I'm planning on building a new PC for gaming. It's my first time building one. I'd like to keep the cost around $1000. I've picked out some parts but want to get some suggestions before I pull the trigger in case I've got anything mismatched. Anything stand out that I should upgrade or downgrade?

I think you can do better than that GPU.  I've seen ATI 7950s for under $200 recently.  Might even be able to get a 760 for a couple bucks more.  But there are others here who are more knowledgeable than I am on this stuff who might give you better suggestions.

ETA: this one is on sale but out of stock so it won't help you much, but it just is to show you that you can do better for right around the $200 pricepoint.  I'm seeing GTX 760s at right around $240 though I've seen them cheaper in the past, so that's another option if you are willing to go a bit higher.

HIS 7950

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

Also OP, you are less than a month from black friday and all the deals it will entail online.  Newegg and a bunch of others have some screaming deals every black friday on a ton of stuff, from GPUs to RAM to monitors and etc.  If I were you, I'd wait until then unless you NEED this rig before then for something.  You'll be surprised how much you can save if you buy as much as possible with the BF deals from Newegg or Tiger Direct or Microcenter or Amazon wherever.  Might even get a price drop on stuff between now and then, enough to save you a couple more bucks or jump up to a better specced part.

All good info. I'll keep researching and wait for black friday/cyber monday.

i would suggest the latetest generation on core I7 (I believe gen 4, I dont have the -number) as a minimum.

I would suggest not.  Most of what the i7 brings to the table is hyperthreading, and most games are not multithreaded enough to make good use of it.  He's much better off spending his money on an i5 and an SSD (or i5 and GPU upgrade) than an i7.

I'd agree with this, unless OP is planning on doing video rendering or something.

Where in TX are you? Do you have a Microcenter near you? What games do you play?

Do you plan on overclocking? If not, you can get Haswell processors that are not unlocked for cheaper. If you do plan on overclocking, buy a better cooler now. Upgrading the CPU cooler after a system is built can be exceedingly annoying (although your case has a cutout which would make it easier). The i5 is perfectly fine. There were some instances in which the HT of the i7 actually reduced gaming performance.

Microcenter has your selected processor and MB bundle for $293.98 + Tax = $318.23 vs. $362.92

Do not buy a GTX 660 right now. Find a HD7950 that is on sale for $200 or buy a R9 270X for $200. If you play FPS games and like nice graphics, I would recommend stepping up to either a R9 280X (~$300) or a GTX 770 (nVidia just announced a price drop to $329 today.)

I would suggest spending the extra $10 for the new 840 EVO drive vs the regular 840. It has an improved controller that gives the regular 840 near 840 Pro performance.

Buy one stick of 8GB RAM and drop in a second 8GB stick when you need it. BTW, WTF is up with the ludicrous RAM prices these days? I bought that 16GB kit last year for $65.

ram prices seem to fluctuate wildly month to month.  I think it's considered the most volatile pc part price-wise.

It's related to supply chain stuff, I'd guess.  I know the prices jump whenever there's a storm out there and there was a typhoon in the area of the big ram production areas in China within the last couple of months.

http://www.logicalincrements.com/#

Thanks for all the info.














 

Heads up, they drastically dropped the price on GTX 770 and GTX 780s today. I bought a Radeon 7970 for $300 about a week ago and kind of wish I went for a 770 now instead.

You should be able to find a 770 for ~$320 starting tomorrow, if you're willing to pay that. For gaming the GPU is the single most important part, maybe cut back to 8 GB RAM to help with the difference?

If BF4 is your primary interest, the R9 280X, HD7970, or HD7950 coupled with the upcoming Mantle update would probably be your best bet. The R9 280X is a re-branded HD7950 Ghz Edition.

Overclocking gives you more performance at the cost of increased heat and power. How much you can overclock is dependent on each individual component.

So maybe I'll ditch some RAM up my budget on the graphics card.

Also check out

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/

You can usually find some pretty good deals linked there if you're willing to put up with Reddit's formatting


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00453R90W/

like that seems pretty legit, for example- 16 GB for $65

Might as well get the latest intel processors, i5-4670k

8GB of ram is fine for gaming , 16GB won't do anything for you.

Make sure you get the 840 pro and not the standard 840 ssd.

You might as well get a GTX 760 over the 660 (evga is a good brand).

I update my list in the first post. I reduced the RAM to 8 GB and changed the processor, SSD, graphics card, and mother board. Does this look like a better setup for that price range?











 

The Define R4 is one of the best cases you can get. I wouldn't worry about that.

The 7950 for $200 is a better buy.

Windows 8.1 is faster and less resource intensive than Windows 7. People just feel that W8 is inferior because of the new interface.

Not sure why you switched the motherboard, asus has the best overall entry level board

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131981


As for cases, it depends on what you want.  The Fractal is designed to be quiet, somewhat at the expense of operating temperatures.  Something like the antec 1100 is designed to provide good cooling , somewhat at the expense of noise.  So it's up to you to determine what matters most to you.

As for windows, W8 is superior to 7 regarding performance/responsiveness, but has interface changes you will have to learn/deal with.  Sure you could use software like classic shell or start 8 to make it look like W7, but they are a crutch.  And it doesn't seem like MS will revert to the old style UI for the next version of windows, so you may not want to depend on 3rd party software to modify the UI for you.

Get more than 8 gigs of ram.

If you can get a bigger ssd.

Get windows 8.1.

I'd take a 7950 for ~$200 over a 760 for ~$250 even though I generally prefer nvidia, but that's just me.  It's a personal preference thing I think.  Both cards sort of trade places depending on which game you play, with the 760 faster for some (most, I think) and the 7950 faster for others but both offering pretty much the same experience within a couple of fps from what I am reading.  The 7950 uses more power and creates more heat.  For me though the price is still a bigger factor, unless PhysX or SLI or other factors matter to you.

I'd stay with the 8 gigs of ram for now too personally because I haven't played any games that use that many right now.  You can always buy a second stick later, though be aware that new models come out all the time and old models get dumped, so in a year or two you may not be able to find a second matching stick.

ETA:  on the other hand, some 760 cards I am seeing on newegg are offering free copies of Assassin's Creed 4 AND the new splinter cell game for free, which seems to be a pretty rockin' deal as both are still $60 games I believe.  So maybe that swings the price factor back in the 760's favor.