Building a Gaming Computer

After a visit to Fry's Electronics this morning, I've decided I feel a lot safer just building my own computer. I don't have much experience, my current desktop has a hard drive with only 30 Gigs of memory (that pretty much sums up how old it is) . . . and that's basically why I'm looking to start from scratch.

The build I'm currently thinking about is this one, http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/26286.aspx

I was just wondering if any more tech savvy people out there could help me out, possibly telling me if it's even a good build.

Thanks in advance!

That looks pretty good, you could switch the case for something else if you want to, you could also switch out the GTX 260 for a 4870 if you could find one in that price range.

Its not bad.

I would not purchase that sound card. I ****ing hate Creative. I would rather bathe in pig **** than ever buy another creative product.

I would also buy a different PSU. I have that same series PSU and had it suddenly die after about 1 year of use. A similar thing happened to someone else in this forum after about 4 months. It might just be a coincidence. It might not. But if it wasnt for that, i was pretty satisfied with the PSU.

if it in usa you can get better for 1000$ Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition + Great motherboard + 4GB OF ram + Scythe Mugen II + Two Kaze Fan + HAF 932 + 4890 1GB or 4850x2 2GB For more power at moment until Release of 5870 : 5870x2

the people who put artic cooling Freezer Pro 7 In Bigger case then Micro-atx are mostly uneducated about the Performances of airflow : as far i did read about them that the Scyte mugen II & xigmatek Dark Knight is far Better then all cpu cooler That do ARtic cooling by a Large margin of performances

and on top of that they are the same price of not less expensive :D : the motherboard P5Q PRo is Far Behind UD3R & P Which are the latest gen of P45 * for 90-100$

Thanks for all the replies so far guys, I really appreciate the help.

So far I've modified the build in the link I provided, switching out a few things which I'll list. I'm not sure if I've made good choices, but they seemed to save a bit of money and/or improve the system.

Hard Drive: I switched the 1TB for a 500GB, I imagine the savings is worth it, and I can always upgrade.

Motherboard: I switched the ASUS P5QL PRO for a Foxconn A7DA-S AM2+/AM2. While $15 more, it elimated the need for a sound card. At the same time, it seemed more advanced in regards to features and PCI slots.

Ram: I switched the CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB for pqi TURBO 4GB (2 x 2GB) . The latency speeds and price seemed better, but I'm not sure.

Graphics Card: I'm torn between the GTX 260 and the Radeon 4870, but I'm leaning towards the 260 since it has more memory.

Optical Drive: Every one I have found that's recommended is no longer available. I'm not really sure which to get.

For, the case, processor, cooler, and power supply I'm utillizing the ones from the build I linked to.

All in all, my current total comes out to about $720. Not too bad, just wondering if the changes I made were good/stupid/horrifying/blasphemous/etc.

Thanks for any feedback in advance, I appreciate the comments and help.

Sorry, I just realized that the motherboard I chose was incompatible with the cpu, so I switched it back to the original build version (ASUS P5QL).

I'm pretty dead set on the build above now, with the changes to the Ram and the Hard Drive being the only difference.

One more question however, should I get XP or Vista?