True i'll wait until something really blows the whole market away and when i have some more money.  I think i'm ready to shoot away, I decided to get the Intel I7 2600k because i had some extra money in the budget and why not get a little upgrade.  I can't wait to start building my first PC!

The first time is always memorable - and you will probably make mistakes (not devastating ones, but small things like the perfect amount of thermal paste, airflow, etc). Just take your time, and be ready for your heart to race the first time you try to power it on. The initial POST on a lot of the newer units tend to take an extra few seconds (for a number of legit reasons), so it'll likely be one of the longest 4-6 second waits you ever experience, lol.

Oh, and overclocking - very easy. If you want to cheat, just pull up a youtube video or two and see what other people get.

Edit: Also on the cooler - I did look it up - the Evo I linked is essentially the improved version of the one Quizzical suggested. It is a very small difference, so it's up to you if its worth the $9 difference or not.

Originally posted by dramatikz

I decided to get the Intel I7 2600k because i had some extra money in the budget and why not get a little upgrade.

Because it's not a meaningful upgrade.

There are basically four differences between a Core i5 2500K and a Core i7 2600K.

1)  The 2600K has hyperthreading, while the 2500K does not.  This makes absolutely no difference whatsoever in programs that do not scale to more than four cores, as in such cases, Windows will ignore hyperthread and not use it--precisely because if Windows did use it, the only possible change in performance is to decrease it, not increase it.  It's unlikely that there will be games where four fast cores are not good enough in the useful lifetime of your machine, so this doesn't matter for gaming purposes.

2)  The stock clock speed is different.  This doesn't matter at all, because you can change it in the BIOS.  If you want a 2500K to perform like a 2600K at stock settings for gaming purposes, all you have to do is to go into the BIOS and change the multiplier from 33 to 34.  Having a different default BIOS setting when you have the same options available either way is not a meaningful difference.

3)  The 2600K has 8 MB of L3 cache, while the 2500K has 6 MB.  This might get you about a 1% performance boost, if that.

4)  The 2600K is more expensive, and by around $100.

Difference #4 is the only one that matters for gaming purposes, and the reason why the Core i5 2500K is the standard for moderately high end gaming systems.

Thanks quiz, without you i would have no clue what i'm doing.  Final decision is the i5-2500k Sandy Bridge, and I'm going with the cooler upgrade gamer guy recommended.

Great decision on building your own, unfortunately im the not so lucky one didnt have the time to build my own, (2 kids, 1 that likes to mess with my stuff A LOT) so i bought one from ibuypower, bigest $2500 mistake i made and wont make again, now my pc sits in the closet waiting for them to send me crappier parts..like today got a new piece today i got a new fan controller and a top power button/usb piece, the power button piece had a cracked usb 2.0 slot(the old one was damaged on the usb 2.0 also) so needless to say im almost to the point i want to take them to court and get my money back, shit parts shit service yea i wont leave a nice review when im done with them

Originally posted by westyy

Great decision on building your own, unfortunately im the not so lucky one didnt have the time to build my own, (2 kids, 1 that likes to mess with my stuff A LOT) so i bought one from ibuypower, bigest $2500 mistake i made and wont make again, now my pc sits in the closet waiting for them to send me crappier parts..like today got a new piece today i got a new fan controller and a top power button/usb piece, the power button piece had a cracked usb 2.0 slot(the old one was damaged on the usb 2.0 also) so needless to say im almost to the point i want to take them to court and get my money back, shit parts shit service yea i wont leave a nice review when im done with them

That's awful man, hope everything works out in the end for you.  I'm glad everyone pre-warned me about all that crap, otherwise i could be in the same positition.