$1500 budget for gaming rig

Attached a screenshot of a basket I made in Newegg to suggest a rig.
Difficult to know what to choose without knowing what he wants in his choice of Monitor, Storage, GPU, but I've put together a nice setup. Perhaps if he doesnt need 2TB of storage, upgrade to a HD5850 and go for a slightly less expensive monitor.

Hope this helps!

here is what I went with. my friend decided he wanted to go amd based on advice from his brother. at least in this case his brother is an overclocker himself and knows a little about computers.

Quote:
looks good right there i couldn't see what the jay scoot had up the pic is a lil crappy

Quote:
Ehh, for a "gaming rig" I would focus on more gpu and less cpu. The i7 920 is a little over doing it for the budget.

Quote:
I chose the i7 920 as I believe it will give the system abit more longevity compared to that of an i5 or Phenom II system and it has superb overclocking ability. The HD5770 I chose will handle the majority of current games very well and if the time comes where he's needing a little more graphics power, OP's friend could add another in crossfire or consider a higher end gpu such as a 5870 or 5970, which, will undoubtably cost less by that time with the arrival of the GTX300 series.

Quote:
A large majority of games aren't CPU intensive though. There are a few here and there such as GTA4, but a Phenom II x4 or i5 can handle those perfectly. I understand the i7 920 is a better all around processor for intensive tasks, but when it comes down to gaming, it doesn't have an advantage over a x4 955/965 or i5 750 except for maybe lower voltage overclocking. I understand a lot of people try to future proof their rigs, but sadly it's an impossible thing to do when you're working with computers. Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, but its something to consider.

Quote:
see the bit more longevity part is what gets me
the i7 boards are already a dead tech arent they
am3 is gona be around for a few more years
once the i9 is out there gona use a new socket

Quote:
The last I read, the i9 platform was based on the X58 chipset too?

Quote:
i dont think its a chop set issue more of a socket issue

but i could be wrong idk it would follow intels trend thats for sure lol
amd you can still get am2 am2+ and am3 on one board lol

Quote:
i9 will remain on x58. The i7 920 is going to be retired at the beginning of the year due to Intel releasing the i7 930. x58 won't die till DDR4 ram is available.

Quote:
wat.

am3 is moving to am3r2, i dont know the difference but i do recall seeing that change later on in 2010.

i9 is not going to use a new socket, it will stay in 1366 and utilize the x58 boards as well so i dont know what your talking about

Quote:
but with amd's trend it will be backwards compatible the last 3 sockets amd has used are the same