AMD processors are currently junk compared to Sandy or Ivy Bridge.
Ivy bridge is the current intel platform.
SSD depends on what is important to you - they're all fast, i would suggest looking for one with a low failure rate.
I wouldn't spend $1200 on the CPU unless you know you need it. Because as with everything, there is a law of diminishing returns.
Going from a 100 dollar CPU to a 200 dollar cpu might get you 2x the performance.
Going from a 350 dollar cpu to a 1000 dollar cpu might only get you 15% unless under very specific conditions.
I'd budget 300-400 dollars for CPU, 300-400 dollars for video, and spend the rest of your budget on a nice motherboard, case, plenty of RAM and storage, but that's just me. It really depends on your requirements, I'd check the arstechnica.com pc build guides, along with anandtech.com to see what works.
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Because by the time you need to upgrade (say 2 yrs time) the entire platform has changed (new pci standards, new usb standards, new ram standards, etc, etc) and your "upgradable" box will only be able to upgrade to something mediocre by then current standards. Any features you pay for today thinking you will make use of them in the future (but not now), will cost a LOT less in the future when/if you actually need them.
Also, i wouldn't overclock unless you know what you're doing. You may end up causing stability issues that can be very difficult to diagnose (is it a driver? is it ram? is it just crappy software? or is it my overclock that I think is stable? - but actually isn't 100% solid).
Sure, you might get a bigger e-peen on cpu benchmarks, but the CPU these days is very rarely the limiting factor for the tasks most people use their machine for. The killers are RAM, storage throughput and GPU throughput. Not to say that CPU doesn't matter, but a mid-range CPU is "fast enough" to keep up unless you're spending up BIG on everything else. In which case, spend more on the CPU as well
Final words...
Always be aware that prices on components drop drastically. Dropping a grand on video cards to run X game at 120fps in ultra hi res with all options on might seem cool, but within 6-12 months you'll likely be able to get the same or similar performance out of a single new mid-range card, and the game will likely play just fine today on a single mid-range card. Most games these days are console ports or intended to run well on consoles as well anyway, so there's less demand for extreme high end hardware than there has been previously to get acceptable performance.
Is buying extreme high end worth your money? I personally say no. Buy mid-range, save the money to upgrade more often. You typically get a far bigger improvement in performance from going up a generation in components, than by buying a slightly faster model of the same generation card/cpu/etc.
In most hardware generations there is typically a sweet spot in terms of bang for buck. The celeron 300A was legendary. The core i5-2600 last year was similar. Check the hardware sites and look for the sweet spot model. Don't just blindly buy the most expensive part(s) you can afford.
I've been building my own boxes since 1992...
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