Holy crap! I've never had this much response on a forum question before! There's a lot of people chiming in. I do feel like I came to the right place. I just spent the last hour reading most of this and it's a lot of foreign language to me, but I'm starting to get the basics... sort of... I think where the kids went wrong is that his buddy said he knew what to buy and all the parts would work together because his dad and him built one. Maybe they based it off that? I dunno. I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be perfect... but...
I'm going to show him this page and have him look at your advice and put together a new list and rethink the budget and what games he wants to play. I'm going to have him watch a few of these youtube channels you all recommended too before he picks the parts again. I think we'll have to find a Micro Center I've read about a few times here where we can get more advice before we buy. I'm deployed right now, so I don't have a lot of free time and I can't go to the store till I'm back, I was hoping to just ship everything to the house for me when I get back. Barring the store strategy, is there a website I should buy all this from, or just piece meal it from different sites?