Ordering in the next 24 hours, so just doing a little last-minute check. The computer will be used for playing WoW/livestreaming from raids, and also I'm learning to animate with Blender (game designer wannabe, go ahead and laugh). All prices are with S+H where applicable.
CPU: Intel i7-3770K @ Amazon.com $309.99
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO @ Amazon.com $27.99 Not quite ready to go the liquid-cooling route yet.
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme3 @ Newegg $127.86
Memory: 8GB of G.SKILL Ripjaws @ Newegg $34.99 on sale
SSD: Samsung 830 128GB @ NCIX $102.98 Had a Sandisk in here for a long time, but swapped out after reading a ton of good reviews about this one--felt it was worth the extra $15. Will hold dual-boot OSes and maybe my WoW and LoL installs. And maybe OpenOffice, if there's room.
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB @ Newegg $74.99 Where do I find the cables? This says it doesn't include them...
GPU: EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 FTW @ NCIX $399 I debated back and forth between EVGA and Gigabyte for a long time (two months), and finally I just had to pick one. Definitely not going ATI, though--I've had two, and maybe it's just the Mobility series ones, but both have given me nothing but trouble. Excellent graphics, but tech support is very sick of me.
Sound Card: Asus Xonar DG 5.1 @ Newegg $16 after mail-in rebate. I am an audiophile, with good headphones, and I am not afraid to admit it.
Case: Cooler Master Storm Stryker @ Newegg $136 if I buy by tomorrow. My one piece where I felt like I had to sacrifice something for cost--I fell in absolute love with the Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow, but it's out of my budget. Someone recommended this one to me as having a somewhat-similar aesthetic (white/lights), and my plan is to do a little modding to it over time to add in the blue colouring that it lacks--cable sleeving, blue lights, swapping out the included fans.
PSU: Seasonic M12II 620W @ Newegg $89.99 Fully modular, because of the aforementioned case modding. I've found a lot of PSUs that claim to be modular, but then I read reviews and it turns out they're only semi-modular. I do plan on very modest overclocking; perhaps more importantly, this is a system that's going to be running programs 12+ hours a day (I'm a freelance writer, and I'll be using the computer for that as well as gaming) and probably almost-always on. Alas, my first choice, the be quiet! Dark Power series, seems to be currently unavailable in the US.
Optical Drive: Samsung DVD Burner @ Newegg $22.98 with shipping. I have a substantial collection of CDs and DVDs that I'd like to watch and listen to.
Monitor: Asus VH236H @ NCIX ~$145, after mail-in rebate. Just one for now, may add a second in the future.
Mic: ...hopefully an AntLion ModMic. Otherwise, probably the Logitech USB Mic.
Don't Need:
--Keyboard. I have the Corsair Vengeance K90, and I absolutely love it.
--Mouse. Razer Naga, and again, love it, how did I survive without it?
--OS. I'm an IT student, so I get Microsoft for free, and I'll be running a Linux dual-boot (I've been a Slackware loyalists, but I've not tried anything else in, oh 5 years? I think it's time).
In the US. Will shop pretty much anywhere, and ordering from a bunch of different places doesn't bother me as long as they're not shady.
So, some questions: I have at least one piece (HDD) that doesn't include cables--where do I get those? And also, am I going to need Arctic Silver/some other thermal compound? Will a basic 15-piece toolkit be enough?
EDIT: Links repaired.