I have been out of the loop of specifics to what mobo/GFX/Ram etc. is better than the other for a few years due to college and all that neat junk. This summer I have decided that spending my money on a new PC would be a good idea since the one I have is getting a little outdated (built back in '06 and RAM has memory leak issues).

I am coming to you guys here because of all of the great advice I have received from the past LWS Tech and even early CD.

Budget: ~$1200

What I'd like:

Case
Motherboard
Ram (At least 4gb and room to upgrade)
Graphics card that can handle current and future games at reasonable settings. (Now games High; Future Medium?)
Processor (I hear the i7's are pretty neat, but again I am a little behind in what is better. Has AMD caught up with Intel?)
Power Supply
Hard Drive ( At least 1TB, with room to upgrade. I was thinking WD Caviar Black 1TB drive)
Some sort of extra Cooling (Not sure if I am comfortable with liquid cooling yet)
DVD RW Drive (1 should be fine)

I can get Win7 from my school for free so I don't need to worry about an OS.

Not sure if I forgot anything from the list. Feel free to add/suggest.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phew now that that's over with, if you guys could give me suggestions on future purchases that would be great. I will be getting some new things towards the end of the summer when I have made some more money to spend.

Keyboard
Mouse (Still rocking this MX510 from '03, time to upgrade! Wired Preferred)
Monitor (At least 19 inch)
Headset (These Sennheisers are getting a bit worn out.)

If I get any help from someone it would be ENORMOUSLY appreciated. I will try and think of a gift of some sort for the person who helps the most.

Thanks all!