That is very much a take it or leave change Nuit. It really depends, if you are desperate to save the money or want to invest it in a better graphics card then it can be worthwhile going down to a dual core i3. They are good chips, I'm just hesitant nowadays to recommend going with a dual core. Most games are GPU bound rather than CPU bound but games are increasingly taking advantage of multi-threading and that is whre quad core and above chips really take off. Battlefield 3 is a current example of a game that really does need and take advantage of a quad core chip and with the octo core PS4/NextBox multi threaded performance is only going to become more and more important.

 

Here's what I've got now. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KhHw

Changed:
Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core -> Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core
Western Digital Scorpio Black 250GB 2.5" -> Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM
HIS Radeon HD 7850 2GB -> Asus Radeon HD 7770 1GB

Added:
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler

Removed:
Samsung Spinpoint M8 640GB 2.5" 5400RPM (Don't know why I had that added.)

Before I change the RAM, is it better two have two seperate modules or one of equal memory? Also for future reference, lets assume Skyrim is the most PC intensive game I'll be playing and I just want it to play medium quality at a decent resolution.

 

With the way RAM prices are now and your budget as well the planned motherboard. Two 4 gig modules for a total of 8 gigs of RAM would be best. From there if you want an upgrade later there will be two free slots and you'll be able to double it up to 16 gigs of RAM which is more than futureproof enough.

You really don't need the CPU cooler, the stock cooler from Intel that will come with the chip is perfectly adequate and isn't too loud. Since that i5 isn't a K series chip you won't be doing any overclocking so you really won't need any better.

As for your GPU as another option I would suggest this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202004

That is a 1 gig Sapphire 7850. It's 155 dollars after rebate, you still get the two free games, and it shaves around 20-30 dollars off getting a 2 gig version of the card.

As for Skyrim, with the i5, and the 1 gig 7850 you should be set to play at high settings I'd guess at 1080p resolution.

EDIT: One further thought, is that if you don't care about the games, you should be able to sell the codes for Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite and that will push the price down to below what you'd be paying for the 7770.

 

Two RAM modules are better, since you can then have them run in dual channel, which is faster. For Skyrim the 7770 should be enough, as can be seen from those benchmarks. Do you plan on overclocking your CPU? If not, then you don't really need the custom CPU cooler, except maybe if you live in some really warm area - then it might be somewhat useful.

 

Okay, getting lot's of input from the separate places is kinda hard to keep up with but I'll try my best.

thezorch on tff recommended this build for my budget and I was thinking of incorporating some of it into my build or just going with that one altogether. But first I gotta check if the prices are still viable.

 

Okay, parts have been moved around again. Man this is a lot of work researching and recompiling lists. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KiPi

It's $725.91 with shipping but I'll ask my brother to cover the extra $22.

 

That is a pretty nice build and should last a while. The AM3+ socket on the motherboard can take the octo core Piledriver chips that just came out and should be compatible with Steamroller too so if you ever need an upgrade on the CPU side you are covered. It's also Crossfire compatible too which is always a nice option.

Congrats on going AMD by the way, don't often recommend AMD anymore but its always nice when someone goes that way anyway. Apart from that the whole build looks just fine. Can't see any blatant flaws or problems with it at all.

 

The PSU is overkill - you could easily go down to 500W and still have plenty of unused power, but other than that the build looks fine.

 

I was thinking the PSU would be better for future upgrades but other than it being overkill for the current setup will it conflict in any way having it?

 

No conflict at all, and if you whack in one of those power hungry FX 8350's and overclock it and throw in a second 7850 you'll be glad to have it. Generally I wouldn't recommend going too crazy on the power supply but they do last if you get a good one and who knows when you might want to throw in another hard drive or two, or a sound card. It all needs good reliable power.