First build, how does it look?

[RichB-1962]

This would be my first computer build.

The computer will be used for light gaming as well as some basic photo/video editing, and other work projects. World of Warcraft is pretty much the only game I will be playing on it, maybe a bit of FPS, nothing too serious as I'm more of a console gamer. I want it to run fast, high settings, no lag or 'pop-in'. I'm hoping the 4 Gigs of RAM, Quad Core processor, and a decent video card will help me achieve that goal.

I wanted the computer to be upgrade-friendly, so I decided to go with the P55 Gigabyte board, so I can choose between SLI or Crossfire (ATi or nVidia cards). I also tried to stick with well-known, name brands, and this is what I came up with:

Please let me know how it looks, my budget was around $1300, but I also need to buy a new monitor, OS, and keyboard/mouse - so around $1000 for the computer itself. I wish I could spend more, but my wife is already on my case about spending this much .

Case- Antec 900

PSU- OCZ 600W SLi/CrossFireX Supported

MOBO- Gigabyte P55 (SLi/CrossFireX)

CPU- Intel i5-750

RAM- 4GB Corsair XMS DDR3 1333

VGA (between this ATI Card, or the 9800GT 1GB, or 9800GTX 512MB)- XFX HD 4850 1GB

HDD- WD Black 500GB

Heatsink- Thermaltake SpinQ

Drive (maybe going to add a BluRay burner later)- LG DVD/R 22x

Of course Keyboard, Mouse, and Monitor of my choosing that makes the total out to around $1250-$1300. I'll be running Vista 64 Bit.

Thanks for the help!

[Khalil]

I would switch the Gigabyte board to an Asus, the P55 chipset is still having issues and you are better going with an Asus just in case you face problems, they offer the best customer support period.
The 9800GT is an obsolete weak video card, the 4850 is much better but XFX is garbage, go with either Diamond or Asus for an ATI video card.
Sea Sonic, Antec and Corsair is what we mostly recommend here for power supplies.

[RichB-1962]

Thanks for the quick response. I'm totally unaware of ATI card brands, and I know more about nVidia. I would have chosen EVGA if I picked a nVida card. So you say Diamond or Asus for ATI then? It seems like Sapphire are getting a lot of reviews as well, are those good too?

I'll check out the other PSU brands too, I know Antec is supposed to be really good, maybe I'll have to work around my budget a bit to find one similar to my OCZ.

[lord shadow]

Well if you can, you should go for the i7-860 processor.
It support Hyper-Threading, it has 8 processor threads while the i5 only has 4. In simple term i7-860= 8 core, i5-750= 4 core.

Also you are talking about SLI or Crossfire, but the LGA 1156 motherboards are not good for that. The reason is that they only have 1 PCIe bridge instead of 2. So if you connect two video card, your connection goes from PCIe x16 to two PCIe x8. Which means the bandwidth to both cards is reduce by half.

If you wish to be able to run SLI or Crossfire correctly, then you have to go to the 1366 motherboard which means the i7-920 processor.

[glc]

There is no reason to even think about SLI or Crossfire with those modest gaming demands.