Any advice on a spring build?

[Tuck]

Well, rumors say the date is April 8, though the most Intel has said is they're targeting a March or April launch. By the end of April is a pretty solid bet, I think.

I don't really expect prices of current-gen chips to come down all that much. Maybe a $10-$20 drop, possibly more if major manufacturers offer their own discounts/clearance sales. The reason I'm considering waiting is that according to rumors, they are planning to release the Ivy Bridge chips at about the same prices as the current Sandy Bridge chips, essentially giving more performance for the same amount of money.

If they did that, who'd buy the Sandy Bridge chips?

[Tuck]

Agreed, invest in a 1000 W PSU and you won't have to get a new one for years. The PSU was the only thing keeping me from going SLI like 7 years ago (had an extra graphics card but only a 600 W power supply and the PC wouldn't boot). 5 years ago I got this one and it's still going strong. A good case is another investment you can carry through multiple builds, as long as you get a big enough one to plan for future expansion and graphics card width ridiculousness.

I actually do want a new case, if for nothing else the coolness factor. I've actually been looking at cases with hidden buttons, and there aren't that many of them. I have two year old twins and both of the love to push buttons. But if they are out of sight, they don't get pushed.

I really want something cool with lights and irregular shapes, but that's probably not a good idea. I think plain vanilla will be much less noticeable.

[SighKoPath]

Yeah, I thought it was on the low end. I'll go for a new PSU. But I don't plan on running dual video cards or changing much of anything else with this machine. It will be used for light gaming, surfing, and DVD watching by the kids.

The only things I've changed in my existing rig since the day I built it is I upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista, and I doubled the RAM to 8GB.

Would a PSU in the 650-750 range meet my needs well?

Yeah, that's the sweet spot for PSUs when running a single video card right now.

Also: since you mentioned you want to reduce your load times, something you should consider is picking up a 40-60GB SSD, and using that as a cache device (it's one of the best features of the Z68 boards). Intel's caching software will store your most frequently used programs in a cache on the SSD, significantly speeding up their load times.

If you don't have the money for that right away when you do your build, it is something that can be added in later. So, not really a big deal, just something to be aware of!

[Apache Warrior]

I actually do want a new case, if for nothing else the coolness factor. I've actually been looking at cases with hidden buttons, and there aren't that many of them. I have two year old twins and both of the love to push buttons. But if they are out of sight, they don't get pushed.

I really want something cool with lights and irregular shapes, but that's probably not a good idea. I think plain vanilla will be much less noticeable.

NZXT :: Unique. Unprecendented. Inspired - Phantom Product Detail
Take a look at the NZXT Phantom. I have it and love it. The only button is the power button and it sits flush. It does have 5 sliders for controlling case fan speeds. Well built lots of ways to run wires behind motherboard with grommets in all openings openings. It even comes with the hardware to put a Corsair H100 cooler below the top two fans.
Apache

[Tuck]

Yeah, that's the sweet spot for PSUs when running a single video card right now.

Also: since you mentioned you want to reduce your load times, something you should consider is picking up a 40-60GB SSD, and using that as a cache device (it's one of the best features of the Z68 boards). Intel's caching software will store your most frequently used programs in a cache on the SSD, significantly speeding up their load times.

If you don't have the money for that right away when you do your build, it is something that can be added in later. So, not really a big deal, just something to be aware of!

Does the OS have to be installed on the SSD? Or do you put it in naked and it serves as a cache? And if I do install Windows 7 on an SSD, how much room does it take up?

I've heard installing the OS on an SSD can mean boot up times of like 10-15 seconds. That's pretty sweet.

[Tuck]

NZXT :: Unique. Unprecendented. Inspired - Phantom Product Detail
Take a look at the NZXT Phantom. I have it and love it. The only button is the power button and it sits flush. It does have 5 sliders for controlling case fan speeds. Well built lots of ways to run wires behind motherboard with grommets in all openings openings. It even comes with the hardware to put a Corsair H100 cooler below the top two fans.
Apache

If money weren't an object, I'd seriously consider that case. My brother would be so jealous.

[SighKoPath]

Does the OS have to be installed on the SSD? Or do you put it in naked and it serves as a cache? And if I do install Windows 7 on an SSD, how much room does it take up?

I've heard installing the OS on an SSD can mean boot up times of like 10-15 seconds. That's pretty sweet.

If you're using it for caching, you'd put it in naked. The Intel caching utility will determine what to put on it. This is a good thing to do for smaller SSDs (60GB and smaller, though 60GB can go either way). I'm not sure if it will speed up loading times for Windows itself (power-on), but it will speed up loading times for frequently used applications/games.

If you're getting a larger SSD (like, 120GB+), you should just install the OS on it, since it's got plenty of room for programs. That will make Windows load super-fast, and also load anything you install to it super-fast.

My SSD is 150GB, with the OS and a number of programs installed to it, and it FLIES (time from end of BIOS post to looking at my desktop with all startup programs loaded is about 12 seconds, and that includes typing in my password). It doesn't have enough room on it for all my games, though. So what I do is install games to a 1TB 7200RPM HDD (Steam is installed in the root of that drive), and for a select few (whichever 2 or 3 games I'm playing most at the time), I use Steam Mover to move it from the HDD to the SSD, so I get the huge boost to loading speeds without needing to reinstall it. When I finish the game/stop playing it frequently I move it back to the HDD.