For a complete system The $1000 mark can be achieved easily going with AMD CPU and MoBo. If you want Intel, it will be a bit higher. This is what I came up with today:

CPU/MoBo: I5 2500k/ASRock Z68 Pro 3 combo $306.98

The I5 2500k is around the best solution for your budget. The I5 2500k has proven itself as the best cpu in this range, outperforming the AMD's at this price range handily. It comes with a heatsink, but if you want to do some serious overclocking, think about adding an after market heatsink to keep temps down. It comes with Intel HD 3000 graphics and a nice 6mb L3 cache. This CPU has proven time and time again to hold its own, and even more.
The motherboard in this combo is also one of our favorite "budget" brands, ASRock delivers so we keep coming back to them. This motherboard comes with Sata 6gb/s and USB 3.0 so it should be as futureproof as you can hope to achieve at this price range. It has DVI/VGA video outputs, which is nice with the integrated graphics of the I5 2500k, in case you decide to hold off on the GPU for now, or any trouble shooting it in the future.

GPU: EVGA 560ti 448 core $249.99 using promo EVGA67 $219.99 after mail in rebate!

It is a known fact that EVGA is nvidia's brand of choice, so it is a no brainer to pick up this video card at the promotion dropping the price from 289.99 to $219.99 after the mail in rebate. I have never seen this price as low, so I had to add it here. There is little doubt that this is the best video card for your budget, and should provide you with quality gaming and video editing performance for years to come.

Case and PSU: Rosewill Future and Rosewill Hive 550w $99.98

The Rosewill Future has been a good case to us here as GN, so once again we come back to it, combo'd with the psu. This case com es with 4 fans that should provide decent aitrflow to help keep your temps low. It also has a nice look, but since the case is the one part of the rig you will see the most, select one you will like looking at. For the price and performance, I think this is a great case.

The PSU is 550w of 80 plus certified modular power! I love modular power supplies, nothing like the ability to only use the cords you need, and you should not relive past mistakes of picking out the wrong PSU this time. Rosewill is NewEgg's house brand, so they have become mainstays on our budget builds. 550w should be plenty for your needs, and this is a good deal.

Optical Drive: Samsung DVD/CD burner $13.99
Optical drives have reached the apex of their technology. They read and make disks spin. This one makes them spin for less, only $14!!

HDD: Western Digital 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive $64 after promo EMCNDNC28

Hard Drive prices are slowly starting to come back down after the flooding in Asia last year drove the prices sky high. I would pick this one up now, and later add another when prices go back to what they were pre-catastrophe..

Memory: Crucial DDR3 8GB 1600 for only $42.99

Crucial is a great company in the memory department, and 8GB of their RAM for less than $50 is a good price. I rarely ever hear of memory problems, unless you count my problems remembering simple tasks.. This is a great deal for your gaming rig.

Monitor: Acer 23" LCD for $139.99

I never suggest less than 22" monitors for gaming, this one is a decent 23". Plus it has a good refresh rate and provides a good 1920x1080 resolution that should be good for your gaming/editing experience. Like stated before, you want to spend around $150 here, and we came $10 under that quote. Another good deal, that gets good reviews.

Microsoft Keyboard $14.98

I will be honest, I just picked a good budget keyboard out. I am not a big fan of spending $100 on a keyboard, and this one is around $15. If you like another keyboard, go for it. This one has all the keys you need and is made by a great company.

Logitech Gaming Mouse: $59.99

You might ask yourself, self, why would I pay that much for a mouse? You might answer, I must be crazy, paying $60 for a mouse and talking to myself. You may be right, but I love gaming mice. They are very easy to love. The extra buttons make gaming more enjoyable. Once you get one, you will know why I linked it here. Maybe you already know this, if so ignore the previous text. If you do not share my love for gaming mice, pick up a cheaper one.

Logitech Speakers $24.99

You may see a trend here, I pick a favorite company and stick with them. Logitech is a great brand, and deliver quality at a budget. For around $25 you should get great sound coming out of your system. I think these are the best at your budget for sure.

