Alright, so my friend is going to be getting a new computer soon. As he is almost clueless as far as computer hardware goes, he's asked me to put together something for him. I'm no savant, and have what I'd consider average knowledge of this stuff. His budget is ~1.5k Canadian, and he intends to game on it extensively. Here's the list of what I'm going to set him up with:
 
 Antec Three Hundred Case

Zalman CNPS9900 LED CPU Cooler for Socket 775 / 1366

Intel Core™ i7 Processor 920 2.66GHz w/ 8MB Cache

Asus P6T SE X58 w/ TripleDDR3 2000, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, 1394, PCI-E, CrossFireX

Corsair 6GB XMS3-1600 PC3-12800 Core™ i7 Triple Channel DDR3 Kit (3 x 2GB) w/ Intel XMP

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black 7200rpm SATA II w/ 32MB Cache

Samsung SH-S223B 22x SpeedPlus™ DVD-Writer, SATA, Black, OEM

PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad Power Supply

Samsung SyncMaster P2370 23in Widescreen LCD w/ DVI, 16:9, 2ms, Black (having his 800x600 old beige piece of shit hooked up to this thing would be a travesty)
 
This totals up to ~$1400 (Canadian). Most of the parts (power supply, memory, harddrive, processor, cooler) I'm pretty much set on. However, you may or may not have noticed that there is no GPU in that list. This is where the issue gets complicated. I have an old 8800GT, which probably could make for a quick-fix. With nVidia's new generation past Christmas, and ATI's 5800s debut, I'm debating whether or not I should recommend for him to shell out the money now for a GTX 260/4870(x2), wait until he gets a bit more money and go for a 5850/5870 (using the 8800GT in the meantime), or go in for the long haul and see what nVidia has up its sleeve. He's waiting for Windows 7's release to get the components.
 
The display runs native 1920x1080. Any ideas/input about the build, specifically what solution for the GPU? I'm more familiar with nVidia (if we go that route, going with eVGA) so recommendations on brands for ATI chipsets would be nice also.

Umm if you wait for the long haul you might as well see what Nvidia and ATI will both supply you with. ATI has both a 5870 X2 and a 5900 that have yet to come out, and Nvidia has been playing catchup for sometime since the advent of the 4800 series. So perhaps you should just have him get the ATI 5870. It'll last a good two to three years. I'm still using my ATI Radeon 4870, the 512mb model, and it's still handling anything i throw at it.

why i7 920 over the new i7 860?
 
Switch socket types the 1366 is dead to my knowledge.
 
GPU - GTX275 or wait til DX11 cards.

I would vote the 5870/5850. Check out this article
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3658 
The article is about the 5770 but on page 5 or so it starts with some compare tests with most of the ati and nvidia cards.

I'd say make the system you have listed up there slightly cheaper.   

• Replace the hard drive with the Samsung F3, same size and performance at a lower price.   
•  You can afford to drop to 4 gigs of RAM, 4 is more than enough and if he's having problems at a later date buying another stick of RAM is easy and cheap.
• Check the DVD drive is the cheapest possible, there's no point paying for anything more expensive unless you want lightscribe or something.
• Get a smaller PSU, 750 is more suited to SLI or Crossfire, 550 wound power that machine without a problem.
• If you still can't squeeze a decent GPU into the system think about getting a 21 inch monitor or something and don't pay too much attention to the response time, anything under 10ms is fine

" why i7 920 over the new i7 860?  Switch socket types the 1366 is dead to my knowledge.  GPU - GTX275 or wait til DX11 cards. "  

Ya wasn't sure what waas going on with 1366 and 1166 socket types. Figured 1366 was gonna die much like how AMD did with AMD64s on Socket 754 to 939. In theory same chip different socket type.

" why i7 920 over the new i7 860?  Switch socket types the 1366 is dead to my knowledge.  GPU - GTX275 or wait til DX11 cards. "

" why i7 920 over the new i7 860?  Switch socket types the 1366 is dead to my knowledge.  GPU - GTX275 or wait til DX11 cards. "

Alright, I appreciate the GPU input, and since I didn't give the reasons for the power supply etc., I guess I should. His budget has also increased at this point.
 
 @monkeyroach said:

"920 is faster the 860
1366 isnt dead, the new i9 will be 1366"

"I'd say make the system you have listed up there slightly cheaper.   

• Replace the hard drive with the Samsung F3, same size and performance at a lower price.   
•  You can afford to drop to 4 gigs of RAM, 4 is more than enough and if he's having problems at a later date buying another stick of RAM is easy and cheap.
• Check the DVD drive is the cheapest possible, there's no point paying for anything more expensive unless you want lightscribe or something.
• Get a smaller PSU, 750 is more suited to SLI or Crossfire, 550 wound power that machine without a problem.
• If you still can't squeeze a decent GPU into the system think about getting a 21 inch monitor or something and don't pay too much attention to the response time, anything under 10ms is fine

 
I'm building a new system soon for myself, I've opted for a slightly cheaper build with a i5 Core instead.  As Subject2Change mentioned the 1366 socket is being phased out, the 1156 is becoming the normal for the next couple of years.  Also I'm waiting til the end of the month to see if nVidia release anything that rivals the HD 5850 or at least forces ATI to drop their prices. 
 
Make sure you post whatever you decide man, I'm curious to see how you end up. 
 
EDIT: I live in the UK so I may have lied to you about the F3 being cheaper but it's definitely a good hard drive so give it a google."

"If the computer is going to be used for gaming, the GPU will be the most important part of the whole unit. In other words, you may as well not bother with the build at all unless you've got the GPU right. ATI's new 5000 line is pretty disappointing so far, showing only marginal (and sometimes subpar) performance compared to last generation cards. You might wait for the new Nvidia GTX 300 series but they won't come out for at least another 6 months, after which you'd probably have to wait an additional 4-6 months for the prices to stabilize. They're Directx11 cards and bound to show a large improvement over the current gen, but a year might be too long to wait. For the current time, I'd choose a GTX 275 or GTX 285 with that budget. Not only will it provide great performance now, but in the future you can easily SLI it up and remain up to date for cheap."

" @Subject2Change said:

" why i7 920 over the new i7 860?  Switch socket types the 1366 is dead to my knowledge.  GPU - GTX275 or wait til DX11 cards. "  

LGA 1366 is where all of the high-end processors are going to arrive. The i7 920 > i7 860, and the enthusiast level i9 processors will also be arriving on it. LGA 1156 is more for the mainstream level anyway.   If the computer is going to be used for gaming, the GPU will be the most important part of the whole unit. In other words, you may as well not bother with the build at all unless you've got the GPU right. ATI's new 5000 line is pretty disappointing so far, showing only marginal (and sometimes subpar) performance compared to last generation cards. You might wait for the new Nvidia GTX 300 series but they won't come out for at least another 6 months, after which you'd probably have to wait an additional 4-6 months for the prices to stabilize. They're Directx11 cards and bound to show a large improvement over the current gen, but a year might be too long to wait. For the current time, I'd choose a GTX 275 or GTX 285 with that budget. Not only will it provide great performance now, but in the future you can easily SLI it up and remain up to date for cheap.  "