if you really want 4870 x2, you can buy a crossfire motherboard and make hd4870 crossfire. That would be a total killer. Though i must say 4870 x1 is just fine. It will max games except crysis.Shegevara

its been already said that the 4870x2 is BETTER then two 4870 in performance and it is cheaper then two. Wait one month, i know its tough but then that gives you time to research on your build and get everything ready.

well i saw you say q6600 like everyone else

E7200 is da best processr imho, but to really unlock its potential overclock a llittle bit!

good choice! as you can see in my sig

a pizza box

Your using this for gaming?

Go with the E8400 dual core, it is better for gaming then the Q6600, which is only good if your playing supcom and thats about it, lol. Overclock a little bit you wont regret it, you really can't mess anything up with gigabyte unless you do some crazy ass thing which you really can't. I thought that originaly too

no that would kill crysis bro and well

$400 gpu 4870 x2

$300 monitor anything at target or bestbuy will work

$100 hdd western digital, 7200 rpm, 3gb/s

$100 memory OCZ, G Skill are good

$50 cpu fan asus vapor bearing, or lot of people like artic freezer 7(its cheaper)

$100 mobo gigabyte whatever, make sure it supports 45nm processors, look in specs

$85 case i reccomend raidmax simolodon

$170 cpu

$50 keyboard and mouse

$100 power supply maybe a tad more or less. thermaltake has done me well

~ $1300 with shipping. I reccomend using newegg because they aren't half bad and very relieable. Pretty good prices.

A.) get what ever case that looks like it has enough fans and good airflow. Raidmax Smilodon case keeps my system real cool, my cpu idles around 25C and it is over clocked from 2.5-3.5. So its good. Lots of fans lots of room and looks cool. the green one is better BTW.

B.) A good 600 watt around $150 would be good for you. i like my thermaltake powersupply, it runs very nice. But there are other options.

C.) Get a LCD, save on space. They run fine. If your in a dorm room, which are tiny as hell i swear my bedroom @ home must be 3 times bigger then my dorm room.

Wait to get the 4870x2 which comes out soon for your graphics card. The E8400 would be good for you since you guys are gona use it to do some gaming and if you can learn to overclock(which isnt hard after some trial and error) you can crank that bad boy up to 4Ghz. You will want a upgraded cpu heatsink, i have a Asus vapor bearing cpu heatsink that works very nice, keeps overclocked cpu @ 25 Idle, and 40 most extreme. For your graphics card, i reccomend a gigabyte, they are very n00b friendly and are very high quality. You don't need a "crossfire" board 1 graphics port is good. So i would spend at the most $120 on your motherboard. oh yea make sure if you get the E8400, that your motherboard supports 45nm proccessors.

Harddrive, western digital makes a good 7200 rpm, 3.0 ghz/s drive. Reccomend 500 gigs

umm since you have a lot of money might as well go with 4 gigs, OCZ, G Skill are both pretty good names.

For instructions on how to build(its fairly straight forward, color cordinated, gigiabyte gives you some instructions with the mobo that are very helpfull) you can search in youtube, "how to build pc"

WAIT DID YOU PUT THERMAL GREASE ON THE PINS BEFORE YOU PUT IN?

You need to do that otherwise it will overheat. Probably why you are not posting. All you need to do is put some greese on the pins, it doesn't need to be perfect just some. You might have to take your cpu out, and reinstall it.