Yay for the commodities market

Due to me investing in silver half a year ago I now have around £1000 (give or take £200) to spend on a new gaming rig. Some requirements I'll have follows:

budget includes most peripherals (screen, keyboard, mouse. I have speakers, mic + headset)
>=4gig RAM
OS x64
hard drive(s) >= 500gb
Wireless with dual Ethernet port
DvD readable (I wont be burning)
A Good possibility to run GW2 on high detail

I can build it myself and setup etc etc.
I'm not to bothered about the case looking fancy, as long as it keeps the goods cool.

So what is there at the moment to tickle me, or should I wait (and possibly have more to spend)?

Thanks in advance.

Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-DS3P
Solid Caps, Supports Quad Core and RAID.

Processor: Q9450
Fast, cool, quad core and overclockable. Maybe wait till supposed July 20 price drop. Apparently the Q9550 will be the same price as the Q9450 is now (per 1000 unit quantities - how this translates to consumer price after mark up and Being British Tax is yet to be found)

Graphics: 512MB ATI 4870
ATI's newest and most awesome contender

Sound Card: Integrated
With the Creative suite of cards having driver problems in Vista, combined with the quality of on-board solutions these days, there's really no need to pay the excessive cost of the x-fi series.

RAM: 2x 2GB insert brand here 800Mhz
4GB of high-quality 800mhz ram for overclocking goodness. Rahja likes Geil, Super Talent, Mushkin and worships Crucial. I don't have personal experience with these products so can't say.

Hard Drive: Seagate SATA 500G
For all your data storage needs.

Optical Drive: Pioneer SATA 215BK
Widely regarded as one of the best around.

Case: Coolermaster CM 690
SLI certified, black and stylish, with cable management. What more could you want? PS: Link is to Antec 300 as OCUK didn't have CM 690

Power Supply: Corsair HX-620W
While this system still won't use 620w, you'll want this PSU for CrossfireX, and its delicious modular cabling.

Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium OEM 64-bit

That comes to 790 pounds including VAT. That leaves enough money for peripherals.

Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp 22 inch.

Keyboard and mouse: Logitech Cordless set.

The monitor, mouse and keyboard come to 214 pounds.

TOTAL = 1004 pounds.

That, ladies and gentleman, is a fine system.

Alternatives:
1) Cut back on hardware (Eg Q9450 to E8400) AND use money to upgrade peripherals (Eg 22inch to 24inch)
2) Monitor and keyboard/mouse are interchangeable with others. Have a look around at some reviews perhaps.

A few questions:
1) Where will you be buying it from? Any particular store you can link to?
2) Would you benefit from a quad core over a dual core? Ie: do you use applications that scale to 4 cores well?

BTW: Decided to go with OCUK for the purposes of finding British prices, and since Snograt has bought from them before (I think). However, I have no experience with them.

Yup, OcUK are probably the UK equivalent of Newegg - no problems with them at all. Nice selection there, Evil - personally I'd budget to include a Samsung 22" rather than a cheap 24", but maybe that's just me.

[OT]Celab - didn't you use to be in good ol' [WPS]?

Evil Genius: Thanks for the components and suggestions.
1) OcUK or ebuyer
2) Game, vent, music, OS, msn, xfire, and possibly a torrent, anti virus and firewall et al. Get a faster dual or will a quad not be wasted here?

Snograt: I probably was, the tag has some relevance. I've taken a giant break so I can't remember what guilds I've been in I hardly remember anyone in my friends list.

Nope, nothing there justifies a quad. Then again, there's very, very little on the market that does justify a quad. Doesn't stop us buying the damn things ><

Question is, WHEN will useful stuff (i.e. games) start supporting quads? Before you upgrade next time? I doubt it - get a duo.

(Wolf Pack Samurai - remember now? )

.. and I doubt that GW2 will run better because of it.

GW2 will have dx10, dx10 is vista, vista multi threads very, very well. it multithreads gw1 as is.

Wait.

Nehalem.

Quad core for dual core price.

Hyperthreading = "8 cores"

End.

If I had bought apple stock with the money I spent on my iPod, I would've made over 6x what the iPod cost me.

Ah yes, the first guild I was in
My warrior still hasn't gotten past droks after all this time.
PvP is where it's at

If technologies used by GW2 abuse multi core, it may be worth future proofing and over clocking.

All DX10 games can use a quad core pretty decently. Like I said, wait for Nehalem, then build. You won't be sorry.

I'm still on a single core system >.<
lols

Rahja has spoken; the thread is done.

IF you can't wait for Nehalem (I'm expecting it at Christmas so the can run an ad "A new star appeared over Nehalem...") - then go for the best quad you can get.

If you can wait, then do. It's a whole new era. Probably.