Some advice on components for a new PC

[SmokeMeAKipper]

The PSU on my current 4-year old PC has blown so I've decided it's time to get a new one (which I've been thinking of doing for a while to be honest). Thanks to the advice in another thread here and the fact they won the Desktop PC award for service and reliability in the PC Pro 2009 awards I'm going to go with PCspecialist.co.uk.

You can customise the bits you want and I'm loking at getting something like:

Procesor: Intel? Core?i7 Processor i7-860 (2.80GHz) 8MB Cache + HyperThreading
RAM: 8GB CORSAIR XMS3 DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2: DDR3, SATA II, 2 PCI, 1 PCI-Ex
Storage: 2 x 500GB SATA hard drives
DVD: 2 x 22x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER
Grapics card: 1GB ATI RADEON? HD 4870 PCI EXPRESS
Power Supply and Case cooling: 600W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor cooling: SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER

I'm going to be using it mainly for gaming and photo/video editing. My questions are:

1. Do I need 8GB RAM or will 4GB be sufficient?
2. Is the power supply I've picked there OK for all of the above?
3. Is the processor cooling enough or should I get more (there are other, more expensive options)?
4. Is that combination good enough for playing latest PC games (e.g. Crysis)?
Any advice or comments on the rest of my spec wold be very much appreciated thank you . Feel free to go on pcspecialist and have a fiddle yourselves if you have the time and inclination!!

[briareos_kerensky]

4gb will suffice for the normal home use, if you play 8gb might be great for future games. However, since you're going for a i7 system, why not 6gb for a nice triple channel kit?
PSU is OK, but I'd buy a branded PSU; nameless PSUs often deliver less power then they advertise, have less stable voltages and so on.
For CPU cooling, it's hard to tell if it's OK or not, copper heatpipes are common nowadays...both at home and at work I use a Cooler Master V8 and I'm quite pleased; other options might include Noctua, Scythe and Thermalright with proper fans. Don't forget to add a few 92 and/or 120mm case fans, even the best CPU cooler will be useless if the hot air stays in the case.
The PC sounds good enough, I'd rearrange the HDDs as a single 150gb for OS and programs plus two or more HDDs for anything else. Or better, single HDD for the computer and a good NAS with RAID 1for data...but I have very particular tastes when it comes to disk subsystems

[abigsmurf]

4gb is the current sweet spot but games will naturally get more and more ram intensive so 8gb is a decent for future proofing. Don't get 6 gb. i7 860's are dual channel, not triple channel like the 920s.

With PSU's go for a branded one. You *can* get away with a branded one but you're taking a gamble. Remember, if a PSU fails, it can get your motherboard and everything connected with it. Branded ones also tend to be quieter and deliver 'cleaner' power. 600W is about right. Coolermaster are one of the cheaper branded PSUs.

Graphics card: the 4870 is a great card but... the 5xxx series is out now which is the next generation (DX11). They are however pretty pricey. £200 for the 5850, £300 for the 5870. Both offer quite a significant boost over the 4870. If you''re willing to wait, there's the 5770 which is beginning to surface in the tech news sites, should offer great bang:buck if the 4770 is anything to go by. It's expected to be released in the next month.

Doooon't put the HDD's in a RAID, it'll potentially cause all sorts of headaches if you don't know what you're doing. Put applications on one HDD, Windows on the other.

Just to check, you realise that's an MATX (smaller form factor) motherboard right? Whilst you may be able to get a 4870 on there, it could be tight and cooling could be affected.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Doooon't put the HDD's in a RAID, it'll potentially cause all sorts of headaches if you don't know what you're doing. Put applications on one HDD, Windows on the other.

Just to check, you realise that's an MATX (smaller form factor) motherboard right? Whilst you may be able to get a 4870 on there, it could be tight and cooling could be affected.

Thanks - that's really helpful. I wasn't going to go for RAID - I'll manually backup some stuff on both drives plus I have an extenal 500GB for backing up as well so no real need.

Hmm, I'll have another look at the motherboards.

I'm also thinking of going for an AMD PHENOM II X4 965 BLACK EDITION 3.4 GHz SOCKET AM3 8MB CACHE processor instead of the Intel because it's cheaper (though I realise not as powerful).

8GB RAM seems to be the way forward though.