New to the game...

I have very little experience with computer hardware (I added RAM to my labtop one time). But I want to build my own computer. I wanted to stay under $1700. Not looking to build it until sept. Its for gaming mostly, I like MMORPG's (I want to get Rift) and I enjoy FPS from time to time.

I want to put an i7 2600
Something like this MB:
http://www.amazon.com/P8P67-DELUXE [...] 687&sr=8-6
Ram: 12gbs to start, 16gbs is the goal is that overkill?
Hard drives: I wanted to do a 80gb SSD and a 1tb normal drive
Psu: 850W?? Im not going to overclock to start but I want the ability to, is 850w enough?
graphics card: the more I read the more confused I get... a gpu with CF/SLI because the mb allows it

Monitor, case, cooling. still figuring all that out. Mouse, keyboard and OS, I have.

1) is this possible on this budget? Im hoping prices drop a little by sept.
2) Could a person with no experence put this together? I like to think im fairly intelligent...
3) If anything is overkill please tell me, I dont want to spend money just because.

That being said I do want a good gaming system that I can get some mileage out of and that I can upgrade down the line.

Thanks for the help!

If your not looking to build until September you really want to look at parts then. Ivy bridge should be out around then, which will supposedly make the 2600k look like a pentium 4, and a new generation of video cards should be coming out around that time as well.

In the in-between time, just read the hardware articles and SMB series on Tom's main page and you will get a better understanding of PCI-E vs lightpeak vs usb3, crossfire vs SLI, socket 1155 vs 1156 ect...

In the computer world 2 months is an eternity. If you were to price out a system today and buy it two months from now, it would have much less performance than if you put your shopping list together in two months.

Now to answer your questions.

1 This would most definitely be possible with a $1700 budget, you have no worries.

2 If you consider yourself moderately intelligent, and your smart enough to figure out how to post here, I'm sure the community will help you out with anything you need assistance with. Yes you can do it.

3 If your aiming for 16GB of ram, don't get 12 just to settle, either buy 8, or buy 16. Memory is better purchased in pairs, and you wouldn't' want to buy 2x4gb and 2x2gb just to throw the 2x 2gb away a month later.

Happy building!

^^ what he said with one grammatical correction

instead of "NO MATTER WHAT CHOOSE A CHEAP PSU!!!"
insert "NO MATTER WHAT (dont) CHOOSE A CHEAP PSU!!!"

The corsair line of power supplies linked are excellent, and I have never had issues with them.