I was thinking about pairing the AMD FX 6300 with the NVIDIA GTX 660. Would this be a good pair? I'm trying to save some money for my gaming build, but I do want good parts.
Is there a particular reason you're going with a GTX 660? You can take a look at the HD 7850, which is on the same par as a 660. And from what I hear, if you overclock the 7850, it performs better than the 660.
Here's how it really is based on research and benchmarks: 7850 < GTX 660 < 7870. Since they are all so close and on par of each others, the real winner here is the card which will give the best fps for the games he will play. ANY of these cards are great in a system with the FX-6300.
I usally hear a lot of hype for NVIDIA cards so I thought It would be better, plus I'm trying to build something with better specs than the next gen consoles.
At the 200 dollar price range, AMD and Nvidia's cards are near identical in performance. It's very competitive between the two companies. Search benchmarks for the games you will play and choose accordingly.
The only reason why there is so much hype for nvidia is because CUDA is paired with Adobe products and are optimised for rendering etc... So while you get identical performacne with ATI cards, the nVidia cards edge ahead if you are talking about video editing with Adobe... otherwise, ATI is a really good choice if you are looking for optimised gaming.
The AMD CPU you chose is a really good one too - I like it - not uber fast with single core performance but its super fast when you compare the price to intel prices...
I got a 7870 OCed to 1175 Mhz (very easy to overclock with AMD control panel) under load at 50C average, beats most 660's and is only a little bit more expensive. I would go with a 7870, anything above like $280 go with Nvidia (660ti, 670 etc.)