Hi there geeks!
I finally have enough money for a decent gaming rig, but I have limited knowledge on part picking, and would appreciate any help! Some background (feel free to ignore this bit and skip to the relevant question!): I only just upgraded to a PS3 last year, up until that point I had the most resource intensive games I had played were borderlands and mirrors edge. After playing low requirment PC and PS1/2 games for most of my life, the infamous and uncharted series just amazed me with their mechanics and graphics, particularly how far uncharted had improved through it's life cycle on the same console! I've never been too fussed about graphics - heck, I still bust out my old gameboy now and then, but seeing how far games have come, especially in the latest generation of games (Infamous:Second Son and Quantum Break look FANTASTIC!) I want to see just how far I can push my games on my budget.

(The relevant question) I want to play all the latest games on the highest settings I can; Everything from heavily modded Minecraft with shaders and high definition textures to “The Walking Dead”, “Dark Souls 2”, “Dishonored”, “No Man’s Sky”, “Watchdogs”, “Dying Light” etc… So, what is;

 

• The best overall PC build I can get for $1000 - $1500? (NZD)
• The best build for my needs?
• your current and/or favourite build? (whether you currently own it or not)
• a good case - if it’s sleek and relatively low impact it can go on my desk, otherwise under it

Excluding operating systems and accessories (Keyboard, mouse, monitor) for these prices, but it would be helpful to know what your favourites are, and what would suit me - mice with lots of customizability (weights, grips, mappable buttons, sensitivity etc) Keyboards with convenient hotkeys, or one of those gaming pads with only relevant keys (WASD, space bar etc) and a monitor that would also serve well as a screen for consoles/playing movies (High maneuverability, decently large) Could accessories realistically be covered in the budget?
I consider this to be a realistic budget for just a rig, especially considering Austin Evans did a series of builds, his cheapest being the 300 USD Boson which could play Metro: Last light - albeit it was a mini ATX build, and would probably not function particularly well as a full gaming PC (he does have better builds in the 500-1000 USD range though), it’s just to get the point across that builds don’t have to cost thousands as some people have led me to believe.