[Bloodmyst]

Originally Posted by Trusty

If 1500$ is your budget ----

--- take $$ out of some where (probably ram.. you don't need 16gb....)
--- put it into extra disk space. Grab some 1TB wd black's, don't need to be ultra fast yo.

Yeah, I'm actually looking into the Hard Drive set up Tonsh posted. This way it only costs a few bucks more whilst keeping the 16GB of memory. There is actually an advantage of having that extra memory, but for the life of me I can't remember now (there is some nifty thing you can do with it). Argggghhh sh^t, I just realised I have to get a 64-bit OS now lol.

Originally Posted by JAFF3R

Looks pretty good, but maybe go for the i7-3770k. Main difference will be that you can overclock it AFAIK so the extra money it will be worth it.
750w is overkill. My HD 6950 2GB card runs off a 550w PSU, and the HD7850's are recommended for 500w from what I can see on PcCaseGear, but if you're planning on going SLI/Crossfire then 750w is a must. $200 sounds expensive though? I've heard about the Antec TP-750w being not bad at all, and is only $140.
Go with what Tonsh said regarding hard drives. SSD's make your computer A LOT faster. I can turn my computer on and be in Starcraft II all in about 1 minute.

I guess it also depends on what you want to do with it, if its just for casual gaming then 16GB RAM is excessive. 4GB here and running BF3 and SC2 (not at the same time) fine. Though I'd probably recommend 8GB ram since it's cheap enough these days.

Just my 2c.

Yeah I looked at the unlocked multiplier version of the CPU. But to be honest, I'm not really keen on overclocking my system since overclocking = more cooling "if not" computer blows up. lol. And really, apart from wanting a damn decent CPU for SC2 streaming I don't think I'll really ever have to overclock it. So I've just settled for the former.

The whole SLI/Crossfire setup, personally I don't like due to past experiences with overheating. I'd rather just spend the money you would spend on both cards and put it into 1 damn good card. If I was going to purchase a decent water cooling system I'd definately go for it. But for what speeds this PC will operate at stock standard, I don't really see any reason I'd need to overclock it.... unless it's another 3 - 4 years down the track when my comp gets so old again, but I'd just buy another PC anyway.

Not to mention, I'm not sure about anyone else. But I really don't see why you would want to overclock a brand new PC. If I knew I was going to do that, I'd rather just spend the extra money on faster gear without having to do that. However, I guess for those who are really on a tight budget that want a fast system but can't exactly afford it, I can see why overclocking would play a part.

If anything with the PSU, I'd probably go bigger. Simply because of the amount of problems I've had with my currrent PC (Shi^^y PSU). I'm not going to skimp on the PSU, more cleaner power is always better then "just" having enough.... since I've learned the hard way lol.

So far so good though guys, looks like I'll be changing my HDD set up to what Tonsh recommended (it seems more smart and logical to go for this option instead considering the small price difference).

Also, does anyone have an ASRock M'board? Do you find them fairly reliable? I was also going to ask if anyone had a 7850, but no point asking just yet since the current Sandy Bridge CPU's are bottlenecking em' :s