Corsair Gaming Heatset $69.99 and $49.99 after mail in rebate

If you are a gamer like me, you know the importance of a good gaming headset. Corsair delivers here with just that. A great gaming headset at the $50 range after the rebate. You can't really go wrong here. If you do not share the love for gaming headsets, do not buy or pick a cheaper set.

This is a complete gaming rig for $1088.74 after the promo codes if you act fast on those two promo items. Your total cost then drops to $1038.74 after mail in rebates! This is a a great deal on a I5/560ti gaming rig with monitor and gaming mouse/headset. I realize your budget was at $1000 and this came close to that mark, including the I5! You may consider going with the Ivy Bridge generation of CPU's, but to be honest the performance difference is not worth the price difference in my opinion.

There are many ways you can go here, even the AMD route. I am partial to AMD, I just think they provide you will more at this price range. When you factor in your needs into the equation, and your budget, the AMD solution fits. So keep everything else, but add this:

Fx 6100 6 core CPU/ Asrock 990FX Extreme Mobo for $246.99

Many will stand up and rage at me for even considering this option after the great deals I found with the I5 route, but I will justify them here. The Bulldozer was not a big hit, many will even say it was the opposite of a hit.. The facts here are that AMD has corrected many of the issues that plagued this series when it forst came out. When you are editing you want threads, and this cpu gives you 2 more threads. I believe this cpu will be better at editing than the I5, but dont tell Lelldorianx I said so.. lol The I5 may give you a few more frames in game, but the price difference out weighs the performance hike. I have a bulldozer and love it, it gives me much more than I hoped for.

This is a great motherboard. The 990FX is stakced with Sata 6GB/s and USB 3.0 with the wonderful UEFI bios that makes life so much easier. This motherboard is also ready for the Piledriver series of processors that will be coming out at the end of this year, to hopefully redeem AMD and bring balance to the processor market. This is, in my humble opinion a better motherboard than the intel variant I linked. Comes with more Sata 6GB/s connections and holds up to every other stat the other gives.

The beauty of the AMD route is it actually brings you in under budget at $978.74 for the complete system. This is indeed a tuff decision, I am partial to AMD and would say to go with AMD, get more threads and more bang for your buck. Others might say go with Intel for their personal reasons as well. You really cannot go wrong either way. So this decision is your to consider, or even to consider another route, like maybe even going with the FX 4100 combo and saving even more getting 4 threads just the same as the I5, and waiting on the piledriver to come out for the 8 threads of second generation FX goodness. Bringing your total down to $951.74.
Others may say to go with a I7 combo and hyperthread like a boss and own a magnificent machine now. This would, however bring your total up to $1266, but you want the best you pay for the best.
That choice my friend, is your to make. Remember to pick up a copy of windows 7 also, but that is not as fun to talk about. I have given you a few options, any of them catch your eye?

Rad! Thanks so much for all your hard work. That's a very flexible outline with much information to consider. I'm very grateful.

I'm reading more about AMD & Intel for now. I'm trying to figure out what move to make. Such passionate rhetoric on both sides! It's hard to find a clear cut answer. The addition of a new generation of AMD processors arriving roughly in October doesn't help much either. Doesn't Windows 8 drop then as well? Maybe it'd be smart hold off for three more months... Then again, it could be beneficial to take advantage of the price drops on the CPU sets that are becoming part of the old generation. Anyway, any thoughts regarding AMD vs. INTEL would be very beneficial for me at this time. So feel free to weigh in!

In the meantime, what if I used the Patriot Gamer 2 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PGD38G1600ELK combo? It's another $30. Would it be worth the performance boost in your opinion?

No problem man, its what we do around here.

AMD vs Intel, that debate has been going for a while. I think at this point it all boils down to performance vs cost. If you can afford to spend let's just say around $250 for a CPU alone, go intel and you get more. If you want to send that much on both the CPU and motherboard go AMD. Intel has the market right now at the upper end processors, and AMD provides more at the budget end. Also you have to consider the HTPC market in favor of AMD at the moment. WHat it all comes down to is taste. The differences in performance are so small you need a computer program to even notice them. So if it is not that noticeable, why make such a big deal about it lol.

