The best part is when they cry over the price and try and haggle you. Then you say, well you wanted to xyz and that's what it costs to do. That's when they well maybe not today.
Actually, at that point I'd offer different options and suggest we start over to see what they could afford... To start at the bottome of a gaming system let's say ( without too many compromises on quality still of course ) an AMD 2600 6-core since most games don't typically use 4 cores at the max but a few do go over that. Then still give them 16Gb of DDR 4 3000 memory which is more than enough for games ( but just a start for a content or professional creator ). I'll use the 500Gb SSD still and if they need more storage they can have me add a HD if needed. An AMD Radeon RX 570 w/4Gb, it'll do 60fps @ 1080 in the majority ( if not all ) of the games still many of which can still use the higher quality settings. They'd need at the least a 450w PS but I'd recommend a 600-650w 80+ bronze level so they could upgrade the graphics later if they wish ( unless they were really wanting that 2080 Ti in which case I'd suggest at least a 750w so they have a little extra headroom ). Unlike the previous ones, they wouldn't need Win10 Pro... so that could shave a little off the cost also.
That'd bring my cost to probably a little over $900 ( probably $950 if no sales are happening )... So say around $1150 ( since I'm a pessimist when it comes to costs ) assembled and tested.
Some simple upgrades available...
Upgrade to that 750w ps... probably will add about $30ish bucks
Upgrade to an additional 3 case fans ( the above only has a single 120mm )... add about $50 for some without LED's and decent bearings. Oh, you want some bling... add another $75 for some decent RGB led fans with an additional fan controller.
A 1Tb 7200rpm HD... another $75 ( at the most, probably more like $60-65ish )
Bigger upgrades...
Ryzen 7 2700 CPU ... add between $150-200 depending on sales ( a 2700X would probably require a stronger PS since they are pretty power hungry ( a 130-140w increase on the top end ) and not gain you that much on the high end performance wise )
Ok... now lets look at those video upgrades ( that you probably want just because you can never get enough fps ... lmao )
Radeon rX 580... a nice and pretty affordable bump in performance due to doubling the ram if nothing else... add about $75
... anything below would certainly also need a stronger PS again...
RTX 2070 ... add another $375 ( plus PS cost )
RTX 2080... please sit down now... add another $575 ( plus that dang PS upgrade again )
Since URI has already determined that the dollar budget cap is @ $2k dollars... I guess I don't need to mention that a RTX 2080 Ti is going to bump everything up at least $1075 give or take.
Just in case your wallets really aren't hurting yet. I'd figured an even better top end AMD gaming system at around the $2500 range ( including my cut, so if you are building yourself subtract about $200-$300 ) without any compromises to speak of. That was including a higher end MB than I just played around with above, a Ryzen 2700 ( which probably matches the Intel i7 8700k since I know the 2700X actually out performs it in most cases ), 16Gb DDR4 3000 memory, 512Gb M2 SSD, RTX 2080 Ti and an 850w bronze 80 + PS in a decent air flow case with 4 case fans.
All of the above are using the included AMD CPU coolers, so OC'ing isn't recommended. If you are dead set on voiding your warranty to gain just a handful more FPS ( Yes, I'm looking at you Tony
)... A decent fan based cooler is the Noctua, the one for the AMD CPU's will cost you about $70 ( probaby $80 if I'm including and installing it ) and is as good as a decent entry level water cooling system. While the Noctua is the best, if you don't mind more noise and slightly less cooling capacity, Coolmaster and DeepCool both also have some decent CPU coolers for less.
I'm not a big water cooling fan ( pun intended )... they live about 3-5 years before needing replaced/repaired. If a WC system fails, your temps skyrocket and hopefully you notice it really quick... if a CPU fan fails, it won't overheat as quick ( but it still will overheat ) so it gives you more time since you still get some cooling from your internal case fans blowing across your CPU cooler... if the WC pump goes out ( the most common failure ) you have zero additional cooling that will help.
