$850-$950 First Gaming PC Build

Looks good.

if your going to microcenter in the next 5 days, might as well use the 50$ off sales on their mobos in store, which you can find on the microcenter catalog online on page 27

^+1

Looks solid though. Keep in mind though, the Micro center pricing is local only.

There is a microcenter near my house. What do you mean local only? Also I was thinking of using a 650W power supply would that be sufficient or overkill?

UPDATE:
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8UjH
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8UjH/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8UjH/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($129.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Scorpio Black 250GB 2.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Hard Drive: Mushkin Chronos 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($67.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($266.97 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Antec 650W ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VH236H 23.0" Monitor ($139.99 @ NCIX US)

Total: $1045.74 - 50 (Microcenter Extra $50 off) = $995.74

(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-05-26 10:32 EDT-0400)

Lowered the graphics card to a Radeon HD 6950 to save some $. still a 2gb video card.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8UoC
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8UoC/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8UoC/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($129.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Scorpio Black 250GB 2.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Hard Drive: Mushkin Chronos 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($67.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card ($199.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Antec 650W ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VH236H 23.0" Monitor ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $978.76 - 50 = 928.76
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-05-26 11:07 EDT-0400)

It would be more beneficial to combo the dvd drive with a 500 gb WD caviar blue(80$ together) on newegg, then buy a 250 gb from one site, and the dvd drive on another separately.

^+1

As for the PSU it's fine.

I meant local only because not everyone knows PCPartPicker has the prices of each product after rebate or discounts. People don't realize, sometimes, that Microcenter's prices are instore pickup only.

get a better deal

from microcenter you can get i5 3570k $189.99 with a ASrock extreme4 z77 $89.99

that right there is cheaper than an i5 2500k+z68 board and will perform better with slightly newer features

for the price of your build try not to add an SSD and focus more on GPU

take a 7850 it is a very nice card any brand will do(personally like sapphire and XFX)

if you want a SSD take this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
fairly cheap and very good for its price

microcenter also has some nice cheap ram to save a lot of money and can fit under a hyper 212 unlike vengeance series
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml...

the i5-2500k is 170 and the z68 is 70. $40 less in comparison with what you posted. I found that on the catalog.

I wanted to run the OS on an SSD and future proof this system as I'll probably be keeping this for a long time.

I'll definitely look into the ram. Thank you all for the advice, really appreciate it.

it is not really "future proofing" if you want to stick with an i5 2500k and a z68

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK4ip08auGg

please watch this to really know what "future proofing" means

After watching the video i'll be sacrificing the SSD for a better graphics card so i dont have to replace it later on.

I'll also be purchasing the HDD + Optical drive bundle http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

And i'll purchase the RAM from microcenter also.

Is there a huge difference in performance between the i5-2500k + z68 and the i5-3570k + z77 to warrant a $40 increase in my purchase price?

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8XIW
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8XIW/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8XIW/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($117.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: 8GB DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) CL9 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit ($39.99 @ Microcenter)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Scorpio Black 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($266.97 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Antec 650W ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VH236H 23.0" Monitor ($139.99 @ NCIX US)

Total: $957.88 - $50 off at microcenter = $907.88
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-05-27 11:17 EDT-0400)

not that big of a difference but you can get some extra features such as bluetooth, native PCI 3.0(meaning support for cards that have PCI 3.0 for a faster time)

btw WB scorpio is a laptop HDD just putting it out there

if you want to save money for your next build i would suggest doing this

1)get a case you really like
2)get a good PSU
3)HDD/SSD to transfer
4)going with a lower end graphics card like a 460 SC or 6870 so you can replace it with a newer model after 1-4 years.
5)sticking with i5 2500k and z68 mobo so you can upgrade later into maybe a whole new CPU and mobo

like if you think about it, if you are going to make another PC in the future why would you want to use your old graphics card while there might be a 670 for $300 instead of $400

BTW when you do make a new build you can just sell your own to someone that can't spend a lot of money and say all you need is OS, HDD, case, PSU, and a DVD burner(if you are planning on keeping it for the new build which i recommend)