The RAM you linked is also good RAM. Patriot is a great company as well. Now you are entering another massive debate, AMD vs Nvidia. In your case the 560ti 448 vs the 6950 2GB, this debate has raged on for a while now. Just the same with Intel vs AMD, both sides have passionate supporters. HERE is a benchmark comparison showing how both perform. Hope it helps.

Here is my perspective on this based on what I've read: AMD builds are more beneficial at around the $500 build range. Intel seems to really come to life around the $1000+. There are exceptions to this of course. In terms of my budgeting I'm sort of stuck in no man's land. What I actually need to do is figure out how to adjust my budget: Drop down to a mega budget build? Pump up my budget a bit more to get a nice Intel processor?

I think I'm going to continue working at this but aim for an October build. Many of my variables get resolved in October: how will Ivy Bridge settle in the upcoming months? How will Windows 8 affect my build? Will the Piledriver actually be anything like it's being sold to be? I'm also going to inflate my budget to $1500ish (which means my core system cost would probably be about $1000+). I'm going to do this right and hopefully have a rig that can last me a solid 2 years before I have to start swapping out parts again.

I'm still reading all of these posts and researching. I will keep playing with the builds you gave me and the information posted. I will update as I figure out more of where I stand on all these decisions. Then, in October, I'll upload some shiny JPGs of my new rig!

AMD builds are best at a lower to mid range budget. Intel is best at higher budgets. THat is true. Plus I say that the most important part of your gaming rig will be the video card, the differences between similar CPUs will not be very noticeable. I say set up a system that can be upgraded as you go to get better when you can. So the backbone here is in your motherboard. If you go AMD, the 990FX is a great one, if you go Intel the Z68-Z77 motherboards are your best bets. Getting a better processor in the future should only concern you if you go AMD IMO. This generation Intel was a tick, which means smaller improvement, hense why I linked last generation sandy bridge, next generation is a "tock" year so I would wait on them to upgrade next year or so with Intel.

Octiver will be a good time to do this. Win 8 is not going to affect this much, I have it and it is just a more souped up upgrade from 7.

Piledriver, now this I know about. Bulldozer gets a bad rap in my opinion. When it first came out the major issues were with the actual manufacturing problems causing the chip to go bad. They seemed to fix this issue and did a bios update to have the current Bulldozer chips working great for the price. Many are trying to compare a $100 FX 4100 AMD chip with a $220 I5 and that is just crazy. These chips are also made in mind of overclocking them for best performance. Plus this technology is brand new, so there was a little trial and error. the Piledriver is using a mesh TDP feature to allow lower voltage and power consumption, that should allow for very high overclocking. It is looking great on paper, but you have to read on what it really does. A FX 4100 is a chip with two bulldozer modules running 2 threads each, more similar to the dual core I3 that runs 4 threads. This multi threading is best at things like editing. You cannot compare apples with oranges. AMD is going in the right direction here, in my opinion.

Intel is king right now. If you got the money to go intel them do. At $1000 for the core system, If you go AMD, that leaves you room for a beastly video card, which to me will show more improvement in gaming and even editing than going with an Intel chip and weaker card. Since you do editing, I would go with a chip with threads, like the FX 4100 which will give you 4 threads, or if you go with the I5 you also get 4. Then You can save up for the 8 or more thread Piledriver after it comes. Like I said before, you win either way.

[editors note: rethinking this post.]

Hey there, Dan

How are things going? Need any help or have any questions?

Let me know if there's anything we can do to help you out with this build.

I'm still changing things around with my build on Newegg everyday. I'm not planning on ordering anything for about another two months or so. I'm going to wait to see what the deal with Piledriver is, and Windows 8. In the meantime, I'm saving up the $1500 it looks like I'm going to need for the build.

I guess a good question to turn the conversation toward is overclocking. How beneficial is it? Can I squeeze some great budget performance out of a cheap, over-clocked processor. Or am I better just going with an i5-3750k and a GTX 680 and just letting the sheer manpower of the combo do all the heavy lifting?

I understand the key differences between Intel and AMD at this point. I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten here - I am still considering AMD but I'm starting to lean more toward Intel based processors.

So, all is well over here! I'm still around. Still checking in.