Double checking before I buy all these parts

[fiendless]

I have no idea what flashing is, but if it will save me 120 dollars im intrigued

 

[foothead]

I have no idea what flashing is, but if it will save me 120 dollars im intrigued

Flashing is basically upgrading the BIOS. You would need to acquire the BIOS from a 5870, then use ATIflash to copy it to the card's BIOS chip.

After that, the 5850 will run at te same clock speeds as a 5870.

 

[dude_56013]

This will do the job without going nuts:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition / GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5870 1GB Combo

MSI 790X-G45 AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AADS 640GB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb

Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

COOLER MASTER Storm Scout

Total - $929.93

Everything here looks good, but I just don't like "green" drives for O/S partitions. I'll only use them for data and backup drives. I would recommend something more along the lines of this.

I like that build, a lot... now I don't know much like I said but I've heard you need 700-800 watts of power for what I'm wanting. Is that true? Or is the power supply you linked sufficient?

You are incorrect. This PSU AR linked to will do just fine.