Plan on building a gaming PC eventually.

[Yerfdog]

It's your money to spend as you want, but your buying the Best AMD cpu, a GTX 480, Corsair PS, a very good kit of memory and then your skimping on the mobo. It's like buying the cheapest Kia and then spending more money on accessories than the car is worth.

Buy a good mobo, downgrade your other parts before you downgrade the "Main" Component. Everything plugs into the motherboard, it's the heart of your system. If you can't afford a better mobo then you should go with a X6 1055 or a ATI 5870 or skip the Blu-ray until you can buy a decent mobo.

And Arctic Silver 5 is one of the Worst Pastes you can buy in todays Modern World.
Newegg.com - Tuniq TX-2 Cooling Thermal Compound

Oh, I remember someone saying that Arctic Silver wasn't very good compared to newer ones... Must have forgotten to change that on the list...

And it's not money that's the problem, I'm having trouble finding motherboards that aren't that cheap. >.>

Is this one good? It seems to have some really bad problems with the North Bridge. Gets really hot. Not as hot as the GTX 480 P), but it still sounds pretty hot.

It looks like this is fairly good, but I'll have to check some more of the reviews. From the reviews it sounds good...

 

[Slaymate]

Both of those Mobo's look good, the MSI board does sound interesting, I would check it out a litte closer

 

[SubFusion]

I just bought the same RAM (the ripjaws) unless your running virtual consoles, video encoding.... etc, you wont need 8GB. Save yourself the $104 and put that towards a mobo something like this. Newegg.com - ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

or go balls to the wall like i did (maybe a little too much... to the wall) Newegg.com - ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

 

[Yerfdog]

I just bought the same RAM (the ripjaws) unless your running virtual consoles, video encoding.... etc, you wont need 8GB. Save yourself the $104 and put that towards a mobo something like this. Newegg.com - ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

or go balls to the wall like i did (maybe a little too much... to the wall) Newegg.com - ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

I think I'm going to go with the MSI one.

I've heard that there is a lot of problems with the North Bridge on the Crosshair IV getting really hot. I'm not sure if it's good for the motherboard to get up into the upper 60's (Celcius) and above. :/

 

[SubFusion]

As long as you have a proper cooling solution in your system, it should be fine. Worst case scenario, you can lap the NB heatsink. Theres always a workaround, whether it be simple or excruciatingly complex. Unless your truly starting out and dont want to ruin an expensive board, i say go with what you think will work best despite reviews. Also what i did when i started messing about with computers was go on craigslist or ( if your lucky like me) go to a local parts warehouse and get old Pentium 4's and other low end, old parts and practice with them, you get good practice and its very cheap. For example, im just learning how to lap a cpu and heatsink now, but i wouldnt dare try it on my brand new Phenom II X4, instead my old frankenstein unit is the victim. Just a few thoughts to get those juices flowin

 

[Yerfdog]

I'd rather keep it simpler, and I don't want to have to mess with stuff built in to the motherboard. Wouldn't that also void the warranty?

Also, since the ATi Radeon HD 5870 delivers about the same performance, runs cooler, and is about $100 less, I think I'll go with it instead of the GTX 480. The only time I saw the GTX 480 do considerably better is in the EXTREME Tessellation tests. I also won't have to get a converter if I go with the 5870.