So after saving for a long time, I've got $2,500. Ive done research on my own to see what I want, but I'm not sure on everything.
here is what I want from my computer:
-I want it to be able to run new games on maxed settings (i.e. Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed)
-I want it to be relatively quiet (although I do not want that to hinder the preformance)
-I may want to overclock it sometimes, but im not big on overclocking
-and I just want parts from a trust worthy company, so they dont break a couple months later

Some parts I want are
-AMD Radeon 7970 (possibly 7990 if I have enough money left over)
-Intel i5 2500k (possibly i7 if I have enough money left over, although I never really do any editing so i think i5 is a better choice
-A huge hard drive (1-2 TB's, which ever one you think is more worth it)
-an SSD (preferably 120gb+ so I can run my games on that)
-8 gigs of RAM (I heard that games really only use 6, so 8 should be fine)

and thats all I know I want. The things I need left are
-A PSU (quiet, but i dont want it to affect the computers preformance. and reliable)
-An Optical drive (no preference)
-A MOBO (one that I can overclock)

and I think thats it. I already have computer parts picked out, but I want to see what other people think I should get. Oh, and I already chose a keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, OS, Anti-virus and Case so you dont need to find those.

thanks so much~

I can't see [censored].

better?

Go with Activision stocks/shares Diablo 3, Elite, and BO2 coming out.

Not a long term hold, just long enough to make money.

An SSD to put games on? I thought the preferred method for their use was to put all the essentials on the SSD and save your primary HDD for your games and such? Anyway, you've done good research, so I can't really make any recommendations. I don't know too much about power supply units, though I would recommend an ASUS mobo.

You shouldn't need to spend anywhere close to $2,500 to build a powerhouse PC, as long as you shop smart.

The i5 is a good choice for gaming, and due to its large overclock potential you shouldn't need to spend the extra for an i7. If you do want to do some major overclocking (which again, is possible), you should look into a quality, aftermarket heatsink. They can be had for $50-$80 and will get you a decent amount of extra performance.

Always remember that you can hold off on the SSD until they drop in price more (and they will; I bought a 60GB SSD a couple of years ago for around $200 and they aren't anywhere near that expensive these days). Personally, however, I would forego this right now. There are a few games that benefit from an SSD, but it rarely extends past slightly faster loading times (Fallout 3 is one game that I know benefits a little). For how much they cost now, I'd hold off.

Other than that, make sure you get a 64-bit OS if you're planning on using 8GB of RAM (Windows 7 Home 64-bit will do fine). Look for a PSU with a single +12V rail (this way, you don't have to worry about balancing the power usage between rails). The following would be just fine for you:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

You shouldn't need that much power, but it's never a bad idea to have some overhead. If don't want to spend quite that much, this would be ok as well: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028

Storage space is cheap: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136891

Optical drives are cheap, too. Just get a couple of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

I'm unfortunately a little out of date in terms of motherboards, processors and matching RAM, so I'll let someone else help you out with that.

thanks so much, you really helped me out

No problem.

Also, if you're willing to spend extra, you might want to pick up this HDD instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136792

I personally have always used Seagate, though I know that WD is just as good. From reading the reviews of the one I linked first, this one is likely faster and perhaps more reliable.

Also remember that all of the drives you buy will be OEM, so you'll need to buy some extra SATA cables (even though your MOBO will come with a few).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812123107

These have gotten fine reviews, and the latches will be helpful once the connections become loose.

thats actually the exact HDD i wanted to get

If your still considering an SSD for your games,http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442, and have been more than satisfied with it. Even with a heavily modded Skyrim, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, I've still got room for another heavily modded game to put on there.

i5-2500K was the CPU for gamers during the last year. But last week Intel brought out a new generation CPUs (called Ivy Bridge). I think you should consider getting a i5-3570K. At stock speeds (or with normal overclocking) it runs cooler than Sandy Bridge. Only when doing high overclocking (4.5GHz or higher), Ivy runs slightly hotter (but still uses less power).

i7 CPUs (with hyperthreading) are not good value for the money. For that extra $100 you would be paying, it's better to invest it in a better videocard. Or save it to buy a new videocard in 2-3 years. (With a new videocard in 3 years, and your new i5-3570K, you will have top framerates again, without the need to buy anything else but a new videocard).

