Best grad present ever

Hey, 

My best friend is graduating college in the next couple of weeks.  He is an avid gamer and well his computer is about as powerful as a toaster.  He currently is running a 1st gen i5 laptop for this gaming computer.  Me and a few of my friends are getting together to build him a PC.  He does not have the money for a new PC at this time so we decided he needs a good grad present.  In total the 4 of us doing this build will be putting in around $900.  Right now we have purchased the Case, Fans, Wifi adapter, Keyboard, Monitor, OS, PSU, and Fan Controller.  The remaining parts we need are: CPU, CPU Cooler, Motherboard, RAM, SSD/HHD, and GPU.  There is currently $550 remaining in budget for this build.  This is a hard budget can not go over $550.  We want to make the most out of this build, we want his graduation to be unforgettable. I will include the pc parts picker link with the parts i have already purchased.  

 

Total Budget: $900

Budget Remaining: $550 

PC Parts Picker link: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3FZRu

It all looks pretty chill, but my one suggestion is to drop the SSD (you can always get one later) and use that money to get a nicer motherboard, such as:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157479

Y'all should totally tell us how it goes!

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3G0pr

No point getting a 32GB SSD. You can get 120GB capacity drives for $60-70. I dropped the SSD to accommodate a preferable motherboard. It's the cheapest motherboard I would recommend. An additional $20-30 will enable you to get a decent motherboard for additional upgrade paths.

The FX6300 and R9 270x will prove to be a nice combo.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3G0C6

I should also mention we have the option of going with a build like this, going Intel for the cpu instead.  

Dude, where do you get an i5-4670k for $130?! 

For purely gaming I cant justify paying the extra for Intel at this price range. Just my 0.02

Lets just say I have some ways to get it. I know some people.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3G1yw 

My current updated build per your guys ideas, I only added the ssd to make windows 7 boot faster.  I'm hoping that with this cooling I can do some slight overclocking to help boost the performance to get more bang for my buck. 

What really limits the AM3+ platform is the power delivery system.  AMD chips are power hungry, and the 4+1 power phase design on that board won't really allow you to overclock much.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3G34x

I did this off the intel build.  The R9 270 has the same amount of stream processors as the 270X.  It's essentially a cheaper, underclocked 270X.  I also switched out the motherboard for a Z87 chipset motherboard so you can do some small overclocking.

Jesus, i think we have a cpu drug dealer here hahaha

I've read this story somewhere... dear god I don't think it ends well. CPU drug dealer Hahahahahaha

I really hate to ask this, but can you return the fans? For the money, you can get a lot more power and still have a very cool and quiet system.

this is what you could do on the budget:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3G4sa

I am sure someone you know has a COMPLETELY LEGAL copy of windows they can use for the second PC install.