May be building a PC - Suggestions for budget under $1,000 USD?

[DOLBYdigital]

Garcian Smith knows what he is talking about :)
I'm a computer tech and always find his posts to be very thorough and better written than I can manage.
I personally would save on the SSDs for now since they are still very expensive however if you have the money to spend then its worth it. As for the Phenom vs i5, I'll leave that to others since they are both great processors however I agree with Garcian that a speedy dual core is fine for most apps and can save you tons of money. Unfortunately the graphics card market is kinda rough right now and prices have been going up but there are still plenty of good deals to find out there. That's a pretty decent build Squilliam although I am a big fan of Corsair and Seasonic PSUs like Garcian mentioned and I personally would wait on the SSD :)

Just remember that 'in general' prices will keep going down so the longer you can wait, the better. Sometimes this doesn't hold true like the current graphic card market but for the most part if you can wait another month or so you can get even better parts for the same price bracket. Good luck and post your final build here before you make the purchases.