Quote Originally Posted by Warsaw View Post
As for the CPU, it's solid as far as AMD CPUs go, but obviously any Black Edition would be better. Ideally, a Phenom II X4 955, since after that point you are paying for nothing.
Yeah, for $20 more, the 955 Black is very overclockable if you get a decent aftermarket HSF for it. I'm still looking at it for my BF3/RO2 build (Yeah, my iMac barely runs RO2 Beta at 35 FPS on high settings).

Quote Originally Posted by Freelancer View Post
The PSU is a very critical component, it's never happened out of the ones I've had that have failed but a failed PSU can fry the rest of your components as well. It's also something that you can't really replace with a cheaper version when it goes out either, so better to spend an extra $30-$50 initially.
Yeah, it's really not good to skimp on the PSU. I've used lower end brands like Raidmax and Rosewill before and they are quite decent. I doubt you'll have much trouble with either of those. It's worth noting that even higher end PSU's like OCZ have been known to fail, as well and you can't really avoid it. I would say the sweet spot for a PSU is a Coolermaster 500W - 550W. If you want Crossfire-X you'll probably need a 650W PSU and SLI you should have 750W or higher. (depending on what cards you have).