1000US Gaming PC - Yay or nay

[CV_Taihou]

So one of my good friends finally has some money to spare to rebuild a gaming computer. Long story short he had to sell his old one while he was in school, but now that he's working again he can afford to have something again. Tried putting a parts list together for him and wanted some feedback. Mouse, keyboard and headset are already covered, and he can use his TV as a monitor for the time being. Here's what I came up with.

Build List

Has the OS included, can add more RAM later on, has a relatively solid GPU, and a overclockable processor. I don't think I missed anything, but I'm always open for suggestions and changes

 

[Dulith1118]

solid build u can save money from going for a corsair 200R case and try the amd 380 or 380x which has more performance than a 960 actually not much though... and other than that solid choice great psu and all...

 

[DKL]

Looks solid although RAM is cheap and I would personally just buy 16GB. No reason not to with DDR4 becoming the new standard and with this size of a budget you really can't afford $40 more? Really?

The GPU is a bad choice IMO. The R9 380 or 380x is a better choice for the price unless you need NVIDIA features.

Good power supply choice. G2 is a good series.

Love that case, and only went for a 200R due to sales/budget myself.

Make sure the overclockable processor and board are going to get use, otherwise going with just something like an i5 4590 will be perfectly fine.

 

[Dulith1118]

if he's not gonna overclock u can go for the 6500 and use that money to get the ddr4 ram and mobo so he can upgrade to a 6700k when he has more money in the future..... if not overclocking if he is overclocking its a solid build

 

[Gingerbread]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/43hwRB
There you go, same price, around 40% gaming increase in performance.
What I did: dropped the clockable cpu and aftermarket cooler, you won't hit the CPU ceiling with a gtx 960 and the gtx 970 is way better and still the CPU will be way more than enough.

 

[CV_Taihou]

Was my thought as well. He's still in the planning phase and just set the rough budget. I'm still trying to convince him to spring an extra 100 dollars or so to get a 970 or 390 for the GPU. The extra ram is probably a decent idea too. Would only take the budget up by 20 bucks to go with 2 8 gig sticks.

After me describing overclocking to him he's insisting that his can do it as well. The plan would to be running a mild overclock until he can upgrade the CPU Cooler to something better, more than likely a Noctua unit of some sort.

 

[Dulith1118]

I would go for a 970 with the 4690k cuz that will settle him for 5 years actually least will be 4... that's a good deal and overclocking will give him more performance as well so ur build with a 970 would be good

 

[DKL]

Was my thought as well. He's still in the planning phase and just set the rough budget. I'm still trying to convince him to spring an extra 100 dollars or so to get a 970 or 390 for the GPU. The extra ram is probably a decent idea too. Would only take the budget up by 20 bucks to go with 2 8 gig sticks.

After me describing overclocking to him he's insisting that his can do it as well. The plan would to be running a mild overclock until he can upgrade the CPU Cooler to something better, more than likely a Noctua unit of some sort.

Okay, then the solution to that is, just like with a young child with scary bed time stories, tell him how you aren't telling him the whole truth about overclocking. How it can damage the CPU, voids the warranty, and can cause that huge wad of cash he put into the CPU to go down the drain real fast if he isn't extremely careful.
Not enough?
Tell him how overclocking leads to bluescreens and crashes when not done properly so you have to go through the tedious work of trying an overclock, *crash*, try a smaller one, *Crash*, try adjusting voltage, *working... working.... CRASH*, etc.

Obviously do this in your own words, don't read right off from this, and stay more or less truthful. No lieing, although some blowing out of proportion may be in due order to prevent the CPU part of the budget from being blown out of proportion.