Advice for New System

I'm wanting a new system and feel uncertain and out of touch with some variables. So I've listed some questions which hopefully the technical guru's and wizards can answer.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming and Virtual Machines (Windows7, Windows8 beta, etc...).

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Roughly around $1,200.oo

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Tucson, AZ. USA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Motherboard, Ram, Harddrives, keyboard, mouse, graphics card, and power supply

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Everything new... so my older system can be my backup or computer for guests.

6) Will you be overclocking?
maybe later, but not a main interest.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
24" Dell, 1920x1200

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
within the next month or so

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
SATA 6Gb/s, USB_3.0, upgrade friendly and RAID

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, I'm a MSDN subscriber which allows me one free license for each OS at home. Thanks to my career. I plan to dual boot with WindowsXP(32bit) and Windows7(64bit).


Here are my questions:
1} What's mid-tower cases do you recommend for building a new system?

2} What motherboard do you recommend for building a new system? (AMD example and Intel example)
{I'm thinking either 4 cores or 6 cores for CPU}
{At least 8GBs of RAM with option to upgrade to 16GBs or more}

3} What SSDs resolve the TRIM troubles when using RAIDs? {Last I heard was Intel was soon releasing one}

4} What graphic cards should I avoid due to software or hardware problems? (I don't want something which would overheat or crash the OS since I leave my system running days at a time)

1) I usually recommend these cases:
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite Black ATX Case
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite White with Black Front Trim ATX Case
$70 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58 ATX Case
$88 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58W ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$85 - Corsair Carbide Series 300R ATX Case
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$118 - Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Case
$120 - Fractal Design Define R3 Arctic White ATX Case
$120 - Fractal Design Define R3 Silver Arrow ATX Case
$125 - Fractal Design Define R3 Black Pearl ATX Case
$120 - Lian Li PC-9F ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-002OR Black Finish w/Orange Trim Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - Antec P280 ATX Case
$140 - Antec Performance One Series P183 V3 ATX Case
$140 - Corsair Obsidian Series 550D ATX Case
$144 - Silverstone RV03B-WA ATX case
$150 - Silverstone TJ04B-EW ATX Case
$160 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
$164 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$178 - Silverstone RV02B-EW ATX case
$170 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$220 - Silverstone FT02S-W ATX Case
$230 - Silverstone FT02B ATX Case
$270 - Corsair Obsidian Series 800D CC800DW Full Tower ATX Case

However choice of parts dictate case choices: A $1500 build wouldn't exactly be cooled well with a $50 case.

2) Can't recommend a motherboard since I don't know what your requirements for a new motherboard is. Hence why the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" has this very important question:
What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? UEFI? etc.

And generally we don't recommend AMD these days outside of really special circumstances (you already have a compatible AMD CPU, you hate Intel, you're an AMD fanboy, planning on a ESXi setup, etc). For price to performance, your best bet is Intel

3) None AFAIK

4) AFAIK, there are no major hardware issues with most of the GPUs out now. As long as you provide the GPUs with a decent amount of cooling, you shouldn't run into oveheating issues outside of a defective GPU fan which is impossible to predict. As for software, that's a mixed bag as there always gonna be a few people who have driver issues when others don't with the same card or even entire PC setup. With that said, Nvidia drivers tends to be a tad more stable than AMD drivers.

If you want us to just setup a build list for you, please answer the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" so that we can help you better.

I've answered the stickied questions... awaiting wisdom of the tech guru wizards.

Ok, please come back after May 2nd and when you're only 2 weeks away from buying the parts. We generally try to use Newegg combo deals to save people money but those combo deals expire at the end of the month they're introduced in. So the combo deals we recommend for/from the month of April won't be applicable next month. In addition, sometimes our recommendations can become out of stock, out of date, overpriced, or outperformed within a matter of weeks.

So your best bet for good savings and an up-to-date build list is to come back after May 2nd and when you're 2 weeks away from buying the parts. In the meantime, go ahead and figure out what case(s) you really want and tell us.

But a rough list is something like:
Core i5 3570K, maybe i7 3770K if we can fit it in the budget
Asus, MSI, or Gigabyte Intel Z77 Motherboard
16GB of DDR3 1300 or DDR3 1600 RAM rated at 1.5V
GTX 560 TI 448 Core or HD 7850 or maybe the mid range GTX 6xx series.
Maybe 64GB Crucial M4 SSD
1TB Samsung Hard Drive
$20 DVD burner
620W to 650W Power Supply
Case of your choosing,