EDIT:  Made a couple changes suggested by posters in this thread.  Changed my PSU and added an SSD.  This did add about $150 in cost.

Note: At the $2000 price point, I am reusing my Windows license, existing hard drive and optical drives only.  Everything else is new.

As with any build, this is all a matter of opinion, budget and hardware preferences.  The only thing that really matters is that you build a machine that works within your constraints.

I just finished doing the research and speccing out my new build.  My builds go for bang for the buck performance.  I don't case mod, or light everything up with LEDs to show off.  My computer sits at home in my home office and It is the center of my technology universe, which obviously includes gaming.

This build is *absolutely overkill* for MMO gaming, but I build my machines to be very poweful across the gaming spectrum for a minimum of 3 years without the need for a single upgrade.  My last machine was a first gen i7 920 cpu with a GTX 295 (dual gpu card) that was strong up until very recently, and then happened to die on me. 

So here is the core build, with some explanation after:

Comments:  There is a lot I can say here, but I will try to scale it down.  The new 3rd Generation Intel Ivy Bridge i7 3770K fits my needs well, as I do some video editing where raw throughput is helpful, as well as some other multithreaded computing applications.  With i7 I get 8 cpu threads.  I considered the 2nd Gen six-core i7 (12 threads), but it really wasn't worth another $250, especially knowing that I would rarely spool up all 12 threads.  Keep in mind that most games are still only using one or two cores, so for gaming, anything more than a quad core is a waste anyway at this current time.  There are other benefits to the Ivy Bridge cpus out now, such as lower power consumption, and native USB 3.0.

Having said all of that, if you don't *need* the additional throughput of the i7 CPUs, look at the i5 2500K.  It's a very popular quad core that happily overclocks and doesn't expell as much heat as the 3770K.  Don't buy a six core unless you have money to burn, or you need the additional threads.  99% of people simply don't need six cores, and you don't need them for gaming. There currently are no Ivy Bridge six core CPUs in production.

Comments:  I love ASUS.  I almost waited for the new ROG Maximus V Formula board coming out soon, but the boards are very similar, and I need a machine now.   The P8Z77 line has been lauded across the board by reviewers, so you can't go wrong.  It will do all kinds of overclocking and has most of the latest ASUS features.   If you were planning to do extreme overclocking I would say wait for the Formula, or get the EVGA FTW board.  If you want a great deal, get the Pro instead of the Deluxe and you still get most of the features.

Comments: This great RAM costs about $100 for 16GB.  It's a good deal.  It is CAS 11 RAM which could be better, but more importantly it is pc2133 speed.  Cas 9 RAM will cost you another $100, and you won't really notice the difference.  If you are going to do extreme overclocking, look at G.Skill instead.

GRAPHICS:

Comments:  DO NOT waste your money on a GTX 680.  Benchmarks show that the 670 is just slightly slower, and I mean slight.  As you can see, I am putting in two 670's which puts me just under the same performance as a dual GPU 690, but for $200 cheaper.  Guru3d.com has done extensive bechmarking of the whole line, as have other reviewers, and concludes by telling you to buy 670s unless you want to piss money away.

A single GTX 670 is more than enough for most, if not all, MMO games out now, or releasing in the near future.  The only exception to this may be if you want to run max resolution and graphics settings on a large 27"/30"screen, or run multiple screens.  Then you will benefit from Sli the most.

SLi rocks.  My last build was a GTX 295 (dual GPU) that was strong for over three years right up until it died last week.  I was running both GW2 and TSW with all settings maxed with no problem on a three year old SLi setup.  Spend the money on a good multi GPU setup, and you will be good to go for years. Start with one now, add another later (when they are cheaper).

Comments: This case owns.  It's a little more expensive at about $150, but it's cheaper than a lot of other full tower cases with less cooling capability.  Worth every penny.

CHANGED: POWER SUPPLY:

Comments:  I originally had what turned out to be s sub-par power supply (Thermaltake Black Widow), but thanks to some posters here, I picked up the above unit instead. 

