When would be a good time to build a system?

Buy now but hold off on the SSD for now until the prices drop. DX11 cards are due out sometime later this year, but it's going to be awhile before any games actually utilize DX11 so I would say now is the time to buy. If you could please take look at that link down below it would be a big help to everyone on here.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advic... <--- Help us help you  

SSD prices should drop by the end of the year to competitive levels. I'm not sure that's a good reason to wait to build, just a good reason to wait on SSD.

Buy whenever you need to. You'll probably have enough saved up when you need another computer.

USB 3.0 is coming out isn't it?

thanks for the input.

i want to wait for usb 3.0 as well. if i buy parts before it is released will anything bottleneck because of the parts of today?

It might.

If you are iffy about building, but are building soon anyway, you can buy parts that don't really change like computer cases and cables while you wait for everything to release.

i5, SSD price and longterm maintenance/performance, USB3.0, "300" or "5xxx" vid cards . . . I guess you could wait forever.

If I could wait for i5, I would. If not, you can deal with the rest of the issues by going i7 or AMD, and not investing a lot in disk (ie no Velociraptors) or vid card (get good enough for now, not overkill). Add/replace next year. IMHO, you won't really miss USB 3.0.