I wil not advice you on wether it's good or bad to buy from ibuypower because i have no idea, but i would try to get the best core-components from ibuypower and buy add-ons or upgrades seperately unless they are essential, hard to install, or more cheap then elsewhere (some upgrades can be relatively very expensive, while other are good value for money, so study your options wel here). Personally i would be hesitant to buy like this and build the computer myself (fun also), but that's all up to you. There are also advantages to buying a computer in one piece...
Upgrading a videocard is often easy and very effective and upgrading the cpu is difficult if possible at all. Therefor, in your priceclass, i would go for something like this:
http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Special-A
I would modify it as follows:
- upgrade to the i7-2700k for just $30
- take advantage of the low price ($80, over 120$ at newegg) for the corsair 850TXv2 psu to create a solid foundation for all components to run properly and even add some sli-capability for future video-upgrades. Never go for something else then a top notch powersupply!!
- pay a lousy $13 for an upgrade to an amd radeon hd7850 2Gb for addequate performance for the near future. One could always upgrade the video a few years from now but this card is already quite good.
- Pay another lousy $14 to upgrade the motherboard to the gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H for SLI capability, allowing maximum use of the good powersupply for a possible future SLI-setup.
- I would go for a 2 hdd configuration. An ssd is only good for making your computer boot fast and load applications quickly, but also has it's disadvantages. When using the computer for gaming (as i suspect you plan to do) an ssd wil have little added essential value. so in my configuration i pay $110 for an extra 1Tb hdd (or add one yourself if you can find one somewhere cheaper). Using 2 hdd's wil allow you to use half of both hdd's to store system-images using bootit bm making and excellent systemmanagement foundation (when placing duplicate images of the most important windows installations on both hdd's you wil be practically immune against hdd crashes).
- Make sure to add windows (default is no os). So i pay $104 for windows 7 home premium 64 bit. (or buy it seperately then you are at least sure you get the installation-disk and it won't be a lot more expensive, but on the other hand you won't get the computer in working order to test it out quickly, and also discover any problems quickly, and it's unlikely anyway you'd want to transfer windows to a new computer/motherboard using the installation disk. OEM is ok to buy and a lot cheaper then retail)
- i'd pay another $50 for the transportation protection, basic profesional wiring and performance thermal compound.
Total prince: $1478 (but this is without things like a (i would say at least 20" but better 24") monitor, gamingmouse, headphones, and surgeprotector which you wil also need)
Also invest some money in bootit bm: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-bare-metal.htm
Making a byte for byte veryfied system-image is also a good means to test your storage reliability. If the veryfication reports errors try replacing the sata-cables for ones that are shorter and/or better quality.
Get this free utility (or pay a bit for a disk) to check your memory and with that also the overall stability of the computer, because other problems may also generate memory errors:
http://www.memtest.org/
An answer of me on building your own computer:
https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20111106051038AAIcNew
Tip: Before starting the computer first open it and check for any loose wires or badly mounted add-on cards. It would be a pity if a loose wire would get into a fan or something. So generally check the assembly. Also when first starting the computer do so with open casing and check if all fans are running. Also before using the windows installed on it in earnest first make a system-image using bootit bm and make a dedicated windows gaming installation for optimal performance (a working copy of the same windows on the same hdd with only the essential drivers, processes and services loaded).