MSU Red Cedar Message Board

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That should be a good start.

Solid choice with the i5-2500k.

This.

I use Asus for my mother board. I have an Antec power supply other two brands are nice as well. Make sure it has the connections you need for your graphics card. Most now a days are modular so they let you add and take off cables as necessary. This is nice in keepign the inside clean. AMD or Intel...you decide. I would buy one that is not top of the line because they are like double the price for not much more. CPU prices drop like crazy after they come out. ATI and nVidia make good cards. I've had issues with both. Agree with the price range. Don't need to go crazy here unless you want a super intense gaming system...in which case you will need to upgrade everything else as well. haha. Agree with the RAM and the brands...don't venture outside of this recommendation.

You might want to consider getting a solid state drive (SSD) to run your OS on and intesive programs and then one or two large 7200 rpm SATA hard drives for storage. Don't spend too much on the SSD. They are pricey and you don't need much to run an OS on. You could do it with 32gb but I would go with 64. Bootleg the windows or if you are a student, get it for cheap from the school.

Looks pretty solid to me.

I personally don't see anything wrong with any of those makes and models. People have preferences, but I won't push mine on you since that is all it would be, a preference.

About the only 2 things I would recommend...

1) An aftermarket cooler (unless you already have one). Your processor is overclockable. Might as well get the best out of it.

2) SSD drive for your OS and regularly used programs. There are a ton of deals out there right no for SSD. Newegg has OCZ 15% off right now along with a bunch of other SSD deals. Still not cheap, but the boost in performance is huge. You will wonder how you did without one.

Sweet, it's like 1999 all over again. What's next, building a speaker box for your trunk?

I think you need to buy a prebuilt system based on your post. Not putting you down but if you ahve to ask these questions then build it yourself is probably not for you.

He can look for motherboards that unlock extra cores on the CPU. I did that with my last build after buying a Gigabyte motherboard. I bought an AMD with 2 cores and unlocked 2 other cores to make it a quad core.

Building a desktop is easy as long as you make sure you match the right CPU/RAM with the right motherboard and case. Everything just plugs right in. The hardest part is hooking up the USB and extra ports on the front of the case that aren't important.

To you and I its easy. To someone that isn't tech savvy its rocket science. If he said "i've never done it but I am pretty good at tech stuff" I'd tell him to go for it.

I’m near the end of acquiring all the components for my first gaming rig also, so here’s some summarizations of the stuff I bought and the research I did:

Case:

If you’ve got the space for a full tower and you place importance on cooling, the HAF X is without a doubt the best option. If you’re going water cooling then there’s a zillion cases that would work just fine. It has incredible air cooling, cable management, a zilly bays for whatever you want, and massive 200mm fans, which means they’ll spin slower and quieter for the same air movement as a smaller, louder fan. Oh, and almost as important as cooling efficiency, you can turn off the LED light on the front fan so you don’t look like you’re rolling with a rice burner of a case.
One note is that the HAF X case is MASSIVE. It’s 30 pounds, and it’s enormous. On the plus side, it’s so large that you will NEVER have any problems with room for components, there will always be plenty of space, and you’ll be futureproofed in case you lose your mind and do something bonkers like quad SLI GTX 680s.

I don’t know too much about its water cooling capabilities, but I’m sure it’s perfectly serviceable for that.

As for alternative brands, many Lian Li’s or Antecs should work fine. The HAF 932 by my understanding is also a fine case.

PSU:

Seasonic X650 80 Plus Gold. I’m big into efficiency, and Seasonic is near or at the top in build quality and power consistency. It’s far more important for a PSU to be able to deliver consistent voltage than have high enough capacity. If you’re going to spend extra money on anything, it should be this or the mobo.

