Building a Gaming Computer [HELP]

Originally Posted by Equinox

Okay, so, I'm a computer scientist, in the stand point that I program, I'm not exactly a hardware buff. I can solder, and assemble computer hardware, but I'm at an impass when it comes to me building a new gaming computer. I find the hardest thing about building a new gaming computer, is selecting the hardware, I need help.

Okay, Here's the layout - Gaming computer to run the latest games, ie, Modern Warfare 2, Unreal Tournament, Fall out 3, and all the other benchmark games, built to run at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

Budget: I'd like to build a computer for 1500 or less, not including monitor, or peripherals, unless that addition that busts the budget, is a must have, like it cooks oven baked cookies for you. PC EZ Bake oven

I haven't built a computer in 6 years, so I'm way out of the game with new technology, and even worse, the computer world is going through a change (FSB speeds switching to Interlink path tech measured in G/Ts, and so on)

I thought I had it all figured out, read a bunch of reviews on best processor for price, find a matching motherboard chipset that performs well, maintain a high FSB speed to match super fast RAM, then find the best single video card for your money that runs on PCI-E x 16. I ended up with

Build List:
CPU: Intel i7 920, 2.66GHz, 4.8 G/Ts Bus speed $269.99
RAM: 6GB
Corsair Dominator 1600MHz (3 x 2GB) $204.98 (also has 20$ mail in rebate)
PSU: Corsair 750W $109.99
MOBO: Asus Rampage II Extreme $364.00
GPU: Sapphire Radeon 5850 1GB $318.00
HD: WD Velociraptor 150GB 10k rpm $149.99
Heatsink: Noctua NH-D14 Ultra Silent CPU Cooler $90.00

total: $1507.00

Monitor: Samsung 23" LED Monitor $318.00


What do you think?