Help With i7 build

[mMike01]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, possibly some very basic photoshop
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1500 including tax
3) Where do you live?
Pennsylvania
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
Need all parts including keyboard mouse, and monitor
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Not re-using any parts
6) Will you be overclocking?
Newbie with building a pc, gonna start off small and successfully build a pc, maybe in future will overclock
7) What size monitor do you have or plan to have?
19 or 22 inch
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next couple weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
While SLI or Xfire maybe nice, it's not nessacary

Hi, I'm looking to build my first pc. Here's an i7 build I've come up with. I noticed I can make an LGA 775 build much cheaper, is it worth it to go i7 w/ a 1500 budget? Also, how does this Radeon stack up to the EVGA Nvdia 260 (216 process core model)? All the specs on the Radeon seem better except fot the 256 bit memory interface and it is only around 10 dollars more. How reliable are Asus graphic boards? One more thing, are these reliable parts? and are they compatible with each other.

Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 Retail – 299.99
MSI x58 Platinum LGA 1366 ATX Retail – 219.99
Crucial 3GB(3x1GB) 240 pin DDR3 SDRAM 1333 (pc310600) – 105.00
Asus EAH4870/HTDI/1G Radeon HD4870 256-bit GDDR5 PCIx2.0 – 264.99
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM – 84.99
Samsung 22x Dvd Burnter = 24.99
Cool Master Centurion 590 RC-590 black computer case – 49.99
Coolmaster Real Power Pro RS-650-650 Watt power supply – 79.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit – 99.99
Acer black 22” LCD – 164.99
Logitech MX518 mouse – 39.99
Cheap Keyboard – 6.99

Thanks in advance

 

[Dangman]

The HD4870 1GB performs on par with the GTX 260 Core 216. Though the GTX 260 Core 216 is slightly faster due to recent driver updates. For the most part you have chose quality and reliable parts. But I would replace the PSU with this signifcantly better quality PSU:
BFG Tech BFGR800WESPSU ES-800 800W PSU - $110

If those are all the parts that you need, yeah, it's worth to go Core i7 with a $1500 budget.

 

[mMike01]

Thanks Danny for the quick reply. I am going to take your advice and change the PSU as well as going w/ the EVGA nvidia 260 which will save me a few bucks and I'm gonna go with this harddrive instead - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM.

Thanks again.

 

[engiNURD]

Good choice on the HDD (and on the rest of the changes, too)... saves you $15 without much loss in performance.

Vista Home Premium 64-bit should be $80 from either Microcenter or Newegg... if you're shopping in the states.

Dropping down to Core2 saves you around $200 at most, if switching to a P5Q Pro, Q9550, and 4GB DDR2. Clock for clock, i7 is, at most, 15% faster, IIRC.