I decided to jump back into PC gaming and build a PC that will last a couple of years before I have to do some serious upgrades. I've only built one other PC back in 2009 with my college buddies guiding me. So while I'm somewhat familiar with the basic steps of building a rig, I'm basically doing this for the first time. I just need some input on which parts I should get (for ones where I listed multiple components), things that I am missing, and feedback on the overall build I'm planning to make. The budget is really flexible and am going with the mindset of "choose your parts first, calculate the cost second, and see if I freak out last."

• Case
  NZXT Crafted Series Vulcan Black Steel ($70): I chose to go with a mATX build because I wanted the option to bring it with me when I visit my parents home on the weekend, which I do often. This case was advertised as "portable" for people who want to bring their rig to LAN parties. It even has a handle! I know it sounds stupid, but I kinda like it. Shut up.
• Motherboard
  ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z/GEN3($190): Basically went on Newegg and filtered their selection of mATX motherboards and this was at the top of the list.
• CPU
  Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)($230) orIntel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost)($320): Gaming is going to be the most stressful thing I will do with this PC, so is the $90 extra worth the upgrade from i5 to i7?
• RAM
  G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB($47) or CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB($50): The G. SKILL Ripjaws are higher rated on Newegg and just a hair cheaper, but The Fresh Prince recommended the CORSAIR brand when building Jeff's PC with Norm in their "$1500 Future-proof Gaming PC"article a while back.
• Video Card
  EVGA 015-P3-1580-AR GeForce GTX 580($500) or EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580($510): I decided to get a nVidia GTX 580, but didn't know which one to choose. For just $10 more I can get the "SuperClocked" edition. I have no idea what that means other than the overall notion that it will run faster. Worth it? Also, I'll probably get another GTX 580 card to SLI down the road, if that has any impact on whether or not to get the SuperClocked edition.
• Storage
  Crucial M4 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC ($220) orCrucial M4 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC($400): Went with a Crucial SSD due to Will's brand recommendation. What I'm trying to decide is whether 128GB is a big enough size or if I should pony up the cash to get the 256GB. I'm also going to get a Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive($270), but was planning on installing my games to the SSD. Is that the usual practice, or do people install their games to their secondary hard drive?
• Optical Drive
  ASUS 24X DVD Burner($20): Cheap; highest rated on Newegg.
• PSU
  CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 750W ($170) or CORSAIR Professional Series HX850 850W($190): I have no idea on how to calculate wattage. Will Smith went with a 850W PSU for Jeff's PC when he built it, but I'm not sure if that was overkill for my build.

So again... any advice on what to get or changes that should be made are welcome. When I initially made this list, I was hoping the total was going to stay under $1500, but the lowest combination (choosing the cheaper alternative for each part on my list) goes up to $1717 before taxes. So input on saving money is definitely needed. Thanks for the help.

A lot of this is overkill, and no, the i7 is not worth the extra money.

At first I thought you were saying that $1700 was budget, not your budget. I was momentarily shocked until my reading comprehension kicked back in.

I can second that the i7 isn't really worth it for gaming. If you were encoding and doing multi-threaded activities like that then you would start to see the benefit.

@CaptainCody said:

A lot of this is overkill, and no, the i7 is not worth the extra money.

Other than the CPU, what other areas should I look to save money on?

@Andorski:

That graphics card is pretty high end, you could go for a 560TI for half the price and still get pretty good performance.

@OppressiveStink said:

@Andorski:

That graphics card is pretty high end, you could go for a 560TI for half the price and still get pretty good performance.

So there is the GT 560Ti for $250 and a GT570 for $340. How significant is the jump in performance?

@Andorski: I use a i5 in my laptop and it runs everything on high / medium high with an average 30+ fps for games like witcher 2 and BF3 multi so its kinda up to you if you want the computer to last 3 years or 3.5-4. I personally would go i7 because I enjoy it more but so far everything you are looking at look good.. The 3TB drive is kinda overkill for 1 drive and I would recommend going 2 1tb drives so incase one dies you are not dead in the water.

What's up wth people on GB lately going for the overkill, like that guy who bought 5 7970's for 2 rigs.

Hey man, if you got $1700 to burn on a gaming rig then more power to ya. Frankly I think you can use some scaling back a bit but hey it's your rig. I also going for gaming rig but my budget is like $900 lower then the monster you want to create. Anyways, I think you need to yourself a good cpu cooler. Hey if you're going for that much power might as well go an get one of those weet ass Noctua or go for a Corsair liquid cooling unit.

I wanna to also voice my agrement that the i7 is not all that necessary for what you intend on using this machine for.

@Andorski said:

@OppressiveStink said:

@Andorski:

That graphics card is pretty high end, you could go for a 560TI for half the price and still get pretty good performance.

So there is the GT 560Ti for $250 and a GT570 for $340. How significant is the jump in performance?

The HD is also a little bit crazy, I recommend what McShank said. Lastly, as another has suggested, it depends on how long term you're looking for before upgrading which means you could probably be fine downgrading the graphics card and just overclock your computer if necessary considering you're going for a baller PSU that shouldn't be a problem.

So far I've decided to get the i5 instead of the i7 and downgrade the GPU to a GTX 570. What about the SSD? Is 128GB the minimum I should go, or should I go for an even lower capacity? I'm not willing to budge on the 3TB hard drive as my current external 2TB is ~90% full and I'm giving that and my current laptop to a cousin. As for the PSU, the two choices I posted are just top of the list picks I made on Newegg. If it's overkill, then I'm all up for something else.

@Andorski:

Per tom's hardware, it's about a 25% FPS jump on metro 2033, which is a game that's pretty hard on systems (because it's optimized poorly).

Get a better NON Steel case. Look at Lian Li or Corsair ALUMINIUM cases. A steel case is going to weigh a ton.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112316

The 128 SSD should be enough assuming you dont keep a lot of games installed and aren't installing a lot of apps. I personally plan to go with a 128 SSD when I decide to go over to SSD (unless prices change significantly by then). The M4 is good, as well as the Vertex 3. Tom's hardware has a BEST SSD article up from Dec.

Either PSU is fine, i'd go with the 850 but you aren't going to need that much wattage. They are good choices solely o nthe fact they are modular, and you will want that extra space in a mATX case.

Skip Seagate, go with WD. Black if possible, otherwise Green drives are fine. edit -Apparently they don't make 3TB Black drives.