
Originally Posted by
ik9000
I got the i3-540 over the AMD - Anandtech did a very helpful comparison of the budget processors a few months back. Basically for most stuff the i3 was on parity with, or better than, the AMD chips and it overclocks well.
i3-540
Asus P7H55-M/USB3.0 (mATX and has Sata 3 (6GB/s) and USB3.0 plus a cracking BIOS, no RAID though)
LG BluRay R/W
GTX560 Ti or failing that a GTX460
60GB OCZ Vertex (one of the older sandforce ones if you can get it)
1TB Seagate 7200.12 - they are QUIET and do well against the pack - see PCPro reviews.
4GB corsair 1600 9-9-9-24
Case, take your pick. I went for the BitFenix Survivor and it is sweeeeeeeet