Advice on upgrade

[dentaku]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming and game development
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
~1300, no
3) Where do you live?
Texas
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, Mobo, Memory, Video Card, PSU
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Gigabyte 3d Aurora case, WD 320 gb hard drive, Audigy 2 ZS, optical drives, mouse, keyboard, speakers
6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
1 24" 1080p and 2 1280x1024s
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
After christmas
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Nothing special, i would like to stay with one video card if possible
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yes, Win7 x64


These are the parts im thinking of so far:
$179 Corsair 850HX PSU
$119 OCZ Gold 6GB 1600 ram
$239 ASUS P6T mobo
$288 Intel i7 920
$409 Ati 5870 when they are back in stock
$75 Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme

My main questions are about the mobo and ram. Are these good if i want to OC, but dont really care about SLI or extra features?

For the monitors, 2 have DVI input and one has vga input only. What is the best way to run this off the ati card? Did i understand it right that i can run all three monitors from one card? As for the physical connections can i just get an hdmi to dvi adapter to drive one of the dvi monitors, and use an old dvi to vga to power the vga monitor?

Thanks in advance for the input

 

[gwarren007]

Yes they are good, the rebate on the ram is good thru 12/16.

What is your current VC? You could drop down to the TP-650 for a power supply.

 

[dentaku]

Right now i have a 8800 gtx, and my wife just won a 3870x2 at a christmas party. One of these will end up in the wife's computer and one will probably getting sold one i get ahold of a 5870.

of these two which would be the better choice for the wife's gaming computer? The specs on her machine are going to be what is currently in my sig.

 

[tiraides]

Keep the 8800GTX. Which resolution does your wife's monitor use?

 

[dentaku]

its 1280x1024 right now, she might upgrade to a bigger monitor though. The main games she plays right now are sims 3 and dragon age

 

[gwarren007]

What part of Texas (city?)

 

[dentaku]

plano

 

[gwarren007]

You live 15 miles (approx) away from Frys Electronics, could you go there to purchase the cpu/motherboard?

 

[dentaku]

Yeah im right down the road from it. I just assumed that newegg would be cheaper, but I will check it out.

 

[gwarren007]

If you wanted to go i5, right now they have a $199 (ar) mobo and i5-750 till tommorrow. That is just the cost of the cpu at NewEgg. They will have new combos friday if you wanted to wait for a 920 deal.