My new PC, need advice.

[ambr0sia]

I'm open to opinions and recommendations. Just tell me what you think and it I can make it better in any way.

My budget is 2500, give or take 100 or so.

I mainly play FPS's and RPG's. The first couple games on my list to buy are Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins. I'm not much of an MMO guy, but will most likely play Star Wars The Old Republic once comes out.

The monitor I plan to buy is...
Newegg.com - ASUS VW246H Black 24" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR 20000:1) Built in Speakers - LCD Monitors

Case: Silverstone TJ06

CPU: AMD Phenom 2 x4 965

CPU Fan: Coolermaster V8

HDD: (2x 500GB) SATA-II set to RAID-0 and a separate 1 TB for extra memory

Motherboard: : Asus Crosshair III Formula AM3 DDR3 790FX CrossFire Chipset with Quad PCIE slot SATA RAID MB w/GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394,&7.1Audio

Memory: 8GB (2GBx4) Kingston HyperX DDR3/1800MHz

Network Card: Killer Xeno Pro PCI

Power Supply: Corsair HX1000w

Sound Card: SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio 24-BIT

Video Card 1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 1792MB 16X PCI Express

Video Card 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 1792MB 16X PCI Express

Final Price (after the addition of a dvd and bluray drive, an internal card reader, a couple extra case fans, and some speakers) about $2550

This will be my first computer build. I've got a pretty high budget and want to get the best I can with it, but I understand there is a point in which you've gone overboard. So tell me if I have. I've researched a lot of stuff, but am still new to this. I'm open to criticism and recommendations. Thanks for your help.

 

[farinha]

I would buy a single ATI HD5870 which runs perfectly everything out there and later on add another one. Buying a single is always better because if you buy two cards it will limit you on future upgrades.

Regarding the CPU I would buy this combo:
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!
The i7 performs a lot better than the 965. But if you want to go with AMD buy the 955 and overclock it.

Regarding the PSU I think Corsair HX850 it's enough for your build.

With these modifications you'll spend the same money and get a better cpu. Maybe less, I haven't taken in consideration the price difference in the RAM, going from 8GB to 6GB.

 

[Ste]

You don't need the killer NIC, onboard will be perfectly fine.

While the 1KHX is a great PSU it is overkill for this build.
Go with the corsair950HX or a 700-800 watt silverstone/seasonic

you have enough budget to get a core i7 and a asus or EVGA board.

Also go with either a 5870 as suggested or 5970 if you want the best, you have the money.

 

[myowngod]

I would like to add that your cooler selection could be better.. unless it has changed since I was in the air cooling group, the v8 isn't as effective as the Ximatek, TRUE, or even the Core-Contact.. I think a push/pull TRUE or Thors Hammer would be far better...

 

[ambr0sia]

Thanks everyone so far for the insight. I like hearing your opinions, gives me things to research.

The reason I had choose the AMD 965 was to get the 3.4GHz speed for much cheaper than the Intel's. If the 2.66GHz of the Intel 920 is all I will ever need then I would love to do that. Will that run high end games at their max potential?

Also I kind of figured the 1000W PSU was overkill, but wasn't too sure. I am for sure going to scale that back to 850.

The reason I had chose to go with the 2 video cards was because in the near future I hoped to get a dual monitor set up, and didn't want to cause too much of a burden on one card. I will for sure look into a radeon. I was mainly going with nvidia because a friend of mine had always used that so I just did the same. Do you guys feel one is superior to the other?

Sorry I'm saying/asking so much. This is the first computer I've ever built so this is all new to me, and I'm really enjoying learning about it.
Thanks again for all your help.

One other thing, should I go with RAM at 1600 or 1800 mhz? Or will I be able to even tell a difference?

 

[Fat.Clown]

The reason I had choose the AMD 965 was to get the 3.4GHz speed for much cheaper than the Intel's. If the 2.66GHz of the Intel 920 is all I will ever need then I would love to do that. Will that run high end games at their max potential?

that's where overclocking comes in my friend

The reason I had chose to go with the 2 video cards was because in the near future I hoped to get a dual monitor set up, and didn't want to cause too much of a burden on one card.

Beginnings of the Holodeck: AMD's DX11 GPU, Eyefinity and 6 Display Outputs

six Dell 30" displays, each with an individual resolution of 2560 x 1600, a single GPU driving all of these panels
The actual resolution being rendered at is 7680 x 3200; WoW got over 80 fps with the details maxed.

I will for sure look into a radeon. I was mainly going with nvidia because a friend of mine had always used that so I just did the same. Do you guys feel one is superior to the other?

I am indifferent......most of the time. but if both companies have a product at the same price point and performs similarly.. I would pick the nVidia

One other thing, should I go with RAM at 1600 or 1800 mhz? Or will I be able to even tell a difference?

most likely no
take a look at these benchmarks
Memory Scaling on Core i7 - Is DDR3-1066 Really the Best Choice?
once you past 1600, the performance gain is negligible

 

[bkolk]

The reason I had choose the AMD 965 was to get the 3.4GHz speed for much cheaper than the Intel's. If the 2.66GHz of the Intel 920 is all I will ever need then I would love to do that. Will that run high end games at their max potential?

Theres more inside a cpu than clock speed that makes them fast (i.e. the architecture and way they process).
The core i7, despite having a slower clock speed than the amd, will out perform it in every way.

 

[Ste]

ambr0sia: The i7 shows significant improvements over the amd counterparts, you will see improvements in all applications, just google benchmarks for the i7 and the amd cpus youll see the differences.

A dual card setup isn't really worth it when getting lower end cards, you can scale back other areas to get a single 5970 or scale back/shave money off other areas to even get two 5870's.
Just ask if you need help budgeting.

For the ram, you should buy whatever speed you think you will overclock to for safe usage however you can buy cheaper low speed ram and just loosen the timmining manually..

 

[ambr0sia]

Thanks a lot everyone. I will for sure look into all this. I took a lot of the suggestions and it has decreased the price quite a bit.