Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Amit]

Any one know when Intel CPU prices will drop? I can't play BF3 on shit PCs forever. I'm tempted to go out and build the following rig if prices don't come down by November :/

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition - $119.00
MB: ASUS M5A97 AM3+ ATX - $95.00
RAM: Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 2x2G 1600Mhz DDR3 - $38.00

The RAM timings are slow, but I don't give a fuck, this is a budget build. The prices written into the hyperlinks are different than newegg because those are the prices I'm getting these items for at my local computer shop.

I'm pairing the above items with these things that I already have:

GPU: Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 5750 Vapor-X 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Mid Tower ATX

ThePlague recommended this CPU cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus. It's cheap and it gets unreal reviews. I think I'll use that to OC the 955 Black, after all, that's what the Black edition is for. My only concern is that coolermaster doesn't say that it's compatible with AM3+ motherboards, but I'm sure it'll work no problem since the mounting hasn't changed for AMD boards since the AM2 socket I think.

[Narida]

MB: Asus M4A87TD EVO AMD 870 Sockel AM3 84 eur/113 usd
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1075T 6x 3.00GHz boxed 125 Watt 137 eur/183 usd
GPU: PowerColor 1024MB 6870 PCIe 2.1 152 eur/205 usd
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS3 Kit PC3-12800U (DDR3-1600) 28 eur/ 38 usd
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 6Gb/s ST500DM002 35 eur/ 47 usd
Disk drive: Samsung SH-B123L Blu-ray SATA 56 eur/75 usd

adds up to 519 eur/700 usd

Did I miss any incompatibilities? I picked a mainboard with AM3 socket/USB 3.0 kind of at random so if anyone has a better idea I welcome it... Also I still need a power unit, does anyone have any suggestions for that or about my configuration in general? What kind of wattage am I going to need? The stock CPU cooler should be enough if I don't plan on doing any overclocking?
Thanks in advance

EDIT:
For the power supply I'm guessing this: be quiet! Pure Power L7 530W 55 eur/ 75 usd
price seems to be alright and it seems to be one of the few with 2 PCIe cables which seem to be required for the 6870^^ and 530 watts should be enough.
The phenom ii 6x3 ghz seems a bit overkill, an athlon ii 645 x4 (4x3.1ghz) 90 eur/ 120 usd seems more appropriate; it's a good bit cheaper too. What exactly is the difference between the phenoms and athlons?

EDIT 2:
Apparently the Athlons/Phenoms only support RAM at 1333Mhz, so 4GB Corsair XMS3 2x2GB Kit PC3-10666 (DDR3-1333) same price and is it just me or is AMD Phenom II X4 980 Prozessor 3,7GHz Black Edition Box 95eur/125usd too cheap?

[Zeph]

Any one know when Intel CPU prices will drop? I can't play BF3 on shit PCs forever. I'm tempted to go out and build the following rig if prices don't come down by November :/

AMD is seemingly delaying Bulldozer due to yield issues. I doubt Intel will drop prices to compete with AMD until it makes a consumer launch. Intel is supposed to be refreshing the 2600k spot with a 2700k sometime before Holiday though. Other than that, you'll probably find yourself waiting till February for SandyBridge-E for the next price change.

[Amit]

Ugh. I'm not willing to wait till the holidays. My iMac can play BF3 @ 30FPS on low settings and at a severely reduced res of 1280x720, but I need a PC that will play it proper at 1680x1050 on medium at the least. AMD setup it is. At least I'll be ready for bulldozer with my AM3+ MB.

[Zeph]

My GTX 590 will be here tomorrow. I have a question about using the 550ti as a dedicated PPU. My motherboard has two PCI express slots (1x16 or 2x8). If I use the 550ti I have as a placeholder, would it cut the 590 down to x8 speeds?

[Cortexian]

Depends on how the motherboard handles PCI-E lane bandwidth.

Also, did you use my referral code above? I don't have a referral for the 550 yet.

[Zeph]

No, haven't done any of that stuff yet. Gonna wait till I get a hard drive back from RMA before I do all my warranty stuff.

[Cortexian]

KK, post pics of 550 beside 590 when it comes in today!

EDIT: Just looked into your motherboard PCIe layout. According to the specs on Newegg you'll get:

"2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16 or dual at x8/x8 mode)"

So if you use the 550 as a PPU in the second PCIe slot then the GTX 590 will run at x8 speeds. I'm not sure how much bandwidth a 590 will actually use, but keep in mind that your board has PCIe 2.0 slots (probably 2.1). PCIe 2.0 x16 is 8GB/s, so PCIe 2.0 x8 is going to be 4GB/s which is still quite a bit...

[Zeph]

Seems that on 8x it should be alright. Now, I'm concerned about power consumption. If the 550ti and 590 both eat their full amount of power, it'd overload my PSU.

[Cortexian]

If the 550 is running as a dedicated PPU I really doubt it would exceed 50% power usage. The 590 likely won't ever draw FULL load for an extended period, benchmarking and such is really the only thing that stresses GPU's that much.