I have never actually build a PC before but I did some small upgrades on a horribly cobbled together, budget, pre-built "gaming" PC a long time ago. Don't kill me, but I currently have a Macbook Pro and have been playing games through a Win 7 VM (Parallels) which as of late become... unsatisfying. I'm trying to keep the price closer to $1000 as I am on a bit of a budget and I feel that I can probably make some cuts here but I'm not sure where. Here's what I've got so far:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

I am also undecided on the OS. I have a .edu email and I read somewhere in another post that I can use my .edu email to get a student copy of Windows 8 or something.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Edit: To put my expectations for performance into game terms I would like to be able to run ArmA III and Rome Total War II at least at a stable medium graphics level.