Building a new PC: you guys know what you're talking about, right?

[TheComedown]

For your price range and what you want to do the 550w you recommended should do fine unless you plan on upgrading to crossfire. Stick with the amd gear here, you'll keep the price down and you'll find that almost all of the ati cards have a much better power consumption then the nVidia equivalents with little to no performance loss.

As for the rig you specified it looks good. My only recommendation would be to get a better graphics card, RhombusHatesYou suggested the 5770 and for what you wish to do its probably the best option to keep down costs but still have the power. I have the HD5770 OC edition and it runs most modern games maxed out at 1680*1050

Do you have a specific mobo recommendation? That's the most confusing bit; seems like they've got about 20 boards with a handful of minute differences for roughly the same price.

I'm sorry I don't know a great deal about motherboards, but i had a look at the one you suggested in your OP and it looks like a great board with plenty of room to upgrade. Its got the Crossfire support which is great when/if you want to upgrade, tho if you are going to do that a bigger PSU will be needed.

One last thing I would suggest tho is a different case. I don't know your price range but I always recommend the Xigmatek Midgard over the 300 as its got a fair bit more room, solid drive bay clips (and more bays including an external 5.25" to 3.5" adapter) and its only a fraction more expensive then the 300.

 

[TOGSolid]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

Wait, what!?

AMD is famous for their CPUs very rarely never needing new mainboards. They're still rocking AM3 on all of their new processors even though their CPUs are going into a new series. Intel on the other hand is going absolutely apeshit with the need for new mobos. They're already about to dump the current mainboard specs for something totally new with their next chipset. They do this on a regular basis. The Socket 775 series was a complete anomaly with how long lived it was and definitely the exception to the rule. Intel has gone right back to their usual horseshit of requiring a new mobo with every CPU generation.

You are absolutely dead wrong. AMDs are the superior choice for budget rigs.

As far as the vid card, don't even worry about DX11. The games that actually make heavy use of it run like total pigs on anything other than higher end cards, so no reason to worry about it. Besides, most of the time it's not even that noticeable. I would beef that card up though. I'd look up the wattage of your components (specifically the CPU and GPU), add them up, and go with a PSU that has at least a 100W overhead.

Remind me,

Intel Pentium 4 (2.60 - 3.80 GHz)
Intel Celeron D (2.53 - 3.60 GHz )
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
(3.20 - 3.73 GHz)
Intel Pentium D (2.66 - 3.60 GHz)

Pentium Dual-Core (1.40 - 2.80 GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo (1.60 - 3.33 GHz)
Intel Core 2 Extreme (2.66 - 3.20 GHz)
Intel Core 2 Quad (2.33 - 3.00 GHz)
Intel Xeon (1.86-3.40 GHz)
Intel Celeron (1.60 - 2.40 GHz)

That was the Intel's line up for 6 or so years before they introduced i7. All of them are compatible with socket 775 a.k.a socket T:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_775

Please don't just post things you've read in a magazine or something.

Didn't I just say the 775 was an anomaly? What is it with people and their lack of reading comprehension these days? Before the 775 Intel changed sockets about as often as the average person changes their underwear and they're getting right back on the same track. The i7's 1156 and 1366 sockets are already being dumped in favor of the 1155 and 2011 sockets.

And the 775 had a 4 year run fyi.

Meanwhile on AMD's side a single board can run AM3, AM2+ and AM2 series CPUs. Tell me again how "awesome" Intel is for cheap systems? Right now AMD is king for budget rigs.

 

[Crysco]

The selection of motherboards is WAY too overwhelming for the first time computer builder, haha. Well you still have like $150 so I would upgrade to the Phenom II x4 and get a Radeon HD 5770 instead. You may have to gt a 650 watt power supply but don't quote me on that. Good luck.

 

[Crysco]

And I have got a ASUS M4A790XTD and I like it a fair amount. It costs slightly more but it is good if you don't plan on doing crossfire with x16/x16.