One of my friends might have me build him a rig for $900. What do you all think of this http://pcpartpicker.com/p/SyMo
I did not see any glaring issues. I am happy with my 6300 so far.
Awesome!
That build is nice, but if you went for a cheaper case and bumped the cooler down to a 212 evo, you could squeeze an 8350 into the budget.
That would require getting a $40 case and there really isn't any good option at $40
I would check out NZXT (Source 210 / 220) for nice but cheaper cases that have good airflow and arent ugly. Cooler Master, Fractal Designs (especially the core 1000 if your willing to go micro atx), Silverstone, BitFenix, etc. (Rosewill even has a few nice ones now)
The cheaper end gaming cases might not always be flashy or have a window, but you can get some amazing air flow with plenty of features without getting something ugly. I would check it out since the budget is set, it is worth it for the performance. I personally have built a system in the nzxt sourse 220 and it is quite nice (usb3.0 in it also).
I second the cooler master 212 as a cheaper cooler, it is amazing and works nearly as good as the xigmatek that you listed. I have a coolermaster 212 on my old amd phenom II 940, which is a 125watt cpu, and it is funny how much cooler it is than the corsair h60 I had was keeping it.
tldr: check out some cheaper cases, youll find some nice ones (Coolermaster has nice gamer style cases in the low range if you want some more stylized looks) and check out the hyper 212.
Money saved = more speed = good deal.
What games will he be playing? If he's playing Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft all day, he won't need a 7950...