Is this a good gaming desktop?

Well my friend told me he could get a good gaming desktop from somewhere which had these specs and I wanted to know if these were any good and if they're not what shall I ask him to change?

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel
Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir CPU Cooler
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB
Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)

Yeah that should be able to handle anything you throw at it for a long time.

They're all good components, but 3 questions need to be asked to determine whether it's a good deal for you or not.

1) What's the cost of this gaming computer?

2) What Screen Resolution will you be gaming at?

3) What games will you be playing?

The second and third questions are directly related to the video card, depending on what you play and what monitor size/resolution you have determine if that video card is adequate or not. The first question is obviously the one that determines if it is a good deal or not.

For the price its going to cost you, id be pulling that 7200RPM HDD out and putting a 10k RPM drive in, and yes it would make all the difference.

Dont go i7 if you are just gaming. AMD will save you a lot of money and will offer the same performance. With the money saved you can buy a better GPU *cough*4890*cough*

~$1200 USD for his build.. I didnt notice you were from UK until after.
You could build a great gaming comp for $1k USD. Answer Elders quesitons first though.

*Obligatory "wait for i5" post*

Carry on.

The cost I think is around £1000 and I'm looking to replace my old monitor too which was a DELL 1901FP which was an old gift and the games I will play will be games such as COD 4, 5, Guild Wars and probably counterstrike and I might join my friend and play warhammer...

That video card should suffice for the games mentioned above, at least if you are sticking with your current monitor and gaming at 1280 x 1024. A 22" LCD @ 1680 x 1050 (for example) would be fine for most of the games listed too, but COD 5 @ the higher resolution with eye candy turned up would be a little more than the 4870 could take and still maintain good FPS.

Also I suggest going with an AM3 (Phenom II 945 or 955) build instead - the gaming performance is just as good (+/- 5%) and the cost should be about $300 cheaper too.

Well my computer is like dead at the moment and I'm using my brothers laptop and I'm not sure which resolution I play at. Should I get a higher video card then 4870 for COD 5 then?

Also shall I just wait untill i5 comes out?

I have a 4890 and in CoD5 I get ~100fps everything maxed @ 1080. It rarely goes below 75fps.

Wow... Thats quite a machine. Big question is really how much is this going to drain your wallet?

Edit: Yep. $1200...

Everything there is top of the line and should be able to handle anything thrown at it years to come o_o...