WOW, so many replies while I was out.......thanks everyone!
Well it seems the general concensus is shop around - and even tho I'm lazy, you have convinced me
With regard to the 980x cpu - I really did consider that but I'm not sure I could make use of 6 cores (The most demanding game I play atm is ARMA2)
One item I really do want to get is the OCZ IBIS SSD mainly because of its insane transfer rates (2-3 times the perfomance of the fastest SATA SSDs). I know its stupidly expensive but IMHO the biggest bottleneck in any decent PC is reading/writing from storage. (And we all now how much of a PITA re-installing windows/apps/games is).
It will take me a while to read through all the options that have been suggested, but I will post back shortly with an updated shopping list.
Right now my gut feeling is:
i7 950: (I tend to agree this is the sweet spot and is I can get to 4Gig+ I will be very happy)
Noctua cooler
6 GB DDR RAM: I will need to investigate further, I'm a noob when it comes to RAM - I also believe I have to be careful when it comes to RAM height as it can interfere with cooler installation.
OCZ IBIS
2 x 1TB Spinpoint F3 mirrored for storage.
Corsair 1000w PSU (to support GTX580 SLI in future)
GTX580 (Does anyone know of after market coolers that are available?)
Case....hmmmm, still not 100% sure
MOBO....again I'm really not sure, I would rather spend more on this as it really is the backbone of the PC and is probably the hardest thing to upgrade)