Also server CPUs have error correction and error correcting ram. Just so your trading computer doesn't accidentally turn a 0 into a 1 and cause worldwide financial collapse.
6core CPUs are great... for workstations. They're a complete waste for games, and the x6 is one of the worst choices for a gaming processer on the market. Games never use more then four cores effectively, heck, they often don't take advantage of more then two cores. Phenom x4 (down in price) is out now and nearly as effective, and the new LGA1155 i5s are coming out January ninth and will destroy them in price/performance. Not impressed with that mobo when the asrock 870 EXTREME3 exists. It's a mature product and I haven't seen any major quibbles with it (DOAs do happen of course) and it's $90 with 8x/8x crossfire, no tri/quad crossfire, and lower overclocking ability. These aren't big drawbacks, considering tri-crossfire sucks, quad-crossfire can be WORSE then tri-crossfire, 8x/8x shows little loss in performance compared to 16x/16x, and you aren't overclocking. It also comes with USB3 and Sata6 to sweeten the deal. Pretty darn good bang for your buck, get a phenom x4 to pair with it. For a few more dollars, you can get a brand name, gigabyte, if that matters to you with the GA-870A-UD3 for $100. Again, if you want to go up in price, wait for the new LGA 1155 mobos which should be coming out in the next two weeks and get yourself one of the new i5s. Crossfire is ATI only, SLI is nvidia only is all you need to know. Crossfire will lead to more driver issues, and issues with games that aren't optimised for crossfire, but IMO crossfire 5770s are by FAR your best option. Above 4gb, you won't see much benefit to extra ram. Stick with 2x2gb, and buy more when you need it. In the future, 8gb will probably need needed not too far from now, but ram is the most upgradable part of your system, and "investing" in it makes no sense, "invest" in an i5-2500k if you are going to invest in anything. For my money, I would get http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253. Getting ONE stick of ram is a bad idea, as motherboards take advantage of dual channel memory nowadays, and can access two sticks of ram at once to double throughput between the memory and CPU. You can't access two sticks of ram if you only own one stick of ram. *edit* The earlier posted deal for 8gb of ram for $70 might be worth it, that's not a bad deal. You probably don't need a great case, but this is a purely aesthetic decision and cases are a nice investment, so all the more power to you. 500w should be powerful enough for a PSU, the 5770s sip power, I would try it. Do not think you can pull of a crossfire setups on a 500w PSU all the time though, usually 500w is enough for ONE card, not two. If you haven't bought one yet, get a model that's 80 plus certified, and do NOT spend under $40 (expect to be paying more).
Depends on the game, but if I can't get AA with 1080p, I often choose 1600x900 2xAA. In perticular, with BF:BC2 jaggies are VERY noticable. In other games, like Civ5, I hardly notice a difference. Experiment and see what looks best to you. How you have your monitor setup affects this as well.
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