First build advice...please?

[carolingcats]

Approximate Purchase Date: This week or next week.

Budget Range: ~1200-1300 for everything, so ~1000 for the actual machine.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Surfing the Internet, Various college student 'Homework'

Parts Not Required: I haven't owned a desktop in like 10 years...so all I've got is a mouse.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg, Amazon, whoever has the best prices.

Country: USA

Parts Preferences:
Intel Core i5-2500k

GIGABYTE GV-N560UD-1G GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
I've seen this card recommended a good deal, but I'm kind of clueless with GPU's so...

ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
I really have a crush on this board, and the lack of USB 3.0 headers isn't an issue. Other input welcome.

G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2
Meh.

SanDisk Ultra SDSSDH-120G-G25 2.5" 120GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
SSD & HD chosen mostly for price, so I'll probably switch those out after some bargain shopping.

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W Modular High Performance Power Supply
One of my main concerns is the compatibility of my PSU. This one I was looking at is sold out, so I definitely need advice on another one.

LITE-ON DVD Burner

Overclocking: Maybe/Probably

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe, but farther into the future.

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1200

Additional Comments: I've listed the parts in order of how sure/set I am on them. Since the i5 is on sale at NCIX.com for about 20 less than Newegg I'll probably use that towards a CPU cooler? Also I'm not picky about a case as long as it's affordable with good cooling.

 

[QuietPC]

Basically a solid system. Let me suggest that you not worry about OCing and focus on a stable machine that will let you do the school work and play games. So:

cpu: i5-2400
Psu: 550w Corsair or Seasonic or other quality 80%+ efficiency bronze or better
gpu: I actually think the AMD choices are better values. A 6870 would do a nice job for the price
SSD: Remember that it loads programs faster but won't make them run faster. Use it to load the OS and run key programs with your Hdd for games, storage, etc. Having said that something in the 90gb range is fine but 128 will do. However, the best rated SSD's are Crucial, Intel and Samsung. You need dependability.
Hdd: With an SSD your choice is fine
Mobo: If you love that board then so be it
Ram: The Intel stuff likes 1.5v and your choice is 1.25v. Stick with what they ask for
CD/DVD: Fine
Case? had 922 is good
OS? (Win 7 64bit)

 

[carolingcats]

Thanks for the quick and thorough reply. Power and Flash vs. Practicality and Budget is one of my main struggles with picking parts.

I'll definitely change out the ram and probably the GPU on some initial research. I'll have to think over the stability benefits on the rest of your suggestions. I'm building this at least in part just for the fun of building and the learning experience. I'm currently in school for a computer science degree, just passed my A+ class last semester with an A+.

 

[QuietPC]

Thanks for the quick and thorough reply. Power and Flash vs. Practicality and Budget is one of my main struggles with picking parts.

I'll definitely change out the ram and probably the GPU on some initial research. I'll have to think over the stability benefits on the rest of your suggestions. I'm building this at least in part just for the fun of building and the learning experience. I'm currently in school for a computer science degree, just passed my A+ class last semester with an A+.

The suggestions will let you build, enjoy, be stable and functional