ADDED: SSD:

OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III SSD

Comments:  I wasn't going to do an SSD, but the posters here convinced me to give it a shot.  I'm not convinced that I want to use this for Windows yet, but I will test it out. The size is small, but will work for the apps I am most interested in boosting (such as Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World).  TweakTown gives this SSD a 94% rating as of May 2012.

Conclusion

I consider this, for my use, to be the best build I can do for about $2000.  It uses new Ivy Bridge tech (Z77), and gives me room to upgrade and/or overclock if I want later. The 3770k CPU gives me all the CPU power I need for gaming, plus the extra threads for other things I do such as video encoding, graphical work and folding@home.

There are several things that could be scaled down to save money:

You can get a good mid-tower case for well under $100.  A good motherboard can be had for $150, rather than almost $300, and you could cut out one of the 670's until later when they only cost $200 or so.  If you aren't really going to overclock, you don't need the liquid cooler.  There are killer air coolers available for $35. In otherwords, you could still build a screaming single GPU system for a little over $1000.  As people have noted you can build a great mid-grade MMO gaming rig for even less with a less expensive graphics card.   

On overclocking:  For pure gaming, get the i5 2500K quad core.  You don't need an i7, and you don't need Ivy Bridge.  Sandy is still preferred by a lot of people.   Your motherboard and RAM are important here too.  Read reviews.

I'll post some pictures once it is put together this week.

Where is the SSD?  And you went ridiculous overkill on so many parts, but couldn't be bothered to get a decent power supply?

Originally posted by Quizzical

Where is the SSD?  And you went ridiculous overkill on so many parts, but couldn't be bothered to get a decent power supply?

This build was on a budget, and I put the money where it really matters for now.

The Thermaltake Black Widow power supply is a good one.  I actually don't need more than 850 watts for this build because the Ivy Bridge CPU and the 670's sip power compared to the last two generations of products.  However, if a year from now I decide I want to overclock up into the 4.6Ghz range, I will end up getting a better power supply because I will want something more effecient.  Probably an 80 Plus Gold model.  I'll likely go modular cooling in that case as well.

It's not even clear that I will want to overclock.  I left room in my previous i7/Sli machine to overclock, and I never once felt like I needed to in three years. I ran almost every game I paid for at full settings at a great framerate.  I probably would have rolled that machine for another six months if it wasn't for my GTX 295 dying on me last week.

As far as SSD goes, those are a total waste of money, in my opinion, when you can spend that money on so many other things.  As I said, your discreet graphics cards are the most important item in your build, and I spent over $900, almost half my budget on my cards.  

If the sky is the limit, then by all means, get one and put your OS and your games on it.  Well, a few games anyway, because you won't get much SSD storage space for your money yet.  The Barracuda I am using now is more than good enough, and I probably won't pick up an SSD until I can get a very fast 500GB model for a *decent* price.  I'm in no hurry to jump on the SSD bandwagon yet.

I wouldn't say I went "ridiculous overkill" really either.  The only place I went over the top for MMO gaming was the SLi 670s.  However, I also play FPS games and I am planning to put in either a three panel nVidia Surround setup, or a 27" nVidia 3D Vision 2 display, so my SLi setup is perfect for that.  I could have saved a little money in a couple other parts of my build, but not a lot.  The CPU and Motherboard combo gives me what I need for work and play with a path to overclock later if I want.

Of you want to see ridiculous overkill, talk to people who are still spending $3000-$4000 to build gaming rigs.

"The Thermaltake Black Widow power supply is a good one."

How do you know?

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/902/

They tried pulling  the rated wattage from it, and it fried.  They also found that ripple ran out of spec far below the rated wattage.  That can lead to dead hardware, or myriad other problems that can be such a pain to track down that you might be better off with dead hardware.  Is that really what you want to risk your $2000 build on?

"I actually don't need more than 850 watts."

The problem isn't the sticker on the label.  The problem is the electronics inside.  A good quality 850 W power supply would be plenty for you.  But that's probably not what you have.

"Probably an 80 Plus Gold model.  I'll likely go modular cooling in that case as well."

Better energy efficiency and modular cables are both nice.  But they aren't as important as having the electrical output stay in spec.

