So, for cheaper than the i5 3570k + asus sabertooth and intel motherboard, I went with an Asus Sabertooth AM3+ r2.0 and an AMD 8350.

Motherboard:


At first, I was also sit on a bitfenix mid size case, as it had a nice clean look with nothing fancy. I ended up going with a thermaltake full size case that was well rated. I liked the blue design and windowed side, as well as the LED fans.

Case:


Since I chose to go with an AMD processer, i went ahead and chose a Gigabyte 7970 WF edition graphics card. It was about the same price as the 670 I was going to get, but came with Crysis 3 and bioshock infinite for free, and had performance more on par with the GTX 680 from what I read.

The assembling area:


I thought i may do a slight overclock, but I didn't want to spend the extra money on water cooling, so I chose one of the best rated coolers, the cooler master hyper 212 evo, for about 30 bucks. So far, I've oc'd my processer (using motherboard ez settings, don't know enough yet to do all this manually) to 4.34 GHZ and my GPU to 1050 / 1500 and everything is running very cool.

I decided to also save money and go with windows 8, and so far, while different, it's not terrible. I wanted a fast boot with this, so i chose a samsung 840 pro SSD (128gb), and a western digital 1TB HDD for all my games. I did go a little overboard with my PSU, i think, choosing a corsair hx850, but i wanted to be safe incase i ever decided to crossfire.

After assembling everything, I installed windows with a breeze, and had zero issues. Everything worked fine, nothing was DOA. Updated my GPU drivers the other day and noticed a large performance increase (about 10fps increase in crysis 3). Overall, it was a fun experience and I learned a lot, and look forward to doing it again in the distant future.

Here is a complete list of the parts i chose:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($32.86 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.49 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($73.52 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($137.00 @ Adorama)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card ($399.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake VN300M1W2N ATX Full Tower Case ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional 850W 80 PLUS Silver Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Full (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1457.79
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-21 22:49 EST-0500)

Final build:


So far, every game I've thrown at it, it has handled well. (Running at 1080p) Metro 2033 was my first test, I can easily max out the game. Starcraft II and Diablo 3, unsurprisingly also run at extreme settings. Crysis 3 was the first hiccup I had. I learned about updating my GPU drivers to the latest beta drivers, which improved my FPS by a bit. I'm running Crysis 3 at ultra texture settings and ultra graphic settings with SMAA 2txa and vsync turned off, and I manage 30 FPS or greater, sometimes a small dip in extremely demanding areas. I was surprised how well my computer handled battlefield 3, running on ultra settings completely maxed out 1080p with around 80 fps.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments!