Ok. Been going for almost a year. This is the PC so far.
Case : Fractal Design Arc Midi
PSU : Corsair TX650 v2 *
MoBo : Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 (rev 1.0) **
CPU : i5 2500K ***
GPU : Sapphire 6850 ****
SSD : Crucial M4 128GB
HDD : WD Caviar Green 1TB (Storage Drive)
RAM : RipjawsX 1600Mhz (2x the linked item, so 4x4GB sticks.
* - Didn't bother with the modular version as recommended by someone, as its only partially modular (only the 2 8pin GPU power connectors are modular) Seemed a rip off for the extra £40 - and i was also thinking of Crossfire at the time, making the the modular part useless anyway. And wires aren't a problem in the case anyway, it has alot of clearance behind the MoBo tray and I'm routing cables with the unused watercooling holes too.
** - This was a temporary placeolder if you like, When money permits this will be replaced with the Sabertooth Z77
*** - The CPU is also a place holder, and after the mobo is replaced, shall be replaced with the i7-3770K To utilise the PCIe 3.0 capability of the mobo.
**** - Yet again, a place holder :P This will at some point (maybe before the mobo / cpu) be replaced with a Radeon 7950 If at the time my financial position allows, I may up it to a 7970.
Any criticisms and advice is welcomed! And before anyone says anything about the "wasted money" with all my "placeholder" pc parts, they will not be wasted. All replaced parts will be recycled into the empty case I have in my loft and sold as a budget PC on Ebay or something
One more thing, The benchmarks I have seen comparing PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 suggest the 7950 actually runs better on 2.0? are these benchmarks wrong? If this is the case then I think I may just stick to good old Sandy bridge.