New build advice for a gaming, music, video system

[phir]

My budget is somewhat flexible, general ballpark is about 1200-1500.
I am in the US, I usually buy from Newegg or Amazon but not limited to anysite.
I will be buying this as soon as I am comfortable with the system, probably within 2 weeks. I may wait until the big sales during Thanksgiving weekend.
I will not need a monitor or software, I have both, I will only need the chassis and all the components.
I would like to overclock.
SLI or crossfire, maybe later, if you think I need to.
Monitor resolution: 1920x1200 or 1280P, only 1 monitor will be hooked up at any time.
I would like USB 3.0
I do not need WiFi
I am upgrading becuase my 5 year old Dell XPS 720 is just not putting out the video or disk performance I want.
I have read a lot here, but the more I read the more confused I get. I really dont want to make a mistake and pick the wrong things. I made a few guesses below but please feel free to make corrections.

CPU: I dont know, maybe the i5-3570k
Motherboard - I dont know
Memory - I dont know, I want at least 16GB
Case: I dont know
Power Supply: Corsair TX650m
Cooling: Noctua u12p
Video card: Radeon 7950 or 7970
Sound card: I have one
Storage: SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B for OS and installs
Storage: I will probably need at least 2 TBs for a lot of music and videos
Monitors: I already have a monitor and TV that I hook up to.

Thanks in advance

 

[TheBigTroll]

you only need 8gb of ram for what you are doing. adding more is useless

this should be plenty. would be silent as well (CPU cooler could get loud but its a silent case so it should be good)
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/l4D2

 

[geofelt]

Your plan is good.

On ram, if your video reference includes editing with a 64 bit enabled app, then buy all the ram you can.
The extra ram can be used for work spece negating some of the need for hard drive workfiles.
I would suggest a 16gb kit of DDR3-1600 ram in a 2 x 8gb format. Faster ram does not improve performance of your apps significantly.

Most any Z77 based motherboard will do.
No need for high priced enthusiast motherboards.
Pick your favored brand.

With a single monitor, a single 7950 or 7970 will be about as good as it gets.
I, in the future, you should ever need more graphic power, there will be new amd 8xxx and nvidia GTX7xx cards coming out.
I see no need for cf/sli when a good single card will do the job.
If your apps can use CUDA processing, then look at the Nvidia equivalents which would beGTX670 and GTX680.

As to cases, that is largely a personal preference.
I happen to like small quiet cases. See my sig.
For recommended quiet cases look here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article75-page5.html

For your 2tb hard drives, look at this article on component return rates:
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2 TB looks like the best bet.
http://www.behardware.com/articles/862-6/components-returns-rates-6.html

From a productivity point of view, consider adding a second monitor just like the one you have.

 

[phir]

Excellent responses. I will be taking most of your advice, or a combo of both. I currently bury my 8GB ram when I am working on my PC so 16GB is what I will get. I am suprised to see that the Corsair TX650m wasnt adequate. I dont really care about a quite case, as long as it cools my system, I am good. The system is about 20 feet away from me. I also read that the OCZ SSD is not the right choice because of reliability, not that 99 dollars is an issue, but I would hate to have to reinstall my OS and apps if it did fail. Thanks for responses. This is at least a baseline or the complete list I will be buying.

 

[TheBigTroll]

the ocz ssd is fine. its based off of marvel hardware which is known to be very reliable and good. just look at the crucial m4 if you want

the tx650 is ok but there are better models out there. 750w will allow you to do SLI/crosfire in the future. otherwise, 550w is enough

 

[geofelt]

Excellent responses. I will be taking most of your advice, or a combo of both. I currently bury my 8GB ram when I am working on my PC so 16GB is what I will get. I am suprised to see that the Corsair TX650m wasnt adequate. I dont really care about a quite case, as long as it cools my system, I am good. The system is about 20 feet away from me. I also read that the OCZ SSD is not the right choice because of reliability, not that 99 dollars is an issue, but I would hate to have to reinstall my OS and apps if it did fail. Thanks for responses. This is at least a baseline or the complete list I will be buying.

Your original post showed a 256gb samsung ssd.

For what it is worth:
The vertex4 ssd TheBigTroll referenced is 128gb.
On newegg, it has 12% reviews with 0 or 1 eggs out of 264 reviews.
By comparison, the samsung 830 has 6% out of 285,
and the Intel 330 has 5% out of 81 reviews.

SSD storage is now relatively cheap. I think I would look at 180gb or 240gb if the budget will allow.
A ssd will slow down as it approaches full.

 

[phir]

Best answer selected by phir.