First time PC build / 1000$ budget

Hello! New member to Tom's hardware, although i use the site a lot for reviews and help. I am currently looking to build my own pc for the first time. Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.


Approximate Purchase Date: 1-3 weeks

Budget Range: 1000$ before rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming

Parts Not Required: Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Tigerdirect.ca , Canadacomputers.com

Country: Canada

Parts Preferences: Intel processor, AMD graphics card. Preferably the 6950 2gb. No preferred parts for the other pieces.

Overclocking: Maybe. (Really have no idea how to overclock, but if i could fit it in and give it a run, that would be cool. If not, no big deal)

SLI or Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1200

Additional Comments: With this pc, i was hoping to keep it open to future add ons, such as 3 monitors (if possible within 1000$ price range) and another graphics card down the line.

Thanks

CPU - Core i5-2500k

CPU Cooler - Coolermaster Hyper 212 or EVO for overclocking.

Motherboard - ASUS or Gigabyte z68. Does not matter which model. Just get the one that has the features you want.

PSU - Antec, Corsair, XFX, Seasonic, or Silverstone 80 plus bronze certified 750w.

Ram - 8gb(2x4gb) DDR3 1600 - Corsair(not tall heatsink type), Kingston, Gskill.

The 2gb video card will be fine.

Case is a personal preference, but anything mid to full tower with at least 1 front 120mm and 1 rear or top 120mm fans is preferred. The Coolermaster HAF series is very popular.

Hard drive - SATA 6gb/s Western Digital - size is up to you but 500gb to 1tb is good.

I'd second all of these choices. While I agree that case preference is mostly personal that depends on what your price range is. There's plenty of excellent cases that can be had for any price range. If you want specifics here's what I'd recommend.

CPU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6819115072
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6813128506
RAM: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6820148519
PSU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 817371049.
Cooler: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6835103099
SSD: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6820148441
HD: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6822148697

The RAM is a different brand than what was recommended but Crucial is an excellent vendor and has some of the lowest fail rates on the market. The one thing I didn't see listed though was hard drive. Check out the suggestions I have listed above.