Main difference between i5/i7 is hyperthreading. If you're building a gaming rig then go for i5.

I've read that some nVidias are getting the blue lines too but mostly is AMD/ATI cards.
I think many of these would love to switch to nVidia. Only thing is that 2GB seems nicer than 1,5GB. :-D
You'll be fine with either.

TeeJay82's talk about swapping stockcooling is generally wise but you'll do fine with stock if you're not going to overclock and you're not too sensitive to a bit of noise.

Sorry about that. I was just giving my opinion. You don't have to take it. There are a lot of others who are better qualified in this area than I am.

Thanks again - all opinions welcome!

I do want to overclock a little, seems to be very easy with the Asus boards (I overclocked my current rig from 2.6Ghz to 3.4Ghz fairly easily).

Difficult to know what to do about the card. Do we know if the blue lines problem is fixable? And will a 2GBHD6950 offer much better performance than a 1.5GBGTX580?

In general, the 580 is a bit faster in games, but also more expensive.
If I were building a system right now for Clod, this would be my choice of card, mostly because nobody knows when the three blue stripes issue will be addressed for the 6970 - it may be next month or next year - and the 580 has proven itself to run Clod very well.

Like my sig below I also clean my computer out daily I live 500ft from my cable provider network ..pay for 10mbps i get 21.03 download I update my drivers, use only processes i need i close all others On cliffs with 4 gb of ddr3 dual channel i use 24% of my ram

I'm not bragging It took me awhile to have a fair computer to play the games i want. I was never any good at computers but i read alot and asked alot of question

The pay off is i can play this at high settings without major bugs or lines My rig runs quiet and cool

The only over kill i used was the 750watt psu ...Future upgrades idea but i would be fine with 500 -600watts right now

Understand. You know u have the 590 with 3GB. ;-)

Either way ATI/AMD or nVidia you'll max the game and will get beautiful quality with high fps. The blue stripes will sooner or later be fixed.
The HD6950 is cheaper, got more memory and might be oc:d to a 6970.
Is CLOD your only game(or main game)?
U have to make a choice.

The 6950 is much cheaper than the 580 plus more RAM, but those blue lines would annoy the tits off me.

Looks like the next patch is out today - can anyone with 6950 or 6970 say if it's been fixed?

I don't have that card but it's still there accordingly.

5770 = CHEAPER + plays COD + you can OC + no blue lines + HD + SLI + plays in high settings great card for under $150

Thanks Gents.

I ended up going for the i5 and GTX580. Sod's law dictates they'll have the blue lines fixed before next weekend when I take delivery but it looks like the 580 is a very good card anyway.