Need help building a gaming PC.

[Niode]

Right now I would say it would be best for people to invest in the i7, it sticks to the current mid-high roadmap intel is using by being the same socket that the i9 (and possibly beyond) will use. The i7 920 D0 overclocks like crazy, supports triple channel ram, supports 8 simultaneous threads and is hands down the best bang for buck processor right now at just under £200 if you know where to shop. There just isn't enough of an upgrade for people with core 2 CPUs (even less of an upgrade if you have something like a Q6600 or better core 2 quad) to go for the i3 or i5. i7 is the CPU that offers sufficient features to set it apart from last generation. Think of the i3 like a celeron, the i5 as a midrange pentium and the i7 as the extreme. Of course you need to make sure you get a hyperthreaded i7 such as the 920D0 don't take the higher numbers as being a better processor because some of them are still just 4 core single threaded but with added triple channel ram (the i5 and i3 only support dual channel).

Regarding graphics cards the best bang for buck right now is for the HD5770 which is a DX11 card (no nVidia GPUs in the foreseeable future are utilising DX11 yet) is only £120 and performs roughly on par with an HD4850. The HD5870 is almost as fast as a HD4870X2 (dual GPU card) and is the fastest single GPU available until they make the inevitable HD5890. nVidia are a joke right now. All of AMD's GPUs blow nVidia's away on price point AND performance now. They need to get their act together fast.