Okay so a friend of mine needs a new desktop PC for his gaming needs.
So another friend and myself have used umart.com.au to come up with the following parts and pricelist:

CPU - Intel Core i5 2500K Processor LGA1155 3.3GHz CPU
Motherboard - Asus P8Z68-V PRO-GEN3  4x DDR3 HDMI DVI D-SUB SLI/CrossFire SATA3 eSATA GLAN FireWire USB3.0  ATX
RAM - G Skill 16G(4X4G) DDR3 1600MHZ PC3-12800 CL9(12800CL9Q-16GBZL)
HDD - Seagate SATA3 1TB 7200RPM 64mb Cache
GPU - HIS ATI HD7970 3GB  GDDR5 2MDP/HDMI
Monitor -  Asus VS248H 24" 2ms wide LED w/DSUB DVI-D HDMI
DVD/RW - Pioneer SATA DVR219L 24X DVD Black &  OEM Software
Case - Corsair Obsidian 800D Black Full Tower Case with Window
Power Supply - Corsair TX-750 V2 750W ATX Power
OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
SSD - Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SSD
Network card - ASUS PCE-N15 WLAN PCI-Express N300

These parts come to a total of $2471 on umart. (I know there's still some $$ to play with)

A few questions I have are.. Would small CPU cooling be necessary in this situation?
Are there any parts you would disagree with/ recommend better alternative brands?

Right now all that is needed on top of this is speakers, keyboard and mouse. Of which I have recommended the peripherals which I know the community approves of

3k build lol.. why not go x79 tech?

just roughly checking you might get it cheaper on msy.com.au. Also i would go with a 2G 6970 for $370

www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

^^^

i don't understand if you're going to spend 3k on a pc ... as to why you'd only go with an i5 you've got more then enough to get either the 2600k or the 2700k

i5 2550K, should be out soon.. or already.

then spend up on gfx cards and 3x 24" monitors.

At least a 27" 120Hz if you're going to purchase a 7970. Otherwise, your MONITOR is going to be the bottleneck.

+ another force 3. yeh a 27inch 120hz, and a 2600k. with 16GB RAM i assume you edit alot?

650D
7950

2560x1600 monitor.

Considering a 2500k/560ti can run everything @ 1080p there is no need to go to excess...

imo 650D/800 ~ both are good cases, but with my experiance with the 650D, very sturdy case. hard to break.

800D is overkill unless your going massive with water-cooling loops etc.

+ its ******* huge

yeah didnt think of size, yeah fair enough.

go for the gt 120gb ssd

yer grab a 3930k and p9x79 for 3k

I'd only spend like $1500-1$1700 on a computer built for gaming, spent like $500 on monitor+speakers+keyboard&mouse. Keep the rest of the money for when you next need to update your computer