The optical drive is easy enough to pick out, but I need advise on the video card, cpu, and heatsink. Preferably in the $300-$400 range in total, but going a little over is fine if it will get me a huge bang for my buck. Was looking at getting an i5 processor possibly. Gaming wise I currently just play Warcraft but want something that I can branch out on to the newer games. Live in the US.
This goes over your budget, but honestly if you want this thing to last a few years this is the minimum you are going to spend right now. Or alternativly you go with your current GPU (if you have any) or a cheaper one and buy a 860GTX in 4-5months, honestly i wouldn't buy any gpu right now and if then the "best" card right now for a good price would probably be the AMD R9 280X if you can spend a bit more.