Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Dwood]

That combo is the original bulldozer CPU which was very hot and power hungry. You're looking for the FX-8350 if you want AMD's 8 core. If your programs are highly multithreaded you should go with the 8350.

300 dollars for the GPU gets you a 3GB 7970 which is huge overkill for "light" gaming

here this might be of some help http://pcpartpicker.com/builds/?sort=rating#s=4&c=8

Well, by light gaming, I mean infrequent. I plan on playing games that are heavily taxing on a system, such as Crysis, etc. I just won't be doing it super often. It will also allow me to expand into the high resolutions when the Oculus Rift gets some upgrades and as games get more and more advanced. (We're rendering 2 separate 3d images/scenes at 1200x800 currently I believe)

Even then, though, I could do with a price drop i'm sure. I took a peek at that link... Here's my idea for the video card:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/ati-video-card-100505610

it only has 512 MB memory, but that's the best I could see.. Let's see, what my old ATI Rad 4850's stats were... brb.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=FX-8350BOX

@Warsaw, the link's not broke, it was a joke.

I'm also very conscious of how bad the heat might turn out to be- I don't want to to do water cooling if I don't have to... This computer's going to have to make several moves as I'm going to college come Jan/Feb.

@ Warsaw, I love that Motherboard you sent! Good price. I love the idea of 4 PCI-E Slots, too!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128514
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=FX-8350BOX

Or this combo with the 7950:

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=XFX-795NFC

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-vi...d7950dc23gd5v2

Good idea on the drop in GB Inner Goat, I'm looking at the Radeon Sapphire right now, I think this would be a fantastic fit: The biggest difference I see is the memory drop and price drop. Lost a good $100 bucks. I'm not against NVidia cards if they're price/perf competitive, though.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-787GHZ2