I am new to the PC building scene, but have been a PC gamer since I was about 7. I've been wanting to build a gaming computer for a long time and have only recently been able to aquire the funds as I have stopped purchasing PS3 games and accessories. I am looking for a computer that is slightly better than mid range and can also handle video editing and rendering. I am also on a budget of ~800 Australian Dollars excluding mouse, keyboard, speakers and monitor.

The parts that I have been contemplating for purchase are:

CPU: AMD Phenom II 555 DualCore 3.2Ghz 80W Black Edition (two extra cores unlocked from motherboard BIOS)

Mother Board: Asus M4A87TD - USB3 AMD3 4X DDR3/6X SATA Raid/Gigabit LAN (Sorry if this one was confusing)

RAM: G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz 9-9-9-24

Hard Drive: Samsun 1TB Spinpoint F3 Sata II 7200 RPM

Optical Drive: LiteON IHAS324 SATA DVD-RW 24X Black (Was one of the cheapest ones I could find)

Graphics Card: MSI GeForce 460 GTX

Power Supply: CoolerMaster 650W Extreme Plus (I am thinking of downgrading to ~500W because I was told I wouldn't need more)

Case: PCCool Thunderstorm 3000 Midi Tower Case

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you could post suggestions to improve my performance to price ratio it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, do I need to purchase a separate sound card or will my MoBo cover it?

Edit: Forgot to say Thanks in advance!

So basically, I did what I should have done in the first place and read the first page. I've decided to keep everything I have besides the PSU, which I'll be down grading to 450W,  and disregard the question about the sound card *embarressed face*.

Thanks, top thread!

Well I'm almost through putting together my new system. This is what I have so far:

CPU: Intel Core i7 2600k @ 3.4 GHz (sandy bridge, http://tinyurl.com/3p9g9kx )

MOBO: ASRock P67 Extreme6 ( http://tinyurl.com/3pfbjmj )

GPU: 2 x 896MB Nvidia GTX 260 (core 216 models) in SLI (had these from before, 1 is EVGA and 1 is ELSA)

RAM: 8 GB of DDR3 1600MHz  G.Skill Ripjaws X (2x4GB) http://tinyurl.com/3g8r94f

Storage : 120GB Intel 510 Series SSD, 1TB 7.2k drive and 2TB 5.4k drive (only the SSD is new)

Optical Media: Lite-On 20x DVD Writer (old, have had this for awhile)

Input Devices: Razer Lycosa Keyboard and Razer DeathAdder Mouse (had these from before)

Case: Lian Li PC-X900R (Red one, http://tinyurl.com/3dz49gj )

PSU: 850W SilverStone ST85F-G Strider Gold Modular PSU (80Plus Gold) http://tinyurl.com/3t62tdw

Will be getting the case tomorrow, so I can put it all together. I currently have it all in my old case (Antec Sonata III) running on a 500W PSU! I didn't want to install the new PSU in the old case since I knew I was getting a new case.

I'll be switching out the GTX 260's soon as well once I get my 2 x 2GB AMD Radeon 6950 cards(Gigabyte, http://tinyurl.com/3g4pmvd ) to use in CrossFire.

Wow man, congrats on having an awesome machine.  But all that money spent, and you chose a Silverstone power supply?  Any particular reason?  I don't think they are bad, but seems like an odd choice.

Awesome build, should be able to run Portal 2 no problem =P

I've heard nothing but good things about Silverstone (Strider Plus/Gold models). They're good quality Enhance OEM units. I'm also not in the USA now, so the prices are different for me in Japan. (I just reference Newegg for "info" ;-p ) I was checking out other modular PSUs as well like the Corsair AX850, Seasonic X series, Enermax Modu 87 , etc., but I just ended up getting a really good deal on the Silverstone from Amazon Japan.

Their price on them now is about $40 higher than what I paid for mine! (The current price for the Silverstone is almost the same as the Corsair AX850) In local PC stores I've actually seen the lower power version (Silverstone Strider Gold 750W) selling for more than I paid for the 850W version, hehe.

Also checking out different websites like this: http://tinyurl.com/3weh4jp (it's one of the recommended in the 8-900W range) helped me to make the decision and get it.

So I finally put my system all together in the new case and everything. I'm currently running the Intel i7 2600k @ 5ghz and it's running great (I haven't tested higher yet).

I flashed both of the Radeon 6950's with the 6970 bios to unlock the extra shaders ( http://tinyurl.com/2dwyrwc ). 6950 has 1408 shaders and the 6970 has 1536 shaders. I'm also running both 6950's at 6970 core/memory speeds, so it's basically like I have 2 x Radeon 6970's in crossfire (for much cheaper!) Now it's time to get a new monitor...

Continuing my "cooling" stories, 51 C was a good enough temperature but I was starting to get sick of the noise from the stock CPU cooler, so I bought a Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus (what a mouthful) after reading reviews at silentpcreview.com

I had to remove and reinstall the motherboard in order to mount it, but it was totally worth it. After installing it and mucking around a bit with the "Smart Q-Fan" settings on my ASUS bios, CPU temperatures went down by another 10 degrees, but more importantly the computer got a whole lot quieter. The new fan is just barely above 1100 RPM when the computer is under load, whereas the stock fan, being much smaller, had to go near 4000 RPM or even 5000 depending on the ambient temperature.

I think I may get it even quieter by accepting slightly higher temperatures (there's nothing wrong with 50 C under load) and replacing the fan with a quiet Nexus fan. Then I may start worrying about the case fans which are probably the next biggest noise source.

People keep listing these low CPU temps makes me wonder if something is wrong with my stock cooler.  My i7, with no overclocking runs in the high 70s to low 80s.  Mayb its time for a CPU cooler

It depends on the CPU. The Phenom II 1055T has 62 or 71 C as the maximum temperature depending on the specific model (though it would work at higher temperatures, safety margins and all).

A friend of mine had an older AMD CPU which may have been running at 90 C or more for quite a while and it didn't break, though I wouldn't recommend that...

I don't know what is your specific model, but for example an i7 920 lists 67.9 C:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core i7-920 AT80601000741AA (BX80601920 - BXC80601920).html

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=37147

Mine is the i7-950, But it lists the same temperature as the one you specified.  So I am guessing I should get this looked into.  Maybe there is something wrong with how the stock cooler is resting on it or something and there is no heat transfer and thus no heat dissapation.  And It does get loud when I test it.