"I probably would have rolled that machine for another six months if it wasn't for my GTX 295 dying on me last week."

You know what happens when you try to cram too much heat into too little space?  I suppose you just found out the hard way.  To be fair, two GTX 670s in SLI probably won't have issues with that, at least if they have nice coolers and are properly spaced.  And a GTX 295 didn't have nearly as bad of a case of this as a Radeon HD 4870 X2, or worse, a GeForce GTX 590.

"As far as SSD goes, those are a total waste of money, in my opinion, when you can spend that money on so many other things."

Suppose that you were to build two nearly identical computers.  One is exactly what you built.  The other cuts back by having 8 GB of memory, a Core i5-3570K, an Asus P8Z77-V, and only one GeForce GTX 670 rather than two, in order to make room for a good SSD.  And then you let people who don't know what hardware is inside use both, and ask them which is faster.  The answer will be pretty much unanimous that the latter is faster, and it's not close.  Because an SSD makes that much difference.

Without an SSD, your new computer won't even be fast by today's standards, let alone any sort of future-proofing.  Even netbook chips are rather severely held back by a hard drive, let alone much faster processors.  Intel figured this out several years ago, which is why they got into SSDs in the first place.  Their fear was that people wouldn't be willing to pay more for a faster processor if they can't tell the difference because the computer is mostly waiting on the hard drive either way.

"If the sky is the limit, then by all means, get one and put your OS and your games on it.  Well, a few games anyway, because you won't get much SSD storage space for your money yet."

I have a 120 GB SSD and no hard drive.  I think I have 6 or 7 commercial games installed at the moment.  And I've got a lot of space left over, too.  For a new computer today on a large budget, maybe you'd want more capacity than that.  But that doesn't have to be expensive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226237

If you can't fit your OS and commonly used programs on there, then you're doing something wrong.

Originally posted by Quizzical

"The Thermaltake Black Widow power supply is a good one."

How do you know?

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/902/

They tried pulling  the rated wattage from it, and it fried.  They also found that ripple ran out of spec far below the rated wattage.  That can lead to dead hardware, or myriad other problems that can be such a pain to track down that you might be better off with dead hardware.  Is that really what you want to risk your $2000 build on?

"I actually don't need more than 850 watts."

The problem isn't the sticker on the label.  The problem is the electronics inside.  A good quality 850 W power supply would be plenty for you.  But that's probably not what you have.

"Probably an 80 Plus Gold model.  I'll likely go modular cooling in that case as well."

Better energy efficiency and modular cables are both nice.  But they aren't as important as having the electrical output stay in spec.

"I probably would have rolled that machine for another six months if it wasn't for my GTX 295 dying on me last week."

You know what happens when you try to cram too much heat into too little space?  I suppose you just found out the hard way.  To be fair, two GTX 670s in SLI probably won't have issues with that, at least if they have nice coolers and are properly spaced.  And a GTX 295 didn't have nearly as bad of a case of this as a Radeon HD 4870 X2, or worse, a GeForce GTX 590.

"As far as SSD goes, those are a total waste of money, in my opinion, when you can spend that money on so many other things."

Suppose that you were to build two nearly identical computers.  One is exactly what you built.  The other cuts back by having 8 GB of memory, a Core i5-3570K, an Asus P8Z77-V, and only one GeForce GTX 670 rather than two, in order to make room for a good SSD.  And then you let people who don't know what hardware is inside use both, and ask them which is faster.  The answer will be pretty much unanimous that the latter is faster, and it's not close.  Because an SSD makes that much difference.

Without an SSD, your new computer won't even be fast by today's standards, let alone any sort of future-proofing.  Even netbook chips are rather severely held back by a hard drive, let alone much faster processors.  Intel figured this out several years ago, which is why they got into SSDs in the first place.  Their fear was that people wouldn't be willing to pay more for a faster processor if they can't tell the difference because the computer is mostly waiting on the hard drive either way.

"If the sky is the limit, then by all means, get one and put your OS and your games on it.  Well, a few games anyway, because you won't get much SSD storage space for your money yet."

