New build questions (around $600) - mobo questions

[HagbardC]

I am about to build a new computer, hopefully soon so I can take advantage of any boxing week sales.

I'm looking for something around $600-$700 CDN, not including a monitor, cd drive, speakers, sound card, keyboard, or mouse. So, just hardware.

I'm looking to buy from either newegg.ca or ncix.com. or both. Upside with ncix is I can pickup and get free shipping. But newegg seems to be cheaper still


First, I'd like to mention that I'm looking for something that I can upgrade with, but I'm not sure if it'll be worth the cost to bother.

For example, I'm pretty set on the phenom II X4 955 black edition amd processor, but as far as mobo is concerned I can't decide on a cheaper micro ATX board or a regular size.

I'm looking at getting an ATI radeon 5770 video card and am considering getting crossfire support for a future upgrade. But my first question is this: is it worth using crossfire on an x8 x8 setup or is it only really worth it with two x16 slots?

If its worth it on the x8x8, then i'll probably opt for the ASRock 870 Extreme3. But if it isn't, I might just get a micro board for much cheaper.

In either case though, I do want a case that will hold a ATX or micro ATX board, since when i do eventually upgrade, or rebuild, i don't want to have to buy a new case again.


This is what I've come up with so far, but I am looking for opinions and cheaper options that work for what I'm trying to go for:

Case:
Rosewill DESTROYER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower

HDD:
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

PSU:
Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

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

Video Card:
XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

RAM:
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

Processor:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX


Any better ideas appreciated. I'd like to get the PSU cost down if possible, but still want a decent one with enough voltage. if I go for a micro board, that might be easier. Also, not sure if this RAM will work well with the ASRock mobo?

Thanks for any help.

 

[rolli59]

It is only the most powerful graphics cards (GTX480 and up) that loose a little performance (about 2%) at 8x8.