Building my own gaming rig.?

you have a decent budget so it is not such a problem in component choice, but there are some things that are not so important to get the "best" of.

The best gaming CPU on a reasonable budget is an i5 2500k, it out performs most of the i7s at video rendering which is what your gaming is all about, that said many games utilise the GPU rather than the CPU. If choosing an iCore CPU then remember the socket 1155 is for the newer 2nd Gen processors (they all have 4 digits in the name like i7 2600) and the 1st gen chips all have 3 digits (i7 970) and fit only on the socket 1366 boards, or 1156 depending on the CPU type.

The best board is one with a Z68 chip-set as this allows more options and has better optimisation for the various processors and I/O options (like USB3 for example). The best brand at the moment is Asus, probably the brand leaders in the mainboard technologies at present.

When it comes to RAM anything up to 1333MHz is fine, beyond that the CPU will not handle the data transfer rates so it is a waste. As to totals there are few games that exceed 4gb usage so 8Gb will be sufficient to build in some "future proofing".

A pair of GTX560Ti will be an excellent choice of value for money versus performance, if you prefer AMD then consider the 6950 or 6870 as similar performing cards, just make sure the board is Crossfire (AMD) or SLI (NVidia) ready depending on the cards you choose. Personally I prefer NVidia, but everyone has there own preferences and reasons.

A case is very much a personal choice, but gaming cases typically come with extra cooling fans and the cables are designed to be tucked into channels to aid the air flow.

Water cooling is no different to air cooled with respect to dust, it will collect the same amount and has the same effects, it reduces the cooling capabilities. Water cooling does generally give lower operating temperatures, but it is fiddlier to set up and costs more, it is usually quieter though. Try the Noctua NH-D14 for excellent cooling results, some suggest it is better than water cooling.

Hard Drives are the next obvious choice, prices are returning to somewhere near normal but a good gaming rig these days has a 60Gb SSD with Windows on it and your games (where the data is accessed via the HD rather than the CD or DVD), and a SATA drive purely for storage of your Documents, Music etc and the "other" program files. the so called green drives should not be used for anything other than storage or backup, they are far too slow for gaming. Once you get to 1Tb then access to the data takes longer simply because there is so much space to access it physically takes longer.

Anyway a few things to consider, good luck in your system building.

You might want to aim for a 7970 rather than two 550 it will be enough for a while and if it gets close you can still get a second one. That card runs BF3 on ultra with 60+ fps it is the best for the money at the moment.

The i7 processor is not necessary it is nice for converting music and movies but for gaming the i5 is more than enough it barely hits 75% on BF3.

If you can wait until march or even April until then the new Intel CPU series will be out by April the new Nvidia GPU will be out. That will drop prices of older chips, or you can get the newer ones for the money you would buy the current ones now.

Buying of Dell or some other big companies still is not cheaper, I just checked on Dells gaming series they are about 200pounds over price.

If you are bothered with dust (as I am at home) you might be interested in this case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

It comes with fans and dust filters that are washable.

For a motherboard Asus is still great:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

If you look for a board see that it features the 1155 Socket.

If you want to get a second graphics card later on get a 800W PSU it might be a bit of an overkill but that way you can keep it for the next build as well.

Btw.: Another reason for Dell to pull down prices is that there is a lot of new hardware coming up and they got a lot of PCs in their basement they need to sell before the new Intel and the new Nvidia chips are out.

Choose PSU based on what video card and other components that you are planning to use. Silverstone or Corsair are good brands. If possible, choose something modular with an 80 plus gold standard. Since you are planning to SLI GTX 550, you should go for greater than 750 - 850 watts with a little extra for future upgrades. (I ran crossfire 6970 on a 750W PSU without any problems) You can use Thermaltake's PSU calculator to estimate:

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

NZXT Phantom is a good case which has good potential for modding but the side panel metal is too thin IMHO. Checkout http://www.mnpctech.com/casemodblog/2012/02/29/nzx...

Dust does not matter if your case has a good airflow and dust filters placement. Choose water cooling if you are sensitive to noise and/or plan to do some overclocking. Choose phase cooling for some serious overclocking. Noctua fans are silent (you will not really notice this if your video cards are roaring). So I would only go for water cooling if I want quiet, have the budget, and/or want to overclock.

Motherboards: ASUS ROG is good; I would choose something with a USB 3.0 support, Optical out (best with an external amplifier for sound), PCI 3.0 support. With at least 2-4 SATA 6 connectors. For your chosen case, I would go for a standard atx form factor to fill up the space and a support for LGA 1155 for your i7 procie. Choose Z68 chipset if you plan on using an SSD cache with SRT.

Video card: Should depend on your monitor/s resolution. You should ask yourself if you want eyefinity, 3D, or surround and go from there. A single ATI 6970 could run BF3 in Ultra mode without any problems (personally tested). If you want NVidia, you might want to consider a single GTX 570 or 580 instead of 2 GTX 550s in SLI or a single EVGA GeForce GTX 560 TI 2Win which is like 2 560s in SLI (note: not possible for quad SLI).

Im pretty sure other can anwer the techie questions better than myself- I just know the basics.

But I would like to point out that the PC market has been taking quite a hit recently when running against laptops, ipads and consoles.

This is now the time to buy from a big company like Dell etc as they will have lowered prices to increase sales. Im pretty sure that it would be cheaper to buy the rig from them atm than it is to build your own.

Have a browse around the links below before making your decision :)