Im finally getting a new computer but the problem is that my computer parts knowledge only goes so far so i need some help.
Im going to be building a high performance computer, used for gaming, work, music/video playing, rendering, photoshopping, video editing... bassicly quite a few things.

RAM:
What i do know about ram is that 4GB is sufficient enough but what i dont know is about DDR2 and DDR3, obviously DDR3 is going to be better but is it worth going for over DDR2? And also ive seen some DDR3 i5 modules that go up to 6GB, is it worth getting the 6GB even though 4GB is enough (i plan on keeping this PC for quite a while) or should i just go for 4GB?

CPU:
First thing id like to know is should i go for dual core or quad core? Im thinking quad core just because theres more cores but is it worth it?
Also theres this i7 and i5 crap, i7 i've heard of but i didnt realise there was i5 as well, is i5 any good? Also what kind of cpu speed should i be going for? Theres 2.66ghz i5, and then everything above that (2.8, 3.0, 3.2) are all i7's, which should i go for? Due to the fact i only have on core in my current computer i keep thinking that i should go for the 3.2ghz i7, but perhaps the fact that the cpu has multiple cores means it'd be fine on 2.8ghz or even 2.66ghz?

Graphics cards:
A friend of mine says that the 8/9 series of cards by Nvidia are much better then the GT/GTS/GTX200 range of cards. I find that a bit hard to believe though? Surely the newer cards would be better?
If i was to go for that range of cards then which would be the best to go for? As their are quite a few, the main ones seem to be the 220, 260, 275, 280, 285 but which one do i go for? There are so many of them :S.

Sound card:
All the sound cards i seem to find on the internet are all by Asus but i dont know if they're any good.
The only non Asus card is the Creative Xi-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty although that may be overkill?
I have the Logitech Z-5500's which are quite good but would they be good enough to use with that card? If not which card would be best? I tend to listen to music almost all of the time though.

PSU:
I have absolutely no clue here :/ What PSU would you recommend for this kind of setup?

I think thats about it :/
Im not too sure on what mobo to get but ill decide on that once ive got all the other parts chosen.
And for a harddrive im just going to get either a 1.5TB or a 2TB harddrive, and once they're filled ill just buy another one of exactly the same size and just raid them up.

If theres anything else you need to know then feel free to ask

Thanks

Edit: Oh i forgot to mention, budget is around £1000 although i'll be aiming to try and get a working machine for about £600 and then just upgrade to full spec after christmas.

(obviously you'll need to find a UK etailer but included links to newegg)
i5 750
MSI P55-GD80
XFX 5770
Gskills Ripjaw 4GB
Corsair 650hx
CM Storm Scout
2tb Storage HDD
80gb SSD main drive


You can get a lot better than the 8/9 series for that high a budget

If you can, try to find a 5850 or a 5870. If not settle for a 5770 or a 4890. Nvidia's high end is a bit overpriced at the moment compared to the 5xxx ati series when it comes to performance.

Do you need a monitor/mouse/keyboard/speakers/ etc?

Thank's for that

The CPU i found is pretty much exactly the same as yours although mine is Nehalem and the one you posted is Lynnfield, i don't think there's much of a difference though.

I found the case, although i find it a tad ugly because of those handle things but oh well, it's much cheaper then the Antec 902/1200 i was planning to get.

This is the board i found
MSI P55-GD80 P55 Socket 1156 G ... nel Audio ATX Motherboard
As far as i can tell it's the same board as the one that you posted.

I couldn't find any solid state drives that were 80GB, so i picked the closest i could find which was a 64GB one. Smart idea though, having a SSD for the main drive and then the 2TB drive for storage, i was just going to have both on the 2TB drive.

I couldn't find that many 5 series cards by ATI, i found more 4 series.
I'm not sure which to pick out of these two
Asus HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Dua ... Port PCI-E Graphics Card

The 4890 is more expensive then the 5770 but i thought the 5770 being a higher number would be better?

And nope, not needing anything else besides the system itself, i'll be using my old monitor/mouse&keyboard/speakers with the new system as they're all rather good.

Thanks btw wasnt expecting someone to come in and pick most of the parts for me, was just expecting some advice haha.

Quote from Migz :

Thank's for that

The CPU i found is pretty much exactly the same as yours although mine is Nehalem and the one you posted is Lynnfield, i don't think there's much of a difference though.

I found the case, although i find it a tad ugly because of those handle things but oh well, it's much cheaper then the Antec 902/1200 i was planning to get.

This is the board i found
MSI P55-GD80 P55 Socket 1156 G ... nel Audio ATX Motherboard
As far as i can tell it's the same board as the one that you posted.

I couldn't find any solid state drives that were 80GB, so i picked the closest i could find which was a 64GB one. Smart idea though, having a SSD for the main drive and then the 2TB drive for storage, i was just going to have both on the 2TB drive.

I couldn't find that many 5 series cards by ATI, i found more 4 series.
I'm not sure which to pick out of these two
Asus HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 Dua ... Port PCI-E Graphics Card

The 4890 is more expensive then the 5770 but i thought the 5770 being a higher number would be better?

