You don't need to spend that much money if you're only thinking of gaming.

i would wait for the Extreme Sandy Bridge or just buy a Sandy Bridge if you want one right now the i7 2600k is as fast as the 980x(little less really) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/142?vs=287
not worth the price difference dough..buy 2 GTX580 instead(then buy the MSI580's 2slots vs 3slots)

SSD i would go for a Crucial M4 128GB there much more reliable the those sandforce kind

en get a goor PSU like the Corsair Professional AX1200 (first make sure i fits in the case its very long)if you find this to expansive then go for the Nexus RX-1K Modular 1000W not that effectief dough

Good Luck :D

Why do you need 8 TB of storage?

You should only grab a Blu-Ray drive if you're going to use the Blu-Ray portion. Otherwise, a vanilla drive is more than capable.

1000W is a bit on the high side, power wise, but you are future proof with regards to power.

For cooling, I would go with something like a H50 over a custom water cooling setup; or straight air with whatever the current monolithic cooler is -- however I would lean toward the water cooler. It's your first build and the last thing you need to deal with is leaks.

I feel a SSD boot drive is a bit of overkill, but I have no basis for that other than my personal experience with SSDs so far.

sherretz wrote:I feel a SSD boot drive is a bit of overkill
Yeah that what all non-SSD users say, give it a try u won't regret it ;)

I have one but it's only ~50GB, so I use it solely for my WoW install.

My point is that current SATA 6GB drives are more than fast enough for most people, including myself.

Thank you everyone for your help! I am sorry it took so long for me to reply. Although all of your advise was helpful, I have to completely redo my shopping list. I thought I would be able to save up for this build, but it is just too expensive. Lately I have been looking at an AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz AM3, but a friend said that it would be a wast of money if I don't go with a core i3 or i5. He also said the same with Nvidia. I've watched "Linus Tech Tips' good enough gaming PC", but it's kind of old and I wonder if it really is good enough or is it another dead end. Does anyone have any pointers on what is "good enough" for 2012. I will post another list asap. Thanks again!

Here is my revised list:

*Antec 302
*Rosewill RG630-S12 630 Watt power supply
*WD Caviar Black 500GB
*Corsair Vengeance Blu 8 GB (2X4 GB) PC3-12800 1600mHz DDR3 240-Pin SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit CMZ8GX3M2A1600C 9B -OR- CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory *Model CMZ4GX3M2A1600C9B
*Intel BOXDP67BGB3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
*Intel Core i5-2400 3.10 GHz 6 MB Cache Socket LGA1155 Processor
*Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Internal 12XReadable and DVD-Writable Drive with Lightscribe SH-B123L/BSBP

I'm also going to take out the fans that come the Antec and replace them with CoolerMaster blue LED fans, so that way I can add a fan controller and have matching fans.

Thanks for any help!

Hey, I would check out the Radeon HD 7950 before you buy a GTX 580. It's a brand new GPU but it's still cheaper than the 580 and has better performance on most things. If I was building a rig today, that's what I'd consider or even wait for Nvidia's next-gen cards. Do you really want to spend all that money on GTX 580 when a new card could come out at anytime? Just my view :)

Thanks for the pointer but that build is way to expensive for me. I'm going for what's on the list that's before your comment. So, this has now become a budget build. Although, I have a graphics card now (HD5570 SFF), I found out that I need to upgrade it to play GTA4, GTA5 (when it hits the market), and Saints Row the Third. I think I want to get a GTX 560, since I have heard that Nvidia and Intel goes well together, it will play GTA4 on high settings (I think?), and my board supports SLI. I'm not saying that I am going to have two of them, but it is still an option down the line. Does anyone think that the GTX 560 will play GTA$ on high with no hick-ups, GTA5 and SRTT when they come out? How about the rest of the build? Will the 630 watt power supply handle 2 GTX 560s (or better if needed) in SLI?