GPU:

I ended up buying the XFX Radeon 6870 HD Double D (with 2 fans for quieter and more efficient cooling). It’s currently $140 after rebate and instant savings. The performance is fairly close to the gold standard of midrange cards (the 560ti) but is also 100 bucks less. Honestly, I see this as a binary decision: either go for the best bang for your buck, which at this moment is the 6870, or go all out and get a GTX 680 (which are still constantly out of stock). However, if you’ve got time, wait for nVidia’s impending announcement—they posted on their facebook an image with the words “It’s Coming.” What’s coming is either the GTX 670/670ti/660ti, or the GTX 680 with 4gb VRAM. If it’s the 670/660 lower range variants, it might drastically push down the price on the 560ti. If it’s the GTX 680 4gb, it might free up supply and drop the price on the 680. If you get the 680, you can be pretty confident that card will keep you in Ultra settings for a good couple of years without breaking a sweat.

Regarding Radeon driver issues, those are mostly solved and you are far, far more likely to have zero problems. But again, this depends on your budget. If money weren't a concern, you'd obviously just ignore all that crap and buy a GTX 680 superclocked, or wait and see if nVidia goes nuts and pops out the GTX 690 on the GK 110 architecture.

RAM:

Most people don’t notice much of a difference between 1366 and 1600, but since they’re pretty close in price points you might as well put down a few extra dollars for 1600. G Skill Ares/Ripjaws or Corsair Vengeance seem like pretty good brands. We just missed on a 15% off code for RAM from Newegg, but I’m hoping something pops back up soon. Since RAM is so cheap, it’s not a bad idea to go for 16gb. Hope for a price point of around $85 after coupon codes for 16gb of DDR3 1600.

CPU cooler:
Although the Cooler Master Hyper 212 is almost always mentioned, the Enermax ETS-T40B Silence is on sale at Newegg for $25 after coupon code and outperforms the 212. It’s easily the best CPU air cooler for your money right now. If you want to go water, I have no idea and you’re on your own.

Keyboard/Mouse:
Figured I’d throw in my two cents here too since you don’t have any parts listed. It’s worth the $ to go for a mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches, which are more comfortable and by all accounts a joy to both game and type on. Cherry MX Blacks are favorites for gaming but fairly unsuitable for typing. Blues are generally accepted as the best for typing, and Browns are the middle ground between gaming and typing. I’m still searching for a keyboard, but I’m likely going to go with Brown switches.
There’s so many options for mice that it’s probably quite hard to go “wrong.” Some people are way into mouse aesthetics and might get something like the Steelseries Sensei. I don’t have much preference, so I’m just going to wait for a big deal to come around, hopefully on something like a Logitech G9x.

Hard Drive:

I'd actually recommend you wait on buying a magnetic disk drive. Production is still climbing back up from the Thailand floods and prices are still working their way back to normal. Instead, get an SSD. The boot and loading times will blow you away. OCZ's Vertex 3 is pretty popular, but there are a SPECTACULAR number of people who get failures/BSODs/DOAs. I'd stay away from them and go with a more reliable brand like Crucial or Intel. Currently, you can get the Crucial M4 120gb for $120 before tax from Staples if you call them and have them pricematch to Amazon and apply a $30 off $150 coupon. 120gb should serve you just fine until magnetic drive prices stabilize and you can get a Caviar in a few months.

This is why I think you should buy AMD:

- Support the "underdog", so to speak. If AMD hadn't stepped up several years back we'd still be using the pile of shit that is Pentium 4. Competition is good for the consumer.

- Intel has a history of some shady/unethical business practices, such as paying computer building companies to not use AMD chips.

- The Phenom II line is hands down the best product at it's price point. They are excellent processors.

- Intel's high end chips are better (Core i7) but also more expensive. For the general consumer, the Phenom II will fulfill all your dreams and save your wallet a beating.

The Microcenter sale started on Friday and most stores were out by Saturday, unfortunately. OP's best bet pricewise is to try and combo a 2500k with $50 off a motherboard at a Microcenter.

However, if no combo, I just ordered an ASUS p8Z68 motherboard for my 2600k. It seems pretty popular and reliable with all the features one could want. Newegg has 10% off the $180 version, so a bit of savings there.