80+ Silver Certified $80 after rebate
Case: Antec 300 Illusion $70
HDD: Seagate 7200.12 500 GB $55
Optical: Cheap SATA DVD burner $25
OS: Win 7 Home $105 (unless you really need ultimate)

Total: $1,120.

MadAdmiral, thanks for the config.

Babachoo, what would the $600 AMD rig looks like?

About the lowest build you can get is making these changes, and it's a lot less powerful:

CPU/Mobo: X3 425 and Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 $197
RAM: Only get 1 set
GPU: HD 5770 $150
HDD/PSU: Seagate 7200.12 500 GB and OCZ StealthXStream 700W $95 after rebate
Rest is the same

Total: $757 (w/ OS). You can get cheaper, by dropping the GPU to the HD 4850, but that only saves about $50.

Best answer selected by rl168.

Thanks to all the folks who have helped in the past few weeks. I received my parts on Thursday and started putting everything together Friday night. Successfully booted the new pc at about 12 midnight. By 1:30am I have the OS installed and everything working. Once again, a big thank you to everyone, you guys have been really helpful. Here is my new desktop

Intel i7-920
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL7T-6GBPK - Retail
Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model AD-7240S-0B - OEM
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
XIGMATEK Intel Core i7 compatible Dark Knight-S1283V 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler - Retail
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power ... - Retail

Grats on the new system, I'm very happy to see you decided to go with an i7-920. I love mine, it overclocks like a monster, not to mention was easy to OC, even for a noob like myself. Enjoy the great PC, thanks for the update.