New gaming rig

[alcatraz]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: About a month from now
BUDGET RANGE: 1200-1500 before rebates
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: gaming, school, surfing
PARTS NOT REQUIRED: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS, power supply (reusing 750w Ultra x4)
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com
PARTS PREFERENCES: none really
OVERCLOCKING: Yes SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Not right now
MONITOR RESOLUTION: 23in Acer with 1920x1080
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: best bang for the buck

case: Antech 902 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129058
mobo: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423
cpu: i7 930 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115225
hdd: 500gb F3 x2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181
ram: OCZ Reaper 6gb tri channel http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227415
video: EVGA 470 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130550
dvd: cheap sony reader/burner
cooler: H50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010

Right now I have a Phenom II x3 720, HIS 4870 and 4gigs of ram and am not really happy with the performance. I'm going to rob the psu and the WD hdd from that build. After reading some benchmarking tests the nvidia 470 compares favorably with the ati 5870 and since I haven't had such good luck with AMD components this time, I was thinking of giving Intel a shot now.

Any thoughts, additions, deletions, substitutions are greatly appreciated.

 

[asteldian]

The i7 930 is not really much benefit for gaming over the i5 750 so you may want to save money by going with that and a P55 motherboard.
OCZ are not the best reputed for RAM, I would go with G Skill if I were you, vry good RAM at very good price.

Only other thought I have is possibly going AMD 955? Does your current board use DDR3? If so, a huge upgrade to your machine would require just the new GPU and the new CPU

 

[alcatraz]

My current board is a Gigabyte 770, and yes, I'm currently running ddr3 1333. I had thought of simply upgrading the cpu, gpu, and going to 8 or 12 gig of ram but am wondering how much of an actual upgrade it would be.