Future (Gaming) Build

Most people are going to tell you to go intel over AMD at this point, although depending on your budget/overclocking plants, the AMD 6000+ may be the way for you to go.

The 4870 would be a better choice for that eventual 22-24" monitor.

I've heard bad things about the Optiarc, consider the Samsung version (it's probably only like a couple bucks difference).

Check out the WDC 640gb version for a harddrive. It's very similarly priced on NewEgg to it's 500gb version.

Vista = DirectX10 (and can use 4gb of ram), may or may not be worth it to you if you already have a copy of XP on hand. If you have to buy an OS, definitely go Vista, but if you have an XP disc lying around, you may not want to shell out that $100.

It kind of depends on whether or not you want to overclock. The e7200 is a pretty good overclocker at a comparable price range.

For a motherboard look for a P35 or P45 for your budget.

A new Vista or XP is going to set you back a pretty penny, but at a comparable price (so go with Vista if this is the case).

don't bother with future.. you will buy a 1500$ system today and in 3 months there will be new technology. If you build something for 600-700$ you will have respectable performance and save money to change to new technology faster.

I would say

cpu: e7200
mobo: gigabyte ep35-ds3l
hdd: seagate 250 or 500 gb
ram: 2 or 4 gb ddr800 (as you wish)
gpu: 4870 or 4850 depending on the resolution you will game (under 1600x1200 get 4850)
heatsink: artic cooling freezer 7 pro (to overclock)

i guess it would be better and cheaper than what you want

p.s power supply... antec, corsair, ocz, 500 watts for 4850, 600 watts for 4870.

All good advice from zvandy there. Stay with AMD, it's better value on low budgets and especially if you don't care about overclocking.

I'd change the motherboard to this:

MSI K9A2 CF, AMD 790X, Socket AM2+, PCI-E 2.0 (x16)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=751119

It's 56 GBP (12 GBP more than the GA-MA69G-S3H) at that store, and for the difference you get PCI-E 2.0, a second slot for eventual Crossfire later, a newer chipset (790x instead of 690g), compatibility with Phenom quads (for an eventual upgrade later).

If possible, get the K9A2 Platinum, 93 GBP.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=751118
Compared to the K9A2 CF, it has the advantage that it does Crossfire at full 16x+16x, not 8x+8x. This improves performance in some games, especially at 1680x1050 or higher.

The X2 6000+ is already overkill for most games, no worries about that part.

Get the HD 4870 if you can, of course.

PSU: 750TX: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=684732
Case: RC-690: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=644041
DVD: SH-S223F: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=819459

Edit: the GA-MA69G-S3H does claim to support Crossfire, but it's very bad for it. The second slot runs at 4x PCI-E 1. In contrast, the K9A2 Platinum's second slot runs at 16x PCI-E 2 which gives it 8 times more bandwidth. Your second HD 4870 (or HD 4850) would be massively bottlenecked in the GA-MA69G-S3H. By the way, that's exactly what an Intel build with a P35 motherboard would do too, even a luxury MB like aBit IP35 Pro.

For the X2 6000+, is the Windsor or Brisbane Core better?? I originally had the windsor core priced

Yes misco do charge, a minimum of £5 i believe for 1-3 day deliverys, or £20 for next day