PC Nerds (and PC Nerdettes), 
 
My buddy is coming over tomorrow and wants a PC to play FFXIV, we used to be in the same linkshell in FFXI, and have been close friends since childhood.  He's taking the plunge into PC gaming tomorrow after a long break of 5 or so years. 
 
He has $1,000 he can spend, and he wants a full report of what would be better: 
 

• Going To Best Buy and buying a monitor with a decent CPU PC, then buy video card (460 or 5770).
• Buy a Custom Build online from iBuyPower

I want a gaming PC as well. 

You don't really want to buy a PC from Best Buy. Tell him to build it himself. There is a step by step video on tested.com if he doesn't know how. 

" You don't really want to buy a PC from Best Buy. Tell him to build it himself. There is a step by step video on tested.com if he doesn't know how.  "

Going To Best Buy and buying a monitor    with a decent CPU PC,    then buy video card (460 or 5770)

You shouldn't go around sterotyping all pc gamers as nerds, what if I called you a mactard? You wouldn't like that. Anyways your friend is impatient. Well the gtx460 1 gb is a good choice, forget the HD5770, you will have to upgrade eventually.  
 
Just go to that site your talking about, get this cheap build and add a gtx460 1gb with a decent power supply and ship it. It's the $599 build, pick the i5 processor that's 2.8Ghz and be done with it.

I wouldn't trust ibuypower. Their customer service is notorious for being difficult if something goes wrong with your system(average 1 star customer rating on BBB). I have always used NCIX.

Definitely not Best Buy, I'm pretty sure they don't even sell computers with gaming-grade parts. If they did, it would either be overpriced or below average quality anyway.  
 
I would also recommend CyberPowerPC over iBuyPower; better prices, better customer service, better reliability.  

Check out AVADirect, in the same vein as Cyberpower and ibuypower but way more choices.  You have to know more of what you're doing though.  Served me well about a year ago.

Tell him to knock it off with his stupid ideas for the computer rig to be at his doorstep on a right time. He's spending premium money upwards of several hundreds to play a game maybe a week earlier.

First blueprint your build on iBuyPower, then copy down all the parts and use Google Shopping to find the best prices. Then in a couple weeks when all your shit is delivered, put that bitch together.
 
OR Blueprint via iBuyPower, copy parts down, then go to best buy and get ripped the fuck off while having your rig built the same day. Same goes for any place who builds your rig for you.

" I wouldn't trust ibuypower. Their customer service is notorious for being difficult if something goes wrong with your system(average 1 star customer rating on BBB). I have always used NCIX. "

If he could wait for a pc to ship from ibuypower why can't he wait for the parts to ship from newegg? 
 
A few days of waiting, if that, would be worth it in the long run with a better PC and a better understanding of his PC. 

iBuyPower: At a quick glance, the Gamer Paladin E730 and E740 under Desktop > Intel Desktop > Core P55 i5 seem to be great values and good enough without much more customization. 
 
The only drawback I can see is that he'll have a computer called Gamer Paladin.
 
If I were the one buying a computer, that might be enough to make me want to go to a Best Buy instead.

" iBuyPower: At a quick glance, the Gamer Paladin E730 and E740 under Desktop > Intel Desktop > Core P55 i5 seem to be great values and good enough without much more customization.  The only drawback I can see is that he'll have a computer called Gamer Paladin. If I were the one buying a computer, that might be enough to make me want to go to a Best Buy instead. "

Oh right, the follow up. 
 
My buddy got this: 
 
AMD Phenom™II X6 1055T  
4 Gig Ram  
5770  
 
It cost him $970 total and he gets it early next week.

Processor: AMD Phenom II 955 black edition 3.2ghz quad
MotherBoard: Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P
Memory: 4 gigs of DDR 3
Graphics: Radeon 5770 with 1 gig of memory
Power Supply: 750W
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 640gig
Case: Antec 300 [installed 3 x 120mm fans and 1 140mm fan]