@boshimi - thanks for the input. SSD looks fantastic so I'll figure out a way to put that in.

This is all good except for the Seagate Hard Drive.  They've had some horrendous product runs the past couple of years and I wouldn't put my faith in them at all.  Unfortunately, almost all of the drives in the market are now either produced by Seagate or Western Digital so options are really limited.

I'm thinking of buying Western Digital's new line of Red drives intended for NAS use.  What I've read about them is very promising.

If you have a little extra cash, installing an SSD as your boot drive is nice.  Just need to remember to install most of your apps/data onto the D: Drive (traditional disk drive).

Some people might quibble over video card manufacturers based on Warranty.  eVGA used to (and may still have) lifetime warranty on their video cards as long as you register it within 30 days of purchase.

Only issue I have about recommending a case (chassis) is that those will fall into line with the consumers personal tastes.  I prefer a case with at least a 120mm fan, USB 3.0 ports, Front Panel Audio/Mic, no Glossy Black finish (fingerprint magnet).  I prefer a small footprint, so smaller cases appeal to me.  The current Desktop is built into a Silverstone SST-PS07B.  It's a nice case but trying to install an SSD was much harder than it should have been.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163186

LTJ - sure, no problem.

This was spec'd out by another member on a different forum I post on.  

Case: The default one for the setup. It's a question of personal taste and weight. (black one Raidmax Viper Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ 1x USB 3.0 Port & Side Window Panel)
CPU: Intel i5 4670K (The newest generation of Intel processors - I picked a "K" model which is slightly pricier, but allows for overclocking down the line. Also has better re-sale value)
GPU: I went with an ATI 7870, which has served me well these past six months with great performance. It is also in the mid range, pricewise)
Cooler: The default option is a closed circuit water cooler (Basically it runs like your typical air cooler - no maintenance required aside from a dusting off every so often)
RAM: 8GB "Brand Name" RAM (Basically means it comes from a known brand that works for gaming purposes)
HDD: 1TB Drive (No mention of which one, but frankly it doesn't matter - You can always buy a new one with moe space later on, or an SSD)
PSU: Standard Corsair brand Power Supply at 500W, which should be plenty for the system and for more harddrives. I wouldn't put another 7870 graphics card in it though, hehe. 
OS: I've chosen Windows 7 64Bit, but you can pick Windows 8, 64Bit for the same price should you want to (Again a question of personal taste - either will run equally fast with games)

The total cost with shipping came out to $85x.xx I think.

I got some okay looking wired keyboard and mouse that I do not plan to use, and a couple of free games/programs because of some deal they ran a week ago.

Not really. I just opened it up two days ago to make sure it didn't look like it came off of a battlefield. I turned it on, and ran the OS to make sure it doesn't catch on fire. I ran several diagnostics and everything looked to be working well.  It does boot up very very quickly. I am going to start installing videogames this weekend. 

I typically don't run benchmarks because I seldom have anything to compare it to. Most of my other computers are MAC's that I use for video/music editing. As long as it runs the games I want quickly and using a good resolution, that's enough for me.