I have a 120 GB SSD and no hard drive.  I think I have 6 or 7 commercial games installed at the moment.  And I've got a lot of space left over, too.  For a new computer today on a large budget, maybe you'd want more capacity than that.  But that doesn't have to be expensive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226237

If you can't fit your OS and commonly used programs on there, then you're doing something wrong.

I'll keep this short, because it's clear you have some need to argue, or to "be right", so after I post this, I'll be done talking to you.

• I'm not "future proofing" my hard drive now. I'm reusing a fairly new one and replacing it later as needed. I consider hard drives to be somewhat consumable products, unlike the other main components.  
• My GTX295 lasted three full years of daily gaming and ran perfectly in a crappy/hot Alienware case, your opinions about flawed dual GPU card engineering aside.
• My i7 920 / GTX 295 system ran for three full years on a crappy Alienware 750 "80 Plus" power supply that is notorious for dying on people.  I'm not worried about the Thermaltake, and if it is flawed, I'll replace it.
• You spend a lot of time assuming how I will be using my computer and then making judgments about my SLi and i7 CPU choice.  My OP says that this build fits MY NEEDS, not yours or anyone else's here.  I do video production, which is only *part* of my decision making process. The 3770 was a good compromise over the six core Sandy.  I'm also setting up 3D Vision 2 on a 27" monitor where SLi will shine.
• The price difference between 8GB of RAM and 16GB was tiny. Check Newegg. You can call it overkill, but the extra money spent was negligible.
• I've been running ASUS motherboards since the 1990's.  I love them, and while there are cheaper Mobos out there, I  have never had an ASUS fail on me. I find the features of this Deluxe fit my needs.  If you want to go cheaper, go for it.
• SSD improves read/load times.  Load times of your OS, large programs, and inside games they will often improve load times of maps and assets.  They improve performance of read-intensive programs, assuming that program as able to take advantage of it, and that the rest of your system can compliment the SSD appropriately. Load times are not a problem for me.  It would be nice to get a boost here, but it's not a life changer.
• Minimum FPS can be improved by SSD if your game constantly needs to access the hard drive.  However, most games shouldn't be doing that.  If this is happening a lot to you, then you may have your settings too high for the amount of video and/or system memory available. 
• I have been playing Battlefield 3, Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World on high settings very smoothly with a three year old computer running standard SATA drives.  I'm pretty sure I can wait for SSD prices to come down and sizes to go up before I really "need" one.  Your opinion may vary.

You obviously have not ever had a fast SSD in your machine. I pity the fool.

I was a bit skeptical with regard to ssd's and the impact it has, although mine was in reverse. I had one and then used an equivalent pc which didn't... snore fest.

Especially for gaming, for example TSW has quite a few loads, the difference between having and ssd and not was astounding, actually made the game unplayable without it for me.

I didn't say SSD doesn't have some advantages, but some people around here seem to asign them almost magical properties.  The advantage as has been pointed out, is in general read/load times.  My computer was never really slow in that area anyway.  Slower than a good gaming rig with SSD? Sure.  Slow enough to make me want to waste money on a tiny SSD drive?  Nope.  I'll wait until they are bigger and cheaper.

you could just get a 60GB SSD and SRT it to you HDD. thats what i did and it works great with my 2TB HDD. i built my new PC one week ago and its running perfectly. my specs for my PC:
I5 3570k
Asrock extreme6 z77
SLI EVGA GTX 670's standard GPU's not superclocked or FTW models(FTW is a waste of money unless you run 3+ monitors at once)
8GB ddr3 1600mhz g.skill ripjaws X ram
1000 watt power supply azza titan
after the srt deems a game used enough to store it on my ssd games load in less then 5 seconds compared to 15+ on my HDD.

If it's for video editing, then the Core i7 and 16 GB of system memory might make sense for you.  Or it might not.  It depends on what you do with video editing.  But for a purely gaming system, they're both highly wasteful.  But that's fine, as yours isn't a pure gaming system.

