I wouldn't buy a Gigabyte mainboard, having had issues in the past because the mainboard that the 17 year old expert at the shop recommended wouldn't do the DIMMs that the expert recommended with it. ASUS never gave me trouble.

The harddisk you chose is incidentially the exact same I use with a mobile rack for backups, so I guess I couldn't say anything bad about it!

For the a solid state disk, I'd prefer the OCZ Vertex 4, but opinions are like assholes -- everybody has one. In any case, I'd go for something bigger than 64GB, so you have a little reserve. If you have to buy a smaller CPU to afford the SSD, then so be it. A solid state disk is the single biggest win, so one shouldn't ever economize there.

For the BluRay drive, it might be worthwhile thinking about buying that as USB. It's something I've done with my last computer. The advantage is that you can just pull the cable and during the 29 days per month when you don't need an optical drive, it won't consume power or delay your computer when booting.

Now of course Windows 8 ... this is the probably biggest mistake possible. I've already had this opinion after trying Windows 8 preview on my desktop back in the time, but now that I own a Windows 8 tablet for somewhat more than 2 weeks, I am even more convinced that Win8 is total fail. It is not even very usable for tablets, but even less so for desktops. Just say no. Windows 7 is so much better.

I wouldn't buy a Gigabyte mainboard, having had issues in the past because the mainboard that the 17 year old expert at the shop recommended wouldn't do the DIMMs that the expert recommended with it. ASUS never gave me trouble.

I see, I appreciate the advice, but I think i'm still ganna go with this board.

The harddisk you chose is incidentially the exact same I use with a mobile rack for backups, so I guess I couldn't say anything bad about it!
For the a solid state disk, I'd prefer the OCZ Vertex 4, but opinions are like assholes -- everybody has one. In any case, I'd go for something bigger than 64GB, so you have a little reserve. If you have to buy a smaller CPU to afford the SSD, then so be it. A solid state disk is the single biggest win, so one shouldn't ever economize there.

I have an OCZ Vertex 3 in my laptop right now, but I don't feel 64 gb is ganna be too terrible when combined with the 1TB hdd(particularly now that steam allows you to specify install locations helps to.)

For the BluRay drive, it might be worthwhile thinking about buying that as USB. It's something I've done with my last computer. The advantage is that you can just pull the cable and during the 29 days per month when you don't need an optical drive, it won't consume power or delay your computer when booting.

I'll keep that in mind, it's not a bad idea.

Now of course Windows 8 ... this is the probably biggest mistake possible. I've already had this opinion after trying Windows 8 preview on my desktop back in the time, but now that I own a Windows 8 tablet for somewhat more than 2 weeks, I am even more convinced that Win8 is total fail. It is not even very usable for tablets, but even less so for desktops. Just say no. Windows 7 is so much better.

now this is where you should have used your opinion line. I have used windows 8 a bit on some family laptops, and am personally in love with the OS, And have been wanting to upgrade for quite awhile, so we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.

Motherboards: I've been happiest with Gigabyte, and both MSI and Asus have been very good to me as well.

Graphics card: Eh, I'm on icy speaking terms with AMD right now. XFX is probably fine as an integrator but certainly not top tier.

Power supply: Corsair's great, all of ours are Corsair based now.

CPU: AMD... I'm not particularly fond of them, but CPU isn't a very important component anymore.

RAM: I'd go 2x8, myself. Corsair is great.

SSD: Crucial, Samsung, and Intel are the reliable top tier brands. I don't trust anything else. Buy at least 120 GB and go for the 240+ if at all possible.

HDD: I'm a little annoyed at the shoddiness of the Seagate warranty these days.

I have an OCZ Vertex 3 in my laptop right now, but I don't feel 64 gb is ganna be too terrible when combined with the 1TB hdd(particularly now that steam allows you to specify install locations helps to.)

I made that mistake too. 64 GB is enough for the OS and very little else. I like to actually use my expensive SSD, hence the larger sizes.

Yes, definitely get a bigger SSD. Remember that games are huge these days. You may also want to use a better cpu cooler than the stock one. Also make sure the graphics card is silent, because there's nothing worse than loud gpu coolers, and replacing those isn't fun or cheap.

Yes, definitely get a bigger SSD. Remember that games are huge these days. You may also want to use a better cpu cooler than the stock one. Also make sure the graphics card is silent, because there's nothing worse than loud gpu coolers, and replacing those isn't fun or cheap.

If you do get a new cooler, I'm quite fond of the closed loop Corsair water cooling blocks. They're lightweight and easy to install, and double as case fans. Cleaner to put inside a case than the monster tower coolers (eg Hyper212).

Sorry I'm going with the others on the SSD- this very box I typing on has a 40gig ssd for the os, a 1 tb and 250gb, and I am forever having to monitor the ssd it because it fills up- a lot.

You need enough for windows and all your programs- my windows 7 ult windows folder is 22gb and I have 13gb in program files.

120gb is a nice round number.

I don't understand why anyone would pair up an SSD with a HDD. I think it's better to just go pure SSD. If you need the extra space, an external HDD or a NAS is preferable.

It's not cost effective to go pure ssd.

It's not cost effective to go pure ssd.

Depends on how much space you need... I honestly don't know what you guys are storing! I'm perfectly capable of getting away with a 128GB SSD. Not everything has to be installed at once! :D