Budget: up to 600 USD, although less wouldn't be bad. I will be buying one item at a time over the next two months, one item per paycheck. All I can afford.
Parts not needed: HDD, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Optical Drive. (I also have a GPU, 5450 1G, and a PSU, Thermaltake TR2 with Dual 12V rails, and about three or four case fans laying around that I can re-use if recommended or needed).
Resolution: 1650 x 1080
Crossfire: No, I would prefer one GPU with a lot of power, rather than two.
Overclock: Not right now I don't but I would like the motherboard at least to be able to, and maybe the CPU, although not necessary, since I can always keep the MoBo and upgrade CPU.
Uses: Gaming, video and audio editing, usual stuff.
Location: MS, US.
Preferred Sites: All I've heard of is newegg.com but I'm open to others.
Other notes: I want to be able to build upon this, keep it for up to 4 or 5 years max, and enhance it, etc. So lots of options and ability to upgrade in the case and motherboard would be nice. Cooling is also important to me because of the little alcove/cubby my tower will be sitting in.
Preferred Brands: I have only used AMD, never used Intel. Nothing against them, just haven't used them. Whatever gets me best performance for the dollar. I am also curious about the AMD-FX series with the onboard GPU's, heard about this, it may not even be true.
I was all for the Bitfenix Prodigy and I had even done some build ideas around it, but after realizing the odd placement of USB ports, lack of other peripherals, small ability to upgrade, etc. I put it on the back burner.
Quick example build, but all good parts ample for your needs. Left out GPU, but have a look at reccomended specs of games you would like to play, and compare the benchmarks of their given GPUs with your own on a site like this to get an idea.
Edit: I haven't shopped around for you, only newegg but undoubtedly there are cheaper deals on specific parts elsewhere - use a pricerunner style website. I can't think of one off the top of my head for the US, i'm in the UK.