How is the Asrock z77? I was considering that board because it was a little cheaper then some of the other ones. Once one of those superclocked 670's come in I'm buying one. They're always out of stock  :<

You can build an above average gaming rig for under $1200 if you wait for sales, maybe less depending on your location. I used to buy the newest and greatest for a while, then I realized I hardly used all those advanced features. Unless you are hardcore into performance tweaking as an avid computer builder, there are a lot of places you can save yet still retain great performance. I guess it depends how passionate you are, and how much money you have.

Originally posted by Soaapy

How is the Asrock z77? I was considering that board because it was a little cheaper then some of the other ones. Once one of those superclocked 670's come in I'm buying one. They're always out of stock  :<

Look into the EVGA FTW 670 as an alternative.  The clock speed is bumped up a little, but more importantly it has improved cooling and uses the 680 pcb rather than the 670 pcb.  The 680 board is reportedly more robust, and can better handle overclocking if that's what you want.  I just bought two of them and they are only $20 more than a standard 670.

Food for thought.  I was looking at the superclocked 670s too, but the benefit wasn't worth the wait over the FTW version, IMO.

I dunno, I was looking at this one..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-130-785&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=1#scrollFullInfo

It's always out of stock.. The other day I got an email it was in stock, an hour later they were gone again.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Note: At the $2000 price point, I am reusing my Windows license, existing hard drive and optical drives only.  Everything else is new.

 

As with any build, this is all a matter of opinion, budget and hardware preferences.  The only thing that really matters is that you build a machine that works within your constraints.

I just finished doing the research and speccing out my new build.  My builds go for bang for the buck performance.  I don't case mod, or light everything up with LEDs to show off.  My computer sits at home in my home office and It is the center of my technology universe, which obviously includes gaming.

This build is *absolutely overkill* for MMO gaming, but I build my machines to be very poweful across the gaming spectrum for a minimum of 3 years without the need for a single upgrade.  My last machine was a first gen i7 920 cpu with a GTX 295 (dual gpu card) that was strong up until very recently, and then happened to die on me. 

So here is the core build, with some explanation after:

 

CPU:

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000

Comments:  There is a lot I can say here, but I will try to scale it down.  The new 3rd Generation Intel Ivy Bridge i7 3770K fits my needs well, as I do some video editing where raw throughput is helpful, as well as some other multithreaded computing applications.  With i7 I get 8 cpu threads.  I considered the 2nd Gen six-core i7 (12 threads), but it really wasn't worth another $250, especially knowing that I would rarely spool up all 12 threads.  Keep in mind that most games are still only using one or two cores, so for gaming, anything more than a quad core is a waste anyway at this current time.  There are other benefits to the Ivy Bridge cpus out now, such as lower power consumption, and native USB 3.0.

Having said all of that, if you don't *need* the additional throughput of the i7 CPUs, look at the i5 2500K.  It's a very popular quad core that happily overclocks and doesn't expell as much heat as the 3770K.  Don't buy a six core unless you have money to burn, or you need the additional threads.  99% of people simply don't need six cores, and you don't need them for gaming. There currently are no Ivy Bridge six core CPUs in production.

 

MOTHERBOARD:

ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard:

Comments:  I love ASUS.  I almost waited for the new ROG Maximus V Formula board coming out soon, but the boards are very similar, and I need a machine now.   The P8Z77 line has been lauded across the board by reviewers, so you can't go wrong.  It will do all kinds of overclocking and has most of the latest ASUS features.   If you were planning to do extreme overclocking I would say wait for the Formula, or get the EVGA FTW board.  If you want a great deal, get the Pro instead of the Deluxe and you still get most of the features.

 

 

MEMORY:

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 Desktop Memory

Comments: This great RAM costs about $100 for 16GB.  It's a good deal.  It is CAS 11 RAM which could be better, but more importantly it is pc2133 speed.  Cas 9 RAM will cost you another $100, and you won't really notice the difference.  If you are going to do extreme overclocking, look at G.Skill instead.

 

GRAPHICS:

2 x EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card (factory overclocked)

Comments:  DO NOT waste your money on a GTX 680.  Benchmarks show that the 670 is just slightly slower, and I mean slight.  As you can see, I am putting in two 670's which puts me just under the same performance as a dual GPU 690, but for $200 cheaper.  Guru3d.com has done extensive bechmarking of the whole line, as have other reviewers, and concludes by telling you to buy 670s unless you want to piss money away.

