re: Best gaming PC build possible with $1000?

Since I'm sure no one has read my guide from start to finish, I'll just say that Blue's build is absolutely what you should get for your $1,000. Any additional tweaks I would make would just be splitting hairs. The liquid cooler is optional if you want to shave the $80-90 off of the price and just go with the Hyper 212+ or evo instead.

I know rebates are annoying. But they are rampant in the PC hardware market. A $10 rebate here and there may seem like more trouble than it’s worth, but they add up to be a fair sum of money that can sometimes equate to getting the performance of a $700 PC for $600. If you follow directions, the companies do reliably make good on their rebate offers, and the whole process shouldn’t take you 30 minutes if you just mail them all at once. The only real drawback is that you have to temporarily tie up more money than your budget allowed (6–8 weeks unless you pay a couple of dollars to each company for rush processing).

Logical increments is too broad and produces poorly optimized builds. Tom's Hardware is OK but still slightly stupid.