m4a1mustang

Yeah on a single monitor it would handle pretty much anything you could throw at it.

If you decide you want to try multi-monitor gaming, all you need to do is get a second GPU and upgrade the CPU if it turns out to be a bottleneck.

With regard to pricing, you'd just have to shop around. I don't know if you have any Microcenter stores near you, but I have always found good deals in store on hardware. For example, this past weekend I bought my Core i7-2600K for $279 ($90 off full retail price) and because I was buying a Motherboard with the processor, I received $50 off my ASUS P8Z68-V/Gen3.

I paid $429 for my CPU + Mobo. If I ordered now from Newegg, I'd pay $488. Not a big $$ difference, but it's still 12% less.

Now, you mentioned you were a few months away from building. I am sure prices will come down some in that time, since the Radeon 7xxx series cards should be coming out soon, and we should get more details on Ivy Bridge which may drive the pricing on the Sandy Bridge processors down. Any differences will probably not be too big, though... I wouldn't hesitate to do this build (although personally I would choose the i7-2600K over the i5) because it's more than enough to handle everything you can throw at it right now. It also helps that you've got a good motherboard that will support an upgrade to Ivy Bridge and multiple GPUs.

Also, if for some reason you decide you'd rather keep your build much cheaper, say under $750, but you still want the ability to enjoy today's games on one monitor, we can sort out a setup for that too. But it will limit your ability to upgrade... but that really might not matter to you if you could save hundreds of dollars. The build I did for my GF is pretty stout, and you can really beef it up for not much less... spend a little bit more on the processor and the GPU and you've got a very nice budget gaming system.

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