 

A single GTX 670 is more than enough for most, if not all, MMO games out now, or releasing in the near future.  The only exception to this may be if you want to run max resolution and graphics settings on a large 27"/30"screen, or run multiple screens.  Then you will benefit from Sli the most.

 

SLi rocks.  My last build was a GTX 295 (dual GPU) that was strong for over three years right up until it died last week.  I was running both GW2 and TSW with all settings maxed with no problem on a three year old SLi setup.  Spend the money on a good multi GPU setup, and you will be good to go for years. Start with one now, add another later (when they are cheaper).

 

CASE:

Cooler Master HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower

Comments: This case owns.  It's a little more expensive at about $150, but it's cheaper than a lot of other full tower cases with less cooling capability.  Worth every penny.

 

CPU COOLING:

Corsair H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

 

Comments:  What can you say?  A few years ago when I built my last machine, all we really had available was modular liquid cooling that was daunting to some users, and very expensive.  Now you can buy a closed loop system that rocks for only $100. 

 

POWER SUPPLY:

Thermaltake Black Widow TR2 RX 850 Watt

Comments:  I had this power supply on hand, so I'm using it for this build.  It's a good unit, but not the best.  The 3770 cpu and the new 670s require less power than the older technology, so 850 should be more than fine for this build.  My older system was a power-pig, so I'm hoping this one will be better in that area. With this build, I probably won't overclock anytime soon, because I won't need to.

 

Conclusion

I consider this, for my use, to be the best build I can do for about $2000.  It uses new Ivy Bridge tech (Z77), and gives me room to upgrade and/or overclock if I want later. The 3770k CPU gives me all the CPU power I need for gaming, plus the extra threads for other things I do such as video encoding, graphical work and folding@home.

There are several things that could be scaled down to save money:

You can get a good mid-tower case for well under $100.  A good motherboard can be had for $150, rather than almost $300, and you could cut out one of the 670's until later when they only cost $200 or so.  If you aren't really going to overclock, you don't need the liquid cooler.  There are killer air coolers available for $35. In otherwords, you could still build a screaming single GPU system for a little over $1000.  As people have noted you can build a great mid-grade MMO gaming rig for even less with a less expensive graphics card.   

On overclocking:  For pure gaming, get the i5 2500K quad core.  You don't need an i7, and you don't need Ivy Bridge.  Sandy is still preferred by a lot of people.   Your motherboard and RAM are important here too.  Read reviews.

I'll post some pictures once it is put together this week.

 

I would encourage you to at least consider a better PSU.

Originally posted by Quizzical

If it's for video editing, then the Core i7 and 16 GB of system memory might make sense for you.  Or it might not.  It depends on what you do with video editing.  But for a purely gaming system, they're both highly wasteful.  But that's fine, as yours isn't a pure gaming system.

Ok, Quizz. 

Your posts were nagging at me all evening last night, because I'm a gigantic Nerd.  After looking around at the power supplies,  I decided to keep this Thermaltake Back Widow on my shelf for a client office computer repair where it will be more than enough, and purchase something better for my new build.

I'm going over my budget now, and this doesn't make the wifey very happy, so I had to try to keep the cost down and find a good value.  I decided to try out the XFX PRO850W XXX Edition 80 Plus Silver.  It has great reviews on Newegg, and after doing a little looking around I saw that they are based on the acclaimed Seasonic M12D, and the XXX line is basically the older version of their top end  'Black Edition' line which is now an even more efficient (and expensive) set of products today.  Unlike the Thermaltake Black Widow I have here, I couldn't find any negative comments about it.  Seasonic is well known for quality, and they OEM the power supplies for several other brands as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207017

I also bit my lip, and decided to buy a small SSD drive to try out. Again, I had to balance performance and dollars so I picked up an OCZ Vertex 4 128GB model.  There were some reports of issues with this drive right out of the box, but from what I understand there was a firmware update which took care of them and made everyone happy.  There may be better SSDs out there, and maybe even for the same price, but I am out of time as I need this machine back up and running by Friday.  I don't have time to take half a day for this decision.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

So you guys who are using SSDs now, are you using them as your OS (+ a game or two) or are you just using them as an ancillary drive to install apps on?

