1) Get an SSD. Get the biggest, most reliable (don't worry about fastest) SSD you can afford. They are worth every penny. I have 2 Agility 3 drives in RAID0 for a total of 480GB of space, and that is the single largest determining factor of perceptable performance other than the GPU.
-If you cannot afford a really big SSD, then get something in the 120-240GB range. Load OS and programs on the main partition, and then assign a 2nd 60GB partition to act as SSD cache for your 1TB drive to help with loading your most used games.
2) Stay away from the i7's for gaming. They run a bit hotter, they do not OC as well, and games do not touch the HT cores, or anything more than the standard 4 cores. You will get similar performance out of an OC'd i5 Ivy as you would get from your OC'd i7 SB-E... but you pay an extra premium for that SB-E.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this:
-If you are doing major non-gaming workloads, such as video editing, or other content creation projects (and I mean big projects... not simply youtube videos and such) which utilize the extra ram bandwidth and HT cores, then get a SB-e
-If you plan on using 3-4 GPUs in the system in SLi or xFire then the extra PCIe bandwidth on SB-E becomes useful
But other than those 2 situations, you are just burning money that should be thrown at your SSDs or GPUs
3) High end ASUS boards are almost always worth it if you have the money. Obviously, if you step down to an i5 then you will want a different board, but getting a high end board has some nice perks that you simply don't get with other brands.
4) 16GB of ram is a bit overkill for gaming. Even with modded skyrim, chrome, office, and some other software open on win8 I only hit ~6GB of ram usage, and that is a near worst case scenario.
That being said, if you are on SB-E then you NEED 4 modules of ram to make use of the quad channel DDR, so if you stick with SB-E then you should either go with a 4x4GB or 4x8GB setup. But if you are going to move to an Ivy bridge system then a 2x8GB setup is perfect, and will allow for ram expansion in the future if you need it.
5) having a single 7870 GPU in this build is severely under-powered compared to the rest of your system. If you redistribute your money to go for 2 GPUs on an i5 platform then you will be much happier in the long run. I use a GTX 570 with an i7 CPU. To be honest, with most newer games my CPU is only hitting ~20-40% usage, while the GPU really is not big enough for my settings, so I really cannot stress enough that you need to get as much GPU as you can, and then get a CPU that is just ahead of the load that your games are going to provide.
6) Look out for OCZ power supplies. Now, I use OCZ stuff myself, and have had good luck with them, and absolutely love my OCZ power supply. But OCZ is not exactly known for consistent quality. I am not saying to not get an OCZ power supply... just to be sure and do some research first. Their good stuff is good, but their bad stuff will fry all of your parts... and that is not exactly a risk you ought to take lightly. I would never use an OCZ PSU in a client's PC. Look instead at an Earthwatts or Corsair.
7) Your computer only feels as good as what you interface with. For years and years I use to have extremely high end systems, but then had crappy keys/mice/monitors. It was not a problem until I started using good quality Mitsubishi CRT monitors (talking about back in the late '90s before flat panels took over). I changed nothing else, just the monitor, and all of the sudden I was blown away by my machine. It was just as fast as it ever was, but I could clearly see what it was doing, and that made all of the difference.
Especially with monitors, but also with keyboards and mice, it is almost always worth throwing as much money as you can at them. A good monitor will last you ~10 years, which for most gamers is 3-4 PC builds. So if you look at a $1000 monitor, and divide it by 4 builds, you are actually looking at a cost of $250 per build, or over 10 years you are talking about $100/yr. Yes, it is a bit of money up front, but you get a lot more enjoyment out of the system, plus it will last a lot longer, which will save you money in the end.
A few things to look for:
-IPS. It should be a requirement. Yes, they are prone to slower transitions, but it is hardly noticeable on modern screens that use newer IPS technologies.
-High pixel density. My current monitor is a 27" 1920x1200. It made sense to get it when I bought it because I use to sit a lot further from my screen so size was what mattered more than resolution, but now that I sit a little closer I am annoyed at just how huge the pixels are, which makes me need to use higher AA in games. Also, for web browsing I use to be able to fit 2 full pages side by side when I purchased it 5 years ago... but now that everyone has wide screen monitors web pages have gotten wider, which means that I have to do a bit of side scrolling to see a full page... that is not an issue with higher resolution screens.
Pick whatever size you want/need first, and then find the model that offers the highest resolution for the size. AA becomes less of an issue, text becomes clearer, and pictures have more of a photo quality to them that you just don't get with low DPI monitors.
-White backlights! LED backlights are nice and white, with a very wide color spectrum which makes things really nice. Traditional CCD backlights always make things seem a bit yellow heavy and simply do not have the same *pop* that newer led displays have.
8) cooling. Gaming PCs do not need to be (nor should they be) loud anymore. Oversized air coolers, and good water cooling systems are cheap enough where they are more than worth the silence they bring. Most cooling parts you can install down the road, but you should absolutely get a GPU that comes with a custom cooler pre-installed.
Other than the GPU, you can get everything else later:
- CPU air or water cooler. Get this before you OC. SB-E chips do not come with coolers, so if you go that route you will need one immediately. If you go the Ivy Bridge route then the Intel box cooler is fine for stock performance, but needs to be upgraded before OCing.
-Case fans. Get the biggest quietest fans that will fit in your case
-Fan controller. Get a single fan controller that can handle everything you have rather than running them off of the mobo. My system does not produce a ton of heat, so I have all of my fans set at their minimum 6-800RPM in my computer, but if you are putting out more heat, or are in a warmer environment, then consider getting a controller with some intelligence which can speed up fans when needed.
Anywho, hope that helps!
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