I have the cooler, it’s good, but:
AMD?
no ssd?
7,2 HDD?
believe me PCs have developed some in those 8 years 
combination of ssd and slower hdd is the way to go
with LED monitors - beware the pwm
At some stage I’m going to be swapping one into my laptop, I’m finding that since I bought my present laptop a couple of years ago, HP G62 with a Core i5 M460 on Windows 7 home premium 64bit, (I know it’s outclassed now) that I can do everything that I need to do on it including lots of Photoshop (Elements 9) while on the net with 5 or 6 tabs open (Firefox) without any slowdown. The start-up time has got longer despite all the “housekeeping” clearing unused programs and running virus scans, spybot and adblock etc. I’ve been really impressed with SSD’s performance and want one but there’s lights and knives to buy. 
For those of you who still boot have you heard of suspend to ram and turning off the hybrid sleep mode (which is useless and just wastes your time and ssd and is unbearable with a lot of ram)?
Leave them on.
Good choice, I was going to add a +42 on that one… It beats any CPU upgrade.
Personally I would go for an Intel CPU and mainboard, as they are pretty far ahead of AMD at the moment. Although it might be a bit more expensive.
Not sure about the 27 inch 1920x1080 monitor. The resolution is rather low for 27 inch. And I would strongly recomment an IPS screen, for a lot better enjoyment of your nice new Deft-X beam shots :). I prefer the extra height of my 24 inch 1920x1200 screen.
The current generation of nVIDIA graphics cards is very good and a bit more power efficient and quiet than AMD. But AMD 7870 is not a bad choice.
Some nice articles:
CPU: The Best CPU for Gaming in 2024 | Tom's Hardware
Graphics: Best Graphics Cards 2024 - Top Gaming GPUs for the Money | Tom's Hardware
SSD: Best SSDs 2024: From Budget SATA to Blazing-Fast NVMe | Tom's Hardware
If you want a really good power supply, I can recommend Seasonic. They even have fanless ones that are really efficient and don’t get warm at all. But they are expensive. They have several models listed and tested here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs . The Corsair is probably pretty good already, at least some of them are made by Seasonic, not quite sure about the model you picked.
thanks for the info - if for some reason the monitor is crummy i can return for free to amazon and just buy another one… the monitor is actually coming tomorrow, so i can try it with my laptop
The nice 27” screens have a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels (but are pretty expensive). For me, 1920x1080 at that size would mean big pixels. Nowadays they use that resolution for 5 inch telephone screens :). But if you like big pixels, it might be good. I would think it takes up more desk space and doesn’t show a more detailed picture. It might have more lumens though ;).
TN screens don’t have great viewing angles. The one you picked has 170° H x 160° V, which is typical for TN. IPS screens usually show 178 degrees in both directions. That is just some spec, like distance on flashlights though, you will notice different colours at much smaller angles. Also, with a big screen like that, you already have quite an angle when looking at the sides when sitting in front of it, so you might notice colour differences at the sides already. If you look at a TN screen from above, you’ll notice the colours change a lot and the screen actually becoming inverse.
There are pretty cheap 1920x1080 IPS screens with around 22” size, for example this one: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-monitor-vs239hp
I don’t know whether it’s a good one, just picked a cheap one with HDMI input (although you could use a converter on a DVI input for HDMI devices) and 5 ms response time (which is quick for IPS).
You can use something like LCD monitor test images to test and calibrate your screen.
the monitor is coming tomorrow evening - so ill test it out… it will probably look better to me than anything ive had… my laptop has a cheap matte screen… and my plasma tv is from 2006
the last monitor i had was a dell 24” which was nice for 2005… but im sure there are lots of better things out now
if i dont like this 27” after a few days/a week tops ill swap it for a 24” most likely
it has decent reviews on amazon, which is why i got it… and all i have to do to return it is put it back in the box and call ups and it free no hassle returns
Plasma should be way better than TN and from what I read even IPS. My work laptop has a TN screen, and I don’t like it at all. But there were no options available with a good screen at the time.
Actually I’ve been using a 22” CRT at home till just a few years ago because I didn’t like the picture quality and response times of the LCD screens. So maybe it’s just me being picky and it’s fine for you.
i hope so because i am picky too hehehe.
When I build a computer, I always refer to passmark.com. There are up to date comparisons on hard drives, video cards, CPUs etc. for example Intel makes the fastest chips, but AMD is the fastest for the buck. In other words, at any given price point, AMD is the fastest. There are handy charts to use to compare.
An example chart
The link for this page is
HERE
very useful! thanks for sharing
Intel has an advantage with lower power consumption, which mean less produced heat and noise from the fan. It’s also best to check benchmarks for the applications you actually use (where performance matters). Some can use multiple cores very well, but others only use 1, which makes a lot of difference when comparing CPU’s.
When I look at the value for money of CPU upgrades, I calculate it based on (part of) the price for the complete system (maybe without the screen). Disk performance also has a significant impact on perceived performance (and maybe the amount of RAM, up to a point, but nowadays it’s pretty easy to have more than enough). So I usually end up around 200 dollars for a CPU, which is where the cheapest Intel K editions are quite nice, in particular when you overclock them without increasing the voltage (4 GHz is easy).
In any case, I wouldn’t build any computer without an SSD anymore, even if it’s just a small one for just the OS and the most important applications. Can’t stand using computers without one anymore, so much waiting for rattling disks and the unresponsiveness of the whole system because of that…
I bought two AMD A8 laptops for $400 each about a year ago, and they are as fast as most of their Intel counterparts costing 4 times as much. They did only come with 4GB of RAM but $20 apiece fixed that and now they are both at 8 GB. It’s true at the high end that Intel still has a nice performance edge, but AMD chips are still a great value nonetheless. And in some cases the new AMD A series has better graphics performance (and lower power) than all of their Intel counterparts without a high end graphics card because the GPU is built onto the chip. So my $400 machine has better graphics performance than some higher end machines. We are not hardcore gamers anymore, but our machines play some of the newer games and they play Skyrim cranked up.
my monitor is here - looks great
Building computers isn’t worth it anymore. Dell often has specials on i7 desktops for <$1000 and you only need to add a ssd, some ram, and maybe a gaming card for performance that will last for years. Everything works on first boot and a warranty just in case. Very quiet and well designed.
Back in the day markups were high on better machines, but all hardware these days are commodities. Unless you’re doing something special or funky (like 3x pci-e for xtreme gaming or e-currency mining) someone will make it for a reasonable price.
It’s still quite a big markup for what you get, and it likely won’t be exactly what you want. If you don’t want to deal with building it and troubleshooting you can give one of the many comp building companies $150-300 to do it for you and you’ll still get exactly what you want.
you have to use their drivers so if you want to upgrade (or downgrade) windows you are SOL
if there is a bug found it affects less users and is less likely to get remedied
if i am adding to it to make it what i want then the cost becomes higher then building, i am paying for parts i don’t want then paying for the parts i do want, i’m almost always better off just paying for the parts i want
if i have few needs and just want cheapness at any cost, then it can be worth it, especially when they go on sale, but my computer is not just for typing documents and simple web browsing.
my case has SEVEN slots for 120mm fans.
how many should I put in? right now I have two on hand but can easily order more.
7, you don't have to run of them all all the time if you don't need them, when you need them you need them. I think your case can use 140's in front. Maybe add a fan controller.