I was going to upgrade my rig to an i5 3570k and 7970 later this month. A guy I work with told me I should wait for the next gen of processors and GPU's. Will the next generation of CPU/GPU's be powerful enough to justify waiting for them?
Haswell has been delayed to late 2013, and the HD 8970 (which will be the flagship of the generation, same as the 7970) is projected for a Q2 2013 release. If you're ready to wait a year for a Haswell/Sea Islands build, then you might aswell. BUT, I have the system that you're considering, and I can tell you it smashes basically everything you throw at it.
Add that the new generation is going to be, naturally, more expensive might warrant a change now.
You can look at price development for both the 7970 and the 3570K, and you can see that they've already fallen quite a bit in price. You can also look at former generations to see whether the performance jumped noticably from them to the current generation.
I don't see the point in waiting so long. It's not like the a next gen CPU will blow away our 3570Ks, and most of us don't need to update every year, for gaming at least. Also always waiting for the next gen will never get you anywhere, Godot never comes.
Why not wait forever? New and better tech is always coming out.
Get the i5-3570K. Haswell is going to be another flop, since AMD is no competition for Intel.
Do you think the i5/7970 could handle two 27" monitors?
Haswell is delayed to late 2013? When did you hear this? Last I heard, it was coming out Q2/Q3. A quick search around the internet has speculative dates set at April/May.
If your current PC's holding you back, upgrade. If not, make the most of what you have. I'm still happy(ish) with my conroe e6600.