My PC usage is %50 browsing, %30 gaming and %20 drawing or rendering. Among my friends I am the most moderate gamer so I was expecting Tom to get his butt whooped for spending more than $800 on the CPU/Mobo. The majority of hard-core PC gamers will not only compromise their PC parts for better graphics, but their biological parts and social life as well.
Intel Core i5-2550K $230 The money saved from buying this CPU can be put in a 120hz monitor. More GPU processing required, less CPU bottle-neck to worry about.
ASUS P8P67 PRO $160 if you don't mind the rebate.
Noctua NH-D14 $95 (Zalman lol)
SAMSUNG 8GB $48 is a game changer. Once everyone uses 30nm, everything else will be obsolete.
EVGA GTX 680 SLI 508x2= $1,016 when it's available. HD 7970 CF for now. You can add a third just by upgrading the mobo to P67 WS rev for $255
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos SSD 240GB $249 Did tom's pay more for the extra 1 year warranty?
Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5TB $158 although I like your idea that slower RPM is more quite.
LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer $27 As a gamer I don't care for Blue-ray.
SeaSonic Platinum Platinum-860 860W $220 We agree on something
Rosewill THOR V2 $130. 140mm rear Fan, 230mm front fan, 230mm top fan, 230mm side Fan. This case with this config. does not even need dampening to make it quite and it can't be beat cooling-wise. Just have to go through hell building in it
Total: $2,333