Gaming PC Build Under $1500

After finishing our gaming PC builds for $500 – 1200 I wanted to jump ahead to the $1500 build where for an increased budget of $300 we’ve made some significant changes not only to the functionality of our gaming PC, but also the performance.
Graphics Card:
For our Graphics Card I suggest nVidia fanboys go with the GTX 570 and Radeon fanboys stick with the HD6950 as the performance improvement for the money at that level simply isn’t worth it (based on the G3D Mark). If you want an upgrade beyond that level, then consider the HD7950 or two HD6850′s.Another viable option for Intel users that don’t upgrade their CPU beyond the i5-2500k is to upgrade to the GTX 580.
CPU
For CPU we’re going to recommend that you go with the i7-3820 which gives you a better overall bang for your buck than the i7-2700k. AMD builders should stick the the FX8150. With a less expensive CPU this should give them some additional flexibility on their GPU and other options.
Motherboard:
AMD Builders stick with the GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 and Intel Builders go with the GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD3 which is compatible with the i7-3820. If you’d rather stick with a GEN3 Z68 board and something like the i7-2700k for future standard Ivy bridge compatibility, then stay with our previous motherboard, the Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN or for slightly less the P8Z68-V/GEN3.
Ram:
Here we’ll stick with 16GB of Vengeance or XMS3 memory.
HDD:
For speed we’re going with the Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB – model WD2002FAEX.
SSD:
For solid state drive we’re going with the inexpensive, but effective, Crucial 128 GB m4 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SATA 6Gb/s CT128M4SSD2
Case:
For case I’ll recommend the Cooler Master Storm Enforcer USB 3.0 Mid Tower ATX Case (SGC-1000-KWN), but there are a lot of really good options out there. Make sure to get one with USB 3.0 in the front I/O. You can also go here for a look at more of the best gaming cases.
PSU:
The OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W should still be fine here.
CPU Cooler:
Cooler Master Hyper 212, the Zalman CNPS9900LED on the higher end, and for water cooling the Corsair Cooling Hydro-Series All-in-One High-Performance CWCH60.
$1500 Gaming Computer Build Part Overview:source gamingpcbuilds.com