Cheap but powerful gaming pc, need help

[johnners2981]

My friend asked me to build a new gaming pc for him and make it cheap, 400-500euros. Think it has to be amd for the price/performance ratio but I've only built using intel cpu's so don't know too much about amd.
It'd be great to put an i5 2300 in it but its out of budget.

This is the plan so far

CPU: phenom II x4 955

Motherboard: Was thinking Asus M4A77T, not sure though need suggestions

Memory: Well 2x2gb anyway, not sure what make or is 1600mhz much different than 1333mhz?

Hard Drive: Samsung f3 spinpoint 500gb or maybe 1tb if there's room in the budget

Graphics card: Think I'll have to go second hand here cause he wants a powerful graphics card, so found a used 5850 for 120 with receipt, and trust the website so hopefully its all good

PSU: Not sure on this cause trying to keep it cheap but I know you should always have a good psu even though I've used some cheap ones before with no problems. Needs enough 6pin connectors and preferably more than 2 sata ones. And would 500w be enough?

Case and optical drive: Can get midi atx and dvd-rw for about 40-50

He has a windows 7 operating system and 1080p monitor

So any suggestions would be great but mainly the motherboard, psu and ram, thanks in advance

 

[buzznut]

Don't know about prices in your area. The smasung HD is a great choice, but here I've seen the f3 500GB holding steady at $55US but the 1TB f4 is $80 or even less.

I like the 5850, sounds like a good deal.

500W is enough if there is enough amps on the 12V rail to accommodate the video card. I think 500W is the min for the 5850.
Look at models from Corsair, Antec, Seasonic. The Earthwatts 500 W is a popular choice. Solid PSU.

That mobo should be fine. I am unaware if that has USB 3.0 or SATA III, but it likely doesn't. Those features will be a few dollars more of course. Then you should look at the 870 chipset.
With DDR3 the current wisdom is that there is little difference between 1333 and 1600, but look for kits with lower timings such as CAS 7 or 8.