EDIT:  TweakTown gives this SSD a 94% rating, and suggests that it may be in the top two fastest 128Gb SSDs on the market.  Figured you guys might want to know that if you are shopping.

TweakTown.com Review

As I have some memory complications, I retain overviews but not particulars, so take this with grain of salt please.

From reading much I have learned that the use of the SSD in gaming seems to work well with the OS and games on it, with other files on HD.

Also the big deal on the SSD's is not only a quality brand, but the brands which write their own firmware.

Sorry if this is no help but I do keep the names of some products which fit the criteria, afore mentioned, commited to memory.

This is one such http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226236

 and they did have a 240 gb at or just under $200?aa

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226  also

http://www.overclock.net/t/671977/hyperthreading-in-games  I thought I'd just throw this in, (more thinking about your "wife agro to cost ratio," lol.)

After reading it's not clear but a decent clock speed would seem to trump hyperthreading in games, slightly.

However your other uses, may Trump any gaming argument against Hyperthreading.

Trust me that most here really want everyone to have the best machine they can, egos rarely, if ever, factor.

it is the reason I study here, as well as Overclock.net, well that and living vicariously through all of you folks success in your builds, for that I thank you.

PS, Quiz is an awesome guy, lol, he wants the best for you too, I believe that, with all my heart. :)

The performance differences among good SSDs basically don't matter for consumer use.  They're all so fast that you'll never notice a difference outside of synthetic benchmarks.  If one SSD is 50x as fast as a hard drive in certain circumstances, and another SSD is 100x as fast, so what?  Both of them mean you're not waiting on the SSD like you would have for the hard drive.

The differences between SSDs that matter are price, capacity, and reliability.  The first two of those are very easy, as they're in the specs.  Reliability is harder, but many SSDs have had firmware problems at first, which subsequently get fixed.  You can reduce the chances of that by getting an SSD that has been on the market for a while, so that the problems have probably already been fixed.

I personally wouldn't have bought an OCZ Vertex 4 just because it's a relatively recent release.  Are the firmware problems now fixed?  Maybe, or maybe not.

The other side of this is, even if it does have firmware problems, that doesn't automatically mean it will have problems that affect you.  Problems that will affect a large fraction of customers tend to get caught and fixed before release.  And really, we're talking about, this product has a 95% chance of working right, and that one has a 98% chance.  And, of course, those numbers aren't even knowable.  So it's not like the Vertex 4 is likely to be a bad product.  I just wouldn't have bought it myself--unless it was meaningfully cheaper than the competition, which it probably wasn't.

Of course, if the choice is a Vertex 4 or no SSD, then it's an easy choice:  you get the Vertex 4.

OCZ Vertex line has been relatively good through the years - a few firmware issues but mostly resolved quickly - better track record than most SSDs.

You will definitely notice the SSD... or actually, it's more along the lines of when you get on another computer, you will definitely notice the ~lack~ of an SSD. In my opinion it is the single best thing to come along in personal computing since the 3D accelerator - it makes a huge difference in day to day performance of your machine. They are silent, low power, reliable (especially in portable computers), run cool, fast, and are all-in-all pretty well superior to traditional hard drives in every aspect except price per byte.

I tend to follow the trend: my main SSD (Crucial C300 120G) has OS (about 30G) and most commonly used games/apps. I try to keep 10% free for temporary space (downloads/caches/etc). I keep my swap file on it (Yes, I keep the swap file enabled, I have 12G of RAM - I can debate the merits of that separately if anyone wants to). If I run low on space, I swap out a game or app I haven't used recently for one I'm about to, and put the older game/app back on my bulk data drive.

I have 4 other drives in this machine now - one older SSD (OCZ Apex - definitely not the fastest, but it's been running along fine for 3+ years now) that I install a lot of games on, a newer Raptor that I keep unplugged and only plug in for occasional backups (it is loud), and a larger WD that I keep my bulk data on (it sleeps most of the time).