Former PC is dead. Help me build a new one?

Let me start off by thanking any of you in advance. I love this site and community, you guys are freakin awesome.

 

My ancient (yet slightly upgraded) PC just took a crap yesterday. It's really just a hard drive issue, but I figured instead of spending 60 or so on a new hard drive, that I'd use the opportunity to build a much better rig and finally fulfill the dream.

My budget is about $500, a little under would be awesome. I love to game, and would like to be able to play newer games on high if possible. I am also learning/ trying to learn to code. I do not need an OS or any peripherals.

I come to you guys because the community's collective brain is far superior to my own :)

Do you live in America?

Yes I do! Sorry for not specifying 

adding whatever you currently have really helps stretch the dollars out. if you still want to use your case, or you have decent ram etc,etc can help put more money into other areas for a better machine.

Well, all of the parts in my computer were pretty old, so I was really thinking of getting all new parts. The ram I've got is ddr2, the GPU is a gt 430, the cpu is an older quad core from before when the i series were out.

The case is a small dell case, not enough room for a nice card.

here you go. this is an APU build, which means when you can afford a good graphics card, that will be all that you will need to have a very solid setup. the case is one that I would go with, so if you need to get your total down a few dollars you can easily find  $50 case, just not as nice as the define mini.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/77WLYJ

heres Jayztwocents playing battlefield on a system with the same APU

http://youtu.be/Cv57qDXpEPU

I would never go for the APU they are not the best for bang for your buck. this is a beast build and quite small http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x2mpRB

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/H6pLYJ

I used your build but I changed the motherboard and the ram.  The msi motherboard has a heatsink on the vrm so overclocking should be a little better.  The ram is 2x4gb so it will run in dual channel since the motherboard  has 4 slots you can still have 16gb ram.

There will be hardly any difference between running dual channel and single channel RAM for gaming. For productivity uses there will be a benefit to it.

If you'd really like to see a good jump in performance and if you have a little cash headroom id suggest getting an sdd, if only to hold your OS on it. 

Something like this: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-internal-hard-drive-cssdf120gbls

Great price and enough room for your OS and a few games.

Other then that the previous suggest build, looks like its more then enough to handle pretty much anything you throw at it, espeically with the R9 270.