Hey all,
It's been about 3-4 years since I've built a computer, and that was back when the Nvidia 6800 ultra was the king and the Western Digital 74GB 10000rpm hard drive was the bomb. Anyways... my computer is obviously dated by now, and I need to build a new computer. I'm hoping to make an above average gaming PC with the room to expand in another year or two to keep up with the rest of the gaming world.

This build is naturally going to be expensive as I have to also buy a monitor and am buying a blu-ray drive. (Thank god that format war is finally over)
Does anyone know of a way to run a Blu-Ray disc or display whatever my PC is showing onto a HDTV? How would the quality be?

The lack of a case is because I'll probably go Dangerden and build my own watercooling setup.
Browsed Newegg and have a rough draft in mind... feel free to critique as harshly as possible.
So here goes...

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813188013

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115017

OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227267

LITE-ON Black 12X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM SATA Blu-ray DVD-ROM Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827106225

MSI NX8800GTS 512M OC GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] bnx8800gts

ZALMAN ZM1000-HP Continuous 1000W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.91 Modular Heatpipe-Cooled SLI PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817379009

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136074

Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support 300 cd/m2 700:1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009094

Creative Sound Blaster SB0570 Audigy SE 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6829102002

Thanks a ton in advance guys!

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] CatId=2775

cheaper but same LCD

i acty just got mine in2day AND OMG ITS SO S3XY!

i wont use it thow till my pc is built! lol

tigerdirect is 1day shiping for me even thow i dont pay for 1 day shiping wow are they great!

I'd go with EVGA Graphics card personally, I also would go with a Thermaltake 1200W power supply, although you would be fine with 700W for your setup.

Also you could do better on the hard drive, for not much more, you could probably get a 500GB drive, or a Raptor for game performance.

Acer monitors suck big time, and I would only still to Samsung. They are by far the best. If you can't afford a 22" go with a 20, or 19. The Samsung is much better quality. As far as a sound card you don't really need it, just use the onboard 7 channel sound.

Also, go with the 750i SLI FTW instead of the aging 680i. Unless you plan on 3-Way SLI, you won't need a 780i or 790i.

everything u said is nice but 750I and the acer lcd.

go with 780i and go with acer.

ACER is a known good trusted company. samsung LCD'S arnt that all that atm. they make good tv's thow.

Better idea: Avoid nVidia's buggy/crappy Intel chipsets altogether. You don't need SLI for your setup, so there is no reason to put up with the headaches.

My Acer monitor works/looks great Millardtech. I am not its not topend but I picked up on sale at $199 for a 22". Pretty solid deal.

Instead of the motherboard you picked get this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131299

Video card is fine, but go eVGA so you can step-up for a 2xx series cards for just the difference in price in 90 days.

As for the monitor you picked, that is basically the one I have. It looks great.

Huh? Can you clarify that more? The video card I posted, I think I can actually get for even cheaper because I think there was an open box one lying around on Newegg somewhere. I just noticed that upgrading the internal hard drive really doesn't cost much more at all lol. Definitely will do that too. Oh, and probably take the 750i Mobo too.

I never knew there was so much anti-SLI due to "buggyness"? I had the plan of just slapping another 8800GTS on and SLI them together in another year when I need it and when the price drops further. Is this not a good plan? Because I could also add more Ram as needed, and probably overclock the CPU with the watercooling.

It is a terrible plan. SLI is either right now or not at all. The problem is this: the 280 is going to be out within the next 2 weeks and will best your 8800GT SLI setup. So figure this. You buy one card now ($200) buy one later ($100), but the 280 will cost $250 by then, use less power and heat and smack your setup around. SLI is a marketing trap to take money from the under informed more than a great tech. Now SLI DOES have uses- mainly for gaming at resolutions above 1920x1200, or SLI can help in some 3d rendering applications.

Now, for the average user SLI offers little to no benefit. Sure SLI will allow you to AoC at 2580x1600 vs 1920x1200, but if you monitor maxes out at 1680x1050 what did you gain? Zip. One card can already max the game out.

nVidia and Intel do not like each other, and nVidia's Intel chipsets demonstrate this strained relationship. There is data corruption issues, weird BSOD errors, and other issues not present on Intel cihpsets. Ask knowledge posters here they will tell you the same thing. Most of us that post on here in a high volume build PCs for more than just a hobby, so we know how tech works together and what to recommend.

Adding a 2nd card, do not provide a 50% improvement, just like a dual core CPU is not 50% faster than a single core. Real world improvement is 30% max, and it depends on the game being written to take advantage of SLI. If it does not, little/no gain. As stated above, if resolution is the main gain, that meaningless to you.

You don't need watercooling to overclock a CPU. A good air cooler will get you very close to what water can do.

eVGA offers a step-up card on all video cards for the first 90 days of ownership. Basically you can "change your mind" and send your card back to eVGA and buy another one. Your old card is credited (full price paid) towards the new card. So if the 8800GT was $200 and the 2xx series card was $400, you send the 8800GT + $200 and you get a 2xx series card in return. Remember, you got 3 months out of 8800GT before trading it in to.

Do not buy openbox on Newegg. It is very hit and miss, and not worth the limited savings. MIRs are not valid on open box items either.

gadget nerds an idiot. oh yeah, samsung makes good lcd tvs but not lcd monitors. wow, acer is not worse than samsung. samsung is much better at making monitors than acer.

I'm no expert but am building a new computer now also . I would suggest getting a better motherboard if your trying to " futureproof " your machine . That motherboard is a little dated and doesnt support pci express 2.0 . Which your cards are . Also dont skimp on your power supply , From the pictures ive seen the new nvidia 2xx cards take a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector . The way i look at it is your performance is only as good as its weakest link like why buy a great video card if you have a crummy low res. monitor. Just my 2 cents

do not future proof motherboards at this point, nayhelm in less than a year, different socket = no point
as for monitor, any brand that doesn't have consistent dead pixels is a good brand IMO
dont get an old sound card, either a good new one or onboard which is just as good of sound but slight performance hit while gaming