What's Your Favorite Gaming Desktop_

It looks like I am now officially in the market for a new gaming desktop and what better way to figure out what to get then to ask the gamers of Kotaku? First a couple of rules: I’ve built every desktop I’ve owned, besides my current one, which I heavily go rummy modified. This time I want to experience buying pre-built from a company.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); No, I’m not using *(&@#*(!!!-ing bootcamp to play games on a Mac. Yes, I own a iPhone, an iPad and even a Mac Book Pro. But dammit my desk and its dusty underside still belongs to Windows 7. I’m trying to keep the price for a meaty gaming desktop that I can upgrade for years to under $3,000 Now that that is out of the way. I’ve been looking at Origin (though their customization tool keeps crapping out on me), Falcon Northwest, even Dell, as possible places to build my PC for me. Right now, I’m sort of leaning toward Falcon, mostly because I love the design of their Icon2 chassis. Here’s what I have speced out. What do you think? System Details Chassis ICON2 – Black Anodized Chassis Logo Insert White Light Chassis Fan Kit Performance Fan Pack Power Supply 1000 Watt Modular Motherboard Rampage III Extreme Processor Core i7 950 3.06GHz Processor Cooler Mach V Liquid Cooling Processor Overclock Mach V Processor Overclock Memory 12GB (3x4GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Video Card GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) Sound Card On-Board Audio Networking On-Board Ethernet Hard Drive 500GB – 7200RPM – 3GB/s Optical Drive 24x DVD Writer Media Reader Internal Media Reader 64-Bit Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Warranty 3 Year Warranty – Parts and Service A couple of notes: I’m skipping a sound card because I’m certain I can pick up a decent one and add it later at a much better deal. Besides they only sell Fatality cards and I know zero about them. I keep going back and forth between the GeForce GTX 580 I have selected here and the slightly slower, slightly cheaper Radeon 6970 HD. I skimped a bit on the CPU to to keep this at about $20 shy of $3,000. I’m slightly worried that’s going to bite me in the ass. I holy rummy figure a 1000W modular power supply is a good way to save money and should last me a year or so before I need to start thinking about a 1200W one. Oh, had to add this. I’ve got quite a few HDD sitting in this desktop, which I will be transferring over. So I don’t need to buy much in the way of space. I’m thinking of switching this to a single smaller SDD for the operating system, and then using my RAID for storage. So, what do you think? Any specs you’d change? royally rummy Should I go with a different builder? I eagerly anticipate your advice.