Thoughts on ivy bridge/z77/ssd gaming computer $1500 budget

[triplej]

Approximate Purchase Date: This week

Budget Range: $1,500 before rebates, but of course price/performance or saving money is great for anyone

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Diablo 3, programming, file serving, media

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, Speakers, OS, Power Supply (700 watt Cooler Master)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg

Country: America

Parts Preferences: Intel, NVidia, Gigabyte, ASUS, Corsair, but well rated smaller brands will be considered as well

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080, in the future, possibly a 2560x1440, but no plans for it now

Additional Comments: I'm trying to find a lot of price/performance answers for this build. If I wanted to save money, and I wasn't going to overclock, would the i5-3450 be just as good as the 3570k? How much does CPU overclocking help for gaming? I also plan on only using one video card, so would a cheaper $120 Z77 be just as good as the $200 models, with or without overclocking? Is there much of a difference in hard drives between the green 5900 RPM and 7200 RPM? What about the hard drive 32 MB cache vs 64 MB cache? Can the hard drives utilize the SATA 6.0Gb/s or is SATA II just as good in real use? Any additional info or links would be appreciated.

So far I have in mind:

Intel i5-3570K with 212+ EVO

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) 1600 Mhz 1.5 V F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL

GTX 570 Classified

Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s

SSD Undecided but want a new 220-256 MB one. The Mushkin is sold out. I was looking at the OCZ 4

Cooler Master HAF 922 case (I prefer it over the Antec 900 for its wider size to put cables in the back and also its larger fans)

This comes out to $1,079 without the SSD

 

[boulbox]

switch 570 to a 7870

 

[azeem40]

Don't get a multi PCIe 3.0 Express slot MOBO if you do not plan to CF/SLI. Get the Pro4 Gen3. Get the Radeon 7850.

 

[Tavo_Nova]

if you don't plan to get sli just go look for a single slot pci-e 3.0 or a dual slot whichever you can find,

 

[Azok]

DO get the 3570k. Some games are very CPU dependent. PLUS, you can overclock it in a few years to meet the needs of future technologies.

Get 2x4GB RAM and use the money towards a HD 7950!!! Then overclock it to near 7970 specs. Unless you are doing something other than gaming and need 16gb ram.

I see you do like Nvidia... How long until you need this? Nvidia should be coming out with new cards in 3-6 months... D3 is not GPU intensive... You may want to get a cheap card and then once they come out, get one... or save for a 680. (the 570 isn't PCIe 3.0)

SSD? If you have the money... go Intel or Samsung. Otherwise: Crucial, Mushkin, Corsair... I like Patriot.