And nope, not needing anything else besides the system itself, i'll be using my old monitor/mouse&keyboard/speakers with the new system as they're all rather good.

Thanks btw wasnt expecting someone to come in and pick most of the parts for me, was just expecting some advice haha.

Had nothing else to do hehe.

The handles are a bit ugly, but the rest of the case is awesome, the interior is painted flat black and I get really good temperatures with my setup. The tinted window is nice too hah.

The mobo is $100 more over the pond than in U.S., so I think you can get away with downgrading that a bit to save some cash. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173537 would save you around 40 gbp or you could go with the GD65 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172654 either are just as good for less money, they just don't support tri-sli/CF which TBH I don't think you'd need.

64gb should be fine for a boot drive, just make sure to put any downloads/media/not-important-game-installations onto the HDD to save space. They are a bit expensive, and I forgot to factor in increased prices in the UK, but hopefully you can fit a x25-m into your budget. It supports Intel's TRIM feature which makes sure that your SSD doesn't degrade over time like they usually do. Don't fill it past around 90% or else it will slow down. Found an x25-m on amazon.co.uk if that works, just seems a bit expensive lol

About the video card situation, it's a bit confusing.
4850 = 5750
4870 = 5770
4890 = in between 5770 and 5850
(roughly)
BUT, the 5xxx series has support for the latest and greatest DX11, so it'd be more future proof to get a single 5770 then buy another and crossfire them to get better FPS if need be. They scale really well even with immature drivers, so it seems like you wouldn't lose that much performance CF'ing them.

So IMO, get a 5770 now and then upgrade to a second if you need it. The 650hx will definitely have enough power to do so since the 5770 is a lot less power-hungry than other cards (only 1 pci-e power connector)

Haha, fair enough

I swapped down to the first of those two motherboards.
So they'll still support dual sli/cf? Although im not THAT keen on sli/cf, my dad has 2 8800gt's SLI'd in his computer and it doesnt seem that good compared to a single 9800GT or something.

Hmmm, do you mean 650 or 750? Cause you've said 650 twice, but you linked to a 750? So i put a 750 in :/ If a 650 will do then thats good, more money saving.

How good is CF though? To me it seems like it's not as good as having one powerful card? :/

Quote from Migz :

Haha, fair enough

I swapped down to the first of those two motherboards.
So they'll still support dual sli/cf? Although im not THAT keen on sli/cf, my dad has 2 8800gt's SLI'd in his computer and it doesnt seem that good compared to a single 9800GT or something.

Hmmm, do you mean 650 or 750? Cause you've said 650 twice, but you linked to a 750? So i put a 750 in :/ If a 650 will do then thats good, more money saving.

How good is CF though? To me it seems like it's not as good as having one powerful card? :/

Yeah both of them will be able to dual crossfire/sli: one at x16 speeds and 1 slot at x8 electrical speed (x8 will only bottleneck a 5970, so there's no need to worry about that)

When setup properly, crossfire 5770's will perform on par with a 5870. Ideally, you should buy a single 5870 and then crossfire in the future. Buuut, it costs a lot more up front and it's impossible to find a 5870 available these days.

Meant the 650hx - it's modular so you can choose which cables are plugged in so it isn't as cluttered.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173104
Corsair is one of the best PSU companies, so you don't need to worry about the PSU failing and taking out your expensive rig, and it supplies it's stated voltages unlike cheaper ones.

In regards towards SLI and CF. You are absolutely right as one powerful card is better than 2 mediocre cards. However, these cards so good and such well priced at the consumer level, that SLI'ing or CF'ing them makes (sometimes) more sense than buying the whole card. Why? Get a 5770 now, and in a few months, pump it up and get another one. Whereas, you may have to wait the few months for the 5850 which now has gone up, and may cost as much as 2 x 5770s, but the CF setup will outperform the single card.

In addition to that, the games that you play will dictate the amount of performance gain you get in a multi graphics card setup. Some games may be morely optimized towards a SLI or Crossfire setup.

ATi drivers suck, and rarely utilize the maximum power of card, whereas the nVidia cards are loads better. -/-... This, however, means that a 5770 may get better and better and kill a 4870s @$$ ...

How good is Crossfire, and SLI? They are getting a lot better. Scaling has improved over the years, where it is actually possible of getting 2x the performance .

8800GTs in SLI will always beat up a 9800GT, hands down. And all high / mid end GTX2s will destroy the older 8/9 Series. A mere GTX260 (192) will kill any older single GPUIseries card with one exception in some SLI favoured games.(dual GPU 9800GX2). A GTX260 (216) 275, 280, 285, 295 will probably do the job.

What should you buy? Dictated by your budget and what you do with them. LFS? Haha, you can probably get away with that using a GT220 or something.

CPU-wise, a Core i7 is so powerful that it is more powerful than any old single core CPU (Northwood, Willemettes, Netburst - based, etc) CPUs at any speed. Probably even at 1 ghz considering its cycle efficient designs. Single core conroes may be a different story =D.

"DDR3 i5 modules that go up to 6GB". 4 GBs probably will be enough. Buy now, upgrade later =D. Unless you are doing some ultra workstation stuff, 4 GBs is more than plenty.