First post, first build, be gentle.

For your $900ish you can get an i5 750/760 build which would be a better gaming CPU as compared to the Phenom II x4 965 BE.

Since your purchase date is around christmas/new years, I would wait until mid December to start parting the PC together. Lots of things will change between now and then and if we put one together right now, there will be a better option for the same price in 2 months. A week or 2 before the purchase date would be best.

Coolio! Thanks for the advice.

Definitely wait on speccing out the build until it's closer to your purchase date.

A couple of things to think about though:
* CPU doesn't matter nearly as much as your graphics card for gaming. The 5830 isn't terrible, but you could do better.
* 6 GB is sub-optimal for either an AMD or an Intel i5 build, as it will drop you out of dual-channel RAM mode. It's not a huge deal, but since you only need 4 GB for gaming anyway, you might as well save the $40 or $50 and just get 4 GB.
* You can get a 1 TB Seagate 7200.12 HDD for the same price as the 640 GB Caviar Blue.
* You can get a newer, more powerful 6850 for less than the 5830 you have listed. You could get a 6870 for a little more, if you want to use the savings from the RAM towards it.

I know I should wait to spec it out but it's so much fun to hit newegg and drool over the components. I'm very excited about this.

Thanks for the advice on the RAM, would bumping it to 8Gig be advantageous? I was waffling about that. Though I could start with 4 I suppose  

For your uses, there's no need to go past 4 GB. 8 GB if you were planning on doing video or audio editing or a lot of photoshop perhaps.

By all means, drool over newegg. Just don't pick your parts now and forget to refresh the build when you are ready to buy it in two months.

Definitely go with an Intel, might wanna look at G.Skill or Mushkin RAM instead of Patriot, although Patriot isn't too horrible I don't think.

I'd also not get a Rosewill PSU, Corsair, Antec or XFX is what I'd recommend

Wow! Thanks for the response!
Complete with sexy (well, drool worthy) picture!

Food for thought at least

Just a bit of advice since I made this mistake on my first build and found myself driving back and forth to Tiger for afterthoughts:

Enough case fans to keep everything nice and cool
CPU heatsink (unless you intend to use the stock HSF from AMD)
Thermal Grease
Anti-static wrist strap
Cable ties

You cannot go wrong with AMD in bang for buck. The 965BE is a great processor with E-A-S-Y oc'ing (I know you said you are not interested in the OC but you haven't built this one yet. It's only natural that you eventually will when you see what you can do with it).

Best of luck and definitely wait for the sales to scream near early to mid-December.

Yep - hopefully those drool worthy combos will be up soon - u are welcomed  

Been looking harder at Power Supplies, the one I had is out of stock...
Looking at my initial build how big a supply do you think I'll need?

I've upgraded my GPU to a 6850, so there is that.

650W would be plenty for even two 6850s. But stick with an 80plus certified reputable high quality PSU. Corsair, Antec and Seasonic are best. Avoid cheapo no-name PSUs. When they fail, they will destroy your PC. Tom's published an article about PSUs recently. This should give you a bit of insight on why those no-names are so cheap. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-manufacturer-oe...

Running through your build..

Get a mobo that supports sata3 and usb3. This will give you a bit of futureproofing for when usb3.0 becomes mainstream. A good board for the same price is the ASRock 870 Extreme3 or if you don't mind throwing down a little more, the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 is the best option for mobo.

PSU already mentioned above.

You don't need 6gb (3x2gb) of ram. It would slow down your system as well because you won't be able to utilize dual channel mode. 4gb (2x2gb) is plenty for gaming and even most programs and will allow you to use dual channel mode. Stick with a low latency (preferably 6 or 7) DDR3 1600/1333 corsair, mushkin or g.skill for great performance.

Grab the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD instead. It's faster, higher capacity, and only $5 more (as of this post). It's usually around $60 on newegg promo or microcenter.

Just get the cheapest SATA DVD Burner with free shipping. They all work the same anyways.

Good choices on everything else. Keep an eye out for combo deals for extra savings.

Best answer selected by Enforcer84.

well I was asked pick a best answer but I still have more to say.


 


ok here's my latest version of the build.
oh boo can't add my images ok long way:


Antec300 Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower

(Changed from the standard because I decided I want blue lights on my box   )

ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD

- (Changed for Price)

SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP
Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

- (Upgraded thanks to savings)

OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ700MXSP 700W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7

-(my other was sold out so I found a cheaper one that may fit my needs. Advice welcome.

AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDZ970FBGMBOX

-(upgrade due to savings.)

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ

- (was convinced to drop from 6G to 4G for gaming, saved money. Though I might go to 8G later on just because I'm a habitual multitasker.

Still pricing Hard Drives. Gonna go with a cheap DVD burner (no blue ray) and Keyboard stayting the same. Things still look compatable to my eyes though technically the Mobo does not list the CPU but it does list the 965...so I'm thinking it'll be ok.