Alright, september is rolling around and its the month I finally buy my new PC. Or at least the MOBO, CPU, GPU and RAM to get my pc up and running again.

I'd like some opinions on the hardware I've chosen, and if some of you have suggestions for better bang for buck, I'd be all ears.

MOBO: Asus P7P55D-E Pro
CPU: Intel I7-870
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 5850 1GB
RAM: 4gb (haven't picked brand yet)

The only interesting AMD option was the Phenom II x6 1090T, but I'm not interested in a 6 core for now. I'm hearing negative things about its performance in games, though it does a great job with most anything else.

With a legal copy of windows 7, this should round up to about 1061.97$ CAN, based on Newegg.ca prices. Its probably going to round down a little lower through my tech guy.

So, in CAN$, does any of you think I can get better bang for buck within a 1000$ budget?

Note that I'm looking at the long term... hopefully at least 3 years of running games decently.

I hope you plan to up to at least 6GB of ram later...

Is there really a point to more than 4gb these days??

4's fine if you're looking to save money. And you'd never put 6 in a Lynnfield setup unless you want to lose dual channel memory. In the future you can always up it to 8 if you want.

I have 6 in mine, but that's because I have a Bloomfield i7, so I wanted to get the most out of triple-channel memory controller. Even then, most games aren't using more than 4.

why? I have 4 and have yet to notice any lack..

Yea I'll stick to 4gb for now. If I find something lacking I'll consider upgrading in the long run.

You could save a bit if you bought an i5 750 and overclocked it. Mine is at 4 Ghz.
I have that same motherboard, except I have the base model. It's a good one.

I'm not keen on overclocking. I dont have the moola to spent on a great cooling system, and I've had bad experiences with overclocking in the past. Hell its what did my last motherboard in.

I ran my E5200 at 3.24Ghz for ages...my brother is running an OC'd Athlon 64 5000+ BE now. My i5 750 is stock and has been plenty fast for me. I'm not huge into gaming anymore, though.

My cooling system cost 30 dollars, and I was able to push it to 3 Ghz stock cooler. Overclocking is easy these days, there is pretty much no way to **** it up.

I was gonna say get an 875K (my friend just did a build w/ it yesterday) because it's the best bang-for-buck w/ unlocked multi but if you're not gonna OC then never mind

I'm wondering if the prices you spend on mobo/cpu i7 are worth it compared to an old Core 2 duo.

Heheh, I've been half considering the 875... its only 50$ more.

Man... I can't make since of this Bloomfield vs Lynnfield stuff.

From what I read Bloomfield will be better in the long run, and open up to cheaper yet better upgrade paths, while the Lynnfield is strong right now, but has a lacking future.

Urg, I wish I had time to make sense of all of this again.

Welp I've ordered my new parts!

MOBO: Asus P7P55D-E Pro
CPU: Intel I7-870
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870
RAM: 4gb DDR3 1333 Kingston

Decided to up the ante and go for an HD 5870 instead of a 5850. Also went and bought a nice, big ass 24" Samsung BX2450 Backlight LED screen.

Thanks everyone for the help and the comments! I should not be posting another thread about computers for a few years now, whew.

You will be happy with that. Honestly I wouldnt be too concerned about upgrade path, most people don't upgrade CPU's within the lifetime of the computer.

Personally, I doubt i'll will ever upgrade to hexcore on my current motherboard. I'll probably just push my overclock a little harder as time goes on.

Intel's scrapping both sockets 1156 and 1366 for 1155 and 2011 anyway. So yeah with 1366 you can go from a current 4-core Bloomfield i7 to a 6-core Gulftown i7, but you won't be able to go any further than that (Sandy Bridge).

Ya, its pretty much why I decided to stick to a Lynnfield setup instead of going to Bloomfield route and spend even more on that. I've heard great feedback about the i7-870 and I'm sure it'll last me a good few years just like my AMD X2 4800+ did.

From the get go, an i7-930 bloomfield set up was costing me about 200$ more (including the extra ram). I prefered putting that money behind an even bigger graphics card and a new screen.

Truth be told, my heart is still with AMD but current gen CPUs just didn't cut it for me and I did not want to go with the hexcore phenom II option. We'll see what they have in store for the future. For now, intel has me sold.

Thanks again folks Always a helpful bunch here!