Replacing my 5 year old PC

Hardware Build a PC
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Hey all, I'm looking to replace my old computer and get a new one, with all those fancy graphics and whatnot.

My budget is $1000-$1500, except I live in New Zealand, so that's $800-$1200 USD. Unfortunately, parts are a bit more expensive than in the US, must be something to do with being a tiny country miles from anywhere except Australia (eew, Australia), or rampaging orcs, Mt Doom (and yes, I've been to Mt Doom (Mt Ngauruhoe), and Hobbiton (Mattamatta)) etc.

On the bright side, I've got my spiffy Roccat Pyra mouse and Arvo keyboard, as well as a 23" 1920x1080 monitor I got for a sweet price recently and a 21" 1680x1050 monitor, and a 8GB DDR3 1600hz stick of memory, which gives a bit more freedom to get some pricier parts. (for anyone with only one screen, get two screens. It's amazing.) I plan to get another 8GB stick sometime in the future, and stuff that in there, but as I'm currently running a 2GB DDR2 ~300hz stick, I'll be fine for a while. I also have a WD Caviar black drive that I'll take out of my current PC, then gut the Tivo that no-one is using and use the HDD from that in my current PC and set it up as a file server or something interesting. I'll probably also steal the DVD drive out of it too, I don't use it enough to want to buy another, but I don't use it so little I don't want on at all.

I plan mostly on using the system for gaming, though it may get used to do some rendering at some point. I'd like to be able to run games at the native resolution of my monitors without having framerate drops that break immersion.

I would prefer an AMD graphics card, because the nVidia card I had was awful and had all kinds of issues, and my current Sapphire card is excellent, although I'm open to suggestions of course.

TLDR: New Zealand, budget $1000-$1500, already have monitors, peripherals, hobbits, disk drive, memory, hard drive, prefer AMD cards and NZ should have won America's Cup.

http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/2gmMv

Here's what I've come up with so far, though I may be barking up the wrong tree.

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http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/2gnnq

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How about this case? http://www.corsair.com/us/pc-cases/carbide-series-pc-case/carbide-series-200r-compact-atx-case.html

The Carbide 200r is my favourite case at that price point, I actually prefer it to a lot of cases twice the price. It has a better filter at the bottom, which you can easily remove and clean (it's like a tray and it slides from behind), has more fan mounts, it has room for longer graphics cards, and it has USB 3.0 front ports. It doesn't have room for as many HDDs as the K380, and no sidewindow, but you have 4 dedicated bays for SSDs, in case you decide to buy one (or more) further along the road. The Fractal Design Core 3000 USB 3.0 edition is a great case if you want different aesthetics and if you can get your hands on it, but it's a bit pricier.

If you're picking the K380 because of its aesthetics, then my advice is go with whatever you like best, especially if you plan to keep it on your desk. You'll be seeing your case every day, make sure you like what you are seeing.

For gaming, the FX-8320 CPU has the same performance as the one that you chose. Maybe there will be a noticeable difference when rendering, but I am not interested in doing that, so I really cannot comment. Maybe you could ask in the CPU forums if you are unsure?

Other than that, I like your build. One small suggestion, have you looked at the Gigabyte Windforce 3 R9 270x video card? It's a bit cheaper than the ASUS, but on the other hand the Direct CU II cooling tends to be quieter (from what I read, at least).

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Thank you for your detailed advice. I've decided to drop the K380, considering other cases at that price point have 2xUSB3.0 ports, rather than the K380's one. It was a real toss up between the Carbide 200r and the CM N400, but the N400 comes with 3 installed fans. I'm cheap like that. It's also a little bit larger than the 200r, but that's not an issue for me.