After years and years of memory issues with most major brands, the one brand that has *never* not once given me any trouble, in hundreds of PCs is crucial RAM. I've had Corsair, Gskill, Kingston and various 'performance' RAM all fail. Crucial works every time. The ripjaw stuff has given me grief every time a client wanted it, it ended up back in the shop within a year.
RAM is cheap, so I'd spend the bit extra and get stuff that just doesn't give grief.
www.crucial.com
And never ever buy Asrock motherboards, I have had more of those return than I can count.
I'd also spend the $85 and put in a 128GB SSD drive as the boot drive. The system will feel so much faster that you will never want to use any other computer that doesn't have an SSD. The best $85 you will ever spend.
As for motherboards, the gigabyte boards had capacitor problems many years ago, but they have been great boards since they went to 'solid' caps a few years back.
I'd try and find a quieter card, the Ati cards are better value than Nvidia at the moment, but if he wants to use any high-end 3D modelling or Video editing software, the Nvidia CUDA acceleration can be a real benefit for some programs.
So in short, don't skimp on the RAM or the powersupply, steer clear of Asrock and keep an ear out for a