Need suggestions. New Budget = $698 give or take

nice nice, When you get that job, dont bother with such a small bump, the 7770 is 1 step below 7850 then the 7870, why not wait and aim higher for a even a 7970, it's not like you're in any rush

Okay thanks :)  Yea it sucks having a certain budget. But I think a 7770 for now should suffice with any good game nowadays even turning it down just a tad shouldn't hurt.  But overclocking it will do a great job right?

of course, it has an after market cooler, and using msi afterburner, just of course, be mindful of temperature obviously

Yeah, a 7770 can even max out some games. Like BF3. And since it has good cooling( not that any 7770 runs hot anyway), you can really push it. In the future, when you buy a new card, I also suggest getting an aftermarket cooler for the 6300, at least the CM Hyper 212 Evo, or if you want to hit over 4.7Ghz, a CM TPC 812.

Nice! Thanks guys. I hope the prices don't change much within the next 7 days or so because that's when my check is coming in. I really really appreciate your help!

If you need to cut, then why the 1tb hard drive? get a 500 gb and save 15 bucks and get more drives in the future.

It's just $12 more to get twice the storage.