Is this a workable, low-end gaming computer?

Should this message go somewhere else?

The system you propose should be fine for your light/med games needs.

As for fans most cases will have fans pre installed with a few giving you the option of adding an extra one again at a fixed point so you need not worry about that.

With this system running at stock speed heat should not be an issue anyway.

Have you had a bad experience with a CM psu ?

I've not had one myself but a couple of my friends has and have never been let down.

Very bad experience, just this week I installed a 500 watt power supply by cooler master that came bundled with my current computer case. Right when I got the case I know cooler master sucks, I installed an Antec VP-450 which lasted me years. It died however (last week) and just a week ago I installed it, rewind to two days ago and now its making an unbearable/annoying coil whine noise. I can hear it from the other side of my room and when I am coming up the stairs. The only cooler masters I would recommend are the silent series.

Read this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/348160-28-stay-cooler...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/310411-28-cooler-mast...

Cheap out on the power supply and you risk your entire build. Considering you need only add a few more dollars you will understand you will be taking good care of your build. In addition, cheap power supply brands often overate their wattage, yours probably doesn't give out 480 watts and/or has real bad efficiency.

Edit: Oh yes, forgot to mention despite it saying 500 watts it only puts down 423 watts, says right on the label. Very bad practice by cheap manufacturers  

Thanks for all your help, I'm really really new to this and any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Best answer selected by timo352.

Hi there take a look at this categorized Power supply list (not made by me).

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

As you see majority of cooler master power supplies are in tier 4 which is not recommended and 2nd worst of the entire list. Make no doubt there are real good cooler master power supplies but the one you have is definetly not. What is the exact model of that power supply? Don't think I've heard of a 480 watt cm power supply but only 460...

I decided to go with the Corsair Builder. You suggested the 430W but I found the 500W to be bacially the same price on Amazon. Do you think that extra 70W will matter?

Is the phenom II x4 965 the same thing? It has 3.4 gHz instead of 3.2 gHz. And it's much cheaper it seems...........

Phenom II X4 955/965 are both the same thing. Much like the Phenom II X6 1090T and Phenom II X6 1100T. They just have a slight clock boost increase  

Just to add a little bit more comparision... Much like how the Intel Core i7 2600k and Intel Core i7 2700k are identical, they just have different clock speeds (100Mhz to be exact).

^yep mocchan pretty much summed it up, I believe you can just overclock the phenom 955 by 200mhz to equal it out with the 965.