AMD 7970 is a nice card. But you should consider the nVidia gtx670 and gtx680 too. The gtx670 will be out soon. It was officially announced/released last Thursday. The gtx670 seems very good value for the money. The nvidia cards runs cooler (and thus quieter) than the AMD cards. The 7990 will have 2 GPUs on it. And therefor will draw lots of power, be very hot, and make a lot of noise. I wouldn't consider it if I were you. Nor the gtx690 (nvidia's card with 2 GPUs).

Buy a z77 motherboard. That chipset has everything you need. If you are not planning on doing CF/SLI, then get a ASRock z77 Pro3, otherwise get an ASRock z77 Extreme4. I think both can overclock equally fine. ASRock used to be a "cheap brand". But it is regarded as "very good value for your money" now. FYI, if you think they are not top mobos, fyi, last month the world record in overclocking was broken with an ASRock motherboard.

Samsung and Western Digital both make good HDDs. Can't go wrong there.

8 GB is the current sweet spot for memory. More than enough that you won't run into problems in the next few years. And cheap enough to not worry about wasting money. Get DDR3-1600/PC3-12800. Corsair, Kingston, Geil, G.Skill are all good brands.

Use this tool to figure out how heavy PSU you need:
http://support.asus.com/powersupply.aspx
There are several good brands. Don't buy a no-name brand, and it'll be fine.

Make sure your OS is 64-bit. Otherwise some of the capacity of your hardware might go to waste

Don't need a monitor ? Good, that saves you another 150-250 euros/dollars.

Depending on where you are in the world, you should be able to get a top-end system for much less than $2500.

I would buy a Nvidia card since you have the money.

For the SSD I am really enjoying my http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167093

If ya need case I suggest http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197

HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

SSD if you want one for performance on OS get a small 60GB one that leaves enough room for extra essential programs http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227737 you can one bigger for $40 at 120GB so you can put your favorite games on it as well gets rid of loading times but that's all.

Putting the OS on an SSD alone is really quite pointless. It'll boost your boot time, sure, but anything else that isn't on the SSD (which will be most things, if it's just 60GB) is just going to limited by the speed of the HDD. Anything that needs to be loaded or retrieved should be put on the SSD (if you want to go that route), and will benefit even if the OS is on the HDD.

All in all after you're done, you'll have about 1,000 of that money left to do whatever you want.

Maybe more. Good computers are cheap to build(if you listen to these people).

It's not. A lot of windows operations are ran on C:\. Unless the only purpose of your computer is: Boot up then play games. Even the superfetch, explorer utilize HD searching. Windows operations have quite a lot of swappings, so putting it on SSD only benefits more.

Playing games on SSDs may not be economical. A 120GB costs around $120, in which you should expect 100 being put to system operations (antivirus, Office, etc). If you want gaming on SSD you're looking at 2 to 3 SSDs unless you will never buy new titles or you will uninstall all games you've "finished". So that's $250 solely on harddisk, imo not a good idea.

Btw, wholesellers here are hawking HDD price not sure how it's like at your country.

If the OP does decide to get an SSD, it would be best to disable hibernation and move the page file to another drive.

It will free up more space.

Yup. A lot of things run in AppData, Windir, Sysdir, and programfiles so unless you do a HUGE amount of symbolic linking, you gain quite a bit of performance by installing Windows to an SSD.

Gotta disagree with this. My system partition is 80 GBs, of which I use 41 GBs. 120 GBs will afford you quite a bit of room for games. If you get a 180-256 GB SSD, you have plenty of rooms for games, and of course you can always offload games to a mechanical drive using symbolic links to keep those you don't play much off your SSD.