I seem to ask a lot about building computers...
So, my dad's building me a gaming computer for my birthday since our iMac stopped playing Sims 3.
I believe our budget is $1,000 (if that comes in handy).

The games I plan to play are Sims 3, probably Sims 2 and Mass Effect trilogy.
I have no idea what graphics card will be best, whether they'll run on Windows 8 (I don't know if it's possible to still get Windows 7 in Australia).

Thank you for helping...

Do you have any parts left over from olders PCs that you could re-use? What else do you plan on doing? Photo editing? The Sims 4? Do you have an idea of where you'll be buying your parts from?

No, our old computer is a laptop and it's well... Not very good, gaming-wise. I don't intend to buy Sims 4 and I want to have Photoshop. I don't know where the parts are going to be bought.

Does your $1000 budget include monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers (if you use that)? You're buying your parts in Australia though, right? And the $1000 budget is in Australian Dollars?

We have all those, so we just need hardware and software.
And yes it is

You should try to get something that looks like this:

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/1AdWv



Prices you will actually be able to get will vary of course, but you have an idea of what are normal prices and the website I linked to gives you links to online retailers.

The list I made is under $1000 but if you still find it expensive you could downgrade the GPU to a Nvidia GTX 650 Ti Boost and save about $30 I think. And you could downgrade the CPU to an i3-4130 and save $70.

I don't recommend downgrading anything. Having said that, the i3 + GTX 650 Ti Boost should be enough to play The Sims 3, but the i5 + GTX 660 will make a big difference in Photoshop and Mass Effect.

At the risk of going off-topic, though I don't want to make a new thread about this, I was wondering if my Radeon HD 6530D card (chip?) is good for running games, well The Sims 2 really. As far as I understood from some sites, it's an integrated graphics chip and that's a no-no when it comes to demanding games like The Sims 2. However, my Sims 2 game runs without lag and glitches on high settings, I used to have all-max settings before, including Smooth edges, and it ran perfectly fine. But then I read somewhere around here that integrated chips may be good at first, but you may start noticing bluriness, weird textures, flashing etc. which I did not experience. So, should I think about getting a real graphics card for games for the future or stick with this one for a while?

I do have to note that when I first installed my Sims 2 game nearly all neighborhoods would crash when loading. When I searched for help here, it was suggested by Mootilda that it's because I don't have a real graphics card. When I reinstalled and up to now, the game runs fine, though I don't play it often.

Sorry if I derailed this thread.

Note: I also have a AMD A6-A500 APU which is kinda bundled with the card.