Build Advice Please

[Malconicous]

CPU:Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz(3.7 Ghz Turbo) LGA 1155 95w Quad
Mobo:MSI H67MS-E43 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H67 SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX Intel
PSU:Corsair Builder Series CX600 (CMPSU-600CX) 600W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply
GPU:MSI R6850 Cyclone PE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP
RAM:Corsair XMS 8GB (2x4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1600
HDD:Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640 GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5

From Newegg, im coming up at about $688.93 after MIR (sorry can' link)

I am looking for reliability and performance but trying to stay under $700 (closer to $600 is even better). This will be my first solo build. I mostly play Wow 10 man and PVP but want to be able to efficiently raid 25. Will also be moving on to the new Star Wrs MMO when it comes out. I dabble in other games from time to time, and tend to have multiple games, itunes, browsers, vent, spreadsheets open at a time. Overclocking might be nice but not sure I know how to so either way would be fine.

I chooe most of the above from lurking around and seems they have good reps. My questions are:

1. will this build work together.
2. will it perform well at games (I have it on wired High speed internet/42" 1080 LCD)
3. are there things I can change to keep it reliable and get good performance while decreasing cost or increase performance without increasing cost?
4. am I forgetting any parts that I may need to add. (except optical drives, I plan to use the one from old pc for now)

Thanks in advance for the advice!

[llDemonll]

if your budget is that low you should be on an amd setup, not intel

[ld420]

Case? The 6850 is a long card. You can drop to 4gb ram to save some $$. But, like Demon stated, an AMD setup will give you more bang for the buck if you are really budgeted.

[nwo]

Everything will work well together. If you want to overclock, you would have to pick a P67 chipset motherboard as well as an i5 2500k CPU. You will not be able to overclock the i5 2500 CPU you have right now on that H67 mobo.

Might as well bump the HDD up to 1TB, only a few bucks more.

---------- Post added 2011-04-14 at 06:43 PM ----------

Case? The 6850 is a long card. You can drop to 4gb ram to save some $$. But, like Demon stated, an AMD setup will give you more bang for the buck if you are really budgeted.

AMD is only better if you are on a super low budget ($300-400) otherwise Intel is by far a better choice, especially for gaming. Since the OP has a reasonable budget of $600-700, there is no reason to go for AMD over Intel as it will give you significantly less performance all around. I would not recommend dropping down to 4GB of RAM since the OP clearly stated that he likes to multi-task a lot.

[Marrowwind]

I suggest a full sized p67 mobo over what you picked, this is the cheapest one. You can also bump up your PSU quality for ~$15 if you wanted too; Corsair Enthusiast

I also suggest staying with sandy bridge, I think it fits in the $700 range. But I suggest the i5 2400 over the 2500 if you're not getting any of the 'k's; You won't notice the difference and it has a better price/performance ratio based on 2400 Passmark and 2500 Passmark.

If you stick with the PSU you picked, grab the i5 2400 over 2500 and the mobo I suggested, you could bump up your card to a OC'd 6870 and stay at the same price.

[Biernot]

About the RAM:
Try to use standard 1333Mhz. 1600MHz brings no visible performance boost, but it often runs more unstable (most of the time it also needs increased voltage). Also, unless you have a windowed case, stick to so-called "value ram". It might not look so fancy, but the cooling is actually better, because there is more air space between the modules without the added heatspreaders.
Example: 2x4GB Kingston 1333MHz Value RAM vs. 2x4GB Kingston 1600MHz HyperX RAM = $15 saved.

HDD:
If you know, that you will not need a lot of space, then the caviar black is a good choice. Else i would suggest the 1TB Caviar Blue for the same price. The Caviar Black has a "24/7 certificate" (it's designed to run around the clock, like in a server) and an extended warranty of 5 years. The Caviar blue only has 3 years warranty, but the same speed and a bit more space.

The rest of the parts is IMHO a very solid choice, and if i had to buy a computer myself now, i probably would go for nearly the same pieces.
- SandyBridge i5 is a no-brainer. And as i don't plan to OC, i might aswell save the 10 bucks on the cpu and the 20-30 bucks on the board.
- MSI produces excellent graphics cards with superb cooling solutions, either Cyclone or TwinFrozr. (I have a 5770 Hawk now with a TwinFrozr)
- Corsair builds excellent PSUs, while being reasonably priced.

[Scoobasteve1226]

Actually, an i3-2100 build would be the best way to go, if strictly for gaming.