New builder seeking advice

It think your components are right on. An i5 would be a good over all buy and perform well for years. If you are a gamer, the GTX660 ad 7870 (even 7850) are a good place to start as they will play any title at a decent graphics level. Also, a good 600W power supply is a good choice for this build. So I think you are right on key with it all. I am very bias toward ASUS motherboards as I have used them for years and I know they come with good documentation. Gigabyte is also a good brand. AsRock is really making a name for them selves as well, but I couldn't vouch for the manuals, but would assume they are pretty decent or at least have extra documentation online. Also, if you want to overclock, you will need a better than stock cooler. I would suggest the Cooler Master 212 Evo. It's relatively inexpensive and will give you some moderately good overclocks. My only thought is you may have a bit of trouble keeping this in your budget. Just look for good deals, coupon codes, MIR, and combo offers.

with asus there bios are real simple and easy to use also they tos in stuff like case header adapter make your life a lot easier to line of the case cables to the mb header. also some of the asus mb have a new thing called usb flashback. you dont need a cpu or ram to reflash a mb or update it. it great if overclock or a bios update goes wrong. with cpu cooling and case cooling if your going to game replace the intel stock heat sink with an aftermarket tower one like evo 212. computers and fan noise..there two ways to make a pc quite. get a case with large fans or connect fans to a fan controller and slow them down. also when you look as cases like r300 and others look how there set up. a good gaming case now will be black on black with the power supply on the bottom of the case and grill or fans on the top of the case and other fans rear or front of case. with grills on the bottom and top your going to get natural convection air flow. cold air pulled in the bottom and warm air out the top. when your looking at ram look to ones with low heat spreaders called low profile ram. they fit better under after market heat sinks. also look at the vendor warranty and read if people like there rma dept. the two parts that you have to be care full of when you build is the cpu pins. use a magnifier to check the mb and cpu pins before you install the cpu. the black cpu cover sometime does not help if the shipper crushes your mb. the other spot I see here is people snapping of the sata ports on there drives and or mb. when building your rig plug in the drives last.

As for music.. Are you a audiophile? With high end cans and IEMs to power?

I appreciate audiophile gear, but I just do some songwriting and recording. I've been using Garageband on an old Imac.

Thanks to everyone for your input. This is new for me, so I'm struggling with balancing performance with my budget. Bang for the buck will have to be my theme.

A halfway decent sound card and REAL headphones goes a long way. I don't like USB headphones that much, or the onboard audio. It doesn't put out enough juice. I have an old Creative XtremeGamer PCI card that works great with decent headphones.