Get the 8Gb of ram, you wont regret it. Don't be afraid to mix and match gpu and cpu brands. Only fanboys stick to matching intel with nvdia and amd with ati(amd).

Make sure you get a grounding wrist band to avoid the risk of damaging your parts through ESD, all the advice I can give you. that way you're always Earthed while installing the parts. I regret to say I lost mine and can't remember where I put it. might have to purchase a new one, should only cost £5 on amazon.

Thank you both for your comments!

rticewar wrote:Get the 8Gb of ram, you wont regret it. Don't be afraid to mix and match gpu and cpu brands. Only fanboys stick to matching intel with nvdia and amd with ati(amd).
Yeah, I was leaning towards the 8Gb of RAM. I will keep the mix matching thing in mind.

aliensoldier105 wrote:Make sure you get a grounding wrist band to avoid the risk of damaging your parts through ESD, all the advice I can give you. that way you're always Earthed while installing the parts. I regret to say I lost mine and can't remember where I put it. might have to purchase a new one, should only cost £5 on amazon.
I totally forgot about that thanks.

Its official now, I have bought all the parts and they are on there way! This is what I bought, tell me what you all think:

Gigabyte Z68 GA-Z68A-D3H-B3
Corsair Vengeance Blu 8 GB 1600mHz DDR3
Western Digital Caviar Black 500 GB
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W PSU
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10 GHz 6 MB Cache
Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Internal Readable and DVD-Writable Drive with Lightscribe
5 Coolermaster 120mm & 1 140mm blue LED case fans
Antec 302 case

Looks nice :) Did you buy an SSD?

The i5-2400 is a great CPU, just going to throw this out there that it's also locked. The motherboard you've chosen has the ability to overclock both the GPU and CPU on the chip, yet the the CPU you bought the CPU overclocking is locked on.

Basically what you should've done is bought an i5-2500k to get the full potential out of your system. The "k" indicates "Unlocked" meaning it can be overclocked to provide additional performance increases. Something like a $25 dollar Hyper 212+ CPU cooler can easily cool a i5-2500k running at 4.5ghz. Overclocking is pretty mainstream now days and the tools motherboard suppliers are supplying make it a pretty painless experience. Before you had to do a bit of research to learn how to overclock, now with these GUI bios's you just move a couple pre detereminded slider and then you can call yourself an overclocker :P

Just throwing out a bit more information about what I would've done differently, but if you don't care about overclocking, then you'll be more than fine with the 2400, its a beast of a CPU even at stock clocks, just wanted to let you know though.

Warrior wrote:Looks nice :) Did you buy an SSD?
Thank you! No, I didn't. Although, I do plan on buying one sooner or later, it was just not in the budget.

Allen86 wrote:The i5-2400 is a great CPU, just going to throw this out there that it's also locked. The motherboard you've chosen has the ability to overclock both the GPU and CPU on the chip, yet the the CPU you bought the CPU overclocking is locked on.

Basically what you should've done is bought an i5-2500k to get the full potential out of your system. The "k" indicates "Unlocked" meaning it can be overclocked to provide additional performance increases. Something like a $25 dollar Hyper 212+ CPU cooler can easily cool a i5-2500k running at 4.5ghz. Overclocking is pretty mainstream now days and the tools motherboard suppliers are supplying make it a pretty painless experience. Before you had to do a bit of research to learn how to overclock, now with these GUI bios's you just move a couple pre detereminded slider and then you can call yourself an overclocker :P

Just throwing out a bit more information about what I would've done differently, but if you don't care about overclocking, then you'll be more than fine with the 2400, its a beast of a CPU even at stock clocks, just wanted to let you know though.

Yeah, I knew that it was locked but wasn't sure that the motherboard had a special overclocking ability. Although, I eventually want to get into overclocking, I work part-time, and go to school full-time. So, I wanted to wait till I'm out of school and can afford better components. I'm not sure, but I might also get into water cooling. Thank you for your information

just out of curiosity, why were u considering 8TB? :D