Super Budget Build (opinions?)

[spensaur]

First of all, I am not looking for any sort of "badass" gaming power, just something to play what I already have at very high settings (WoW, HL2, etc.) I have computer building experience, but my last one was built in '05...so I am a bit behind on the times.

This is what I have available: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Black
Edition

I am planning to accompany it with these:
-GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
-EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 or PNY VCG88512GXEB GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
-mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
-Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb

A few questions, now:

1) Which video card do you all recommend out of the two? Or perhaps another? I don't want to spend more than $150 really. I have no desire for SLI at the moment, but a few months down the road I would like to be able to if I needed/wanted.
2) What about the ram choice? Any recommended brands/timings for this particular processor/mobo?
3) What sort of power supply would I need to comfortably keep things running for extended periods of time?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Helloworld_98]

4770 instead of those two, just a bit behind the GTX+, uses less energy and runs cooler. It's due to be released in May though.

ram is a good choice.

maybe a 450-500w high end PSU, 750w low-end.

 

[spensaur]

Thank you for the reply. That card looks nice, exactly what I am looking for. There won't be any issues with it and the motherboard, do you think? I am just worried of adding new technology to some rather old.

 

[Helloworld_98]

no, the motherboard has PCIe 2.0 and there isn't really any incompatibilities that could happen, you could use that card in a pc with a 590 chipset and it wouldn't make a difference.

 

[spensaur]

alright. thanks!

 

[xthekidx]

You should be planning to OC that CPU, it will be a bottleneck in your system at stock, and even overclocked may hinder your gaming. Do you already own that CPU or something? I think you should be looking at least at a 7750BE or the Intel 5200.

 

[spensaur]

Yes, I purchased the CPU a few months ago when it went on sale @ newegg. I want to build around it, so if this new radeon card would bottleneck my setup, should i consider going with the 8800 GT or something like that?

 

[xthekidx]

The 4770 will be better than the old 8800GT, the bottleneck I was referring to was the CPU you chose, its slow so you need to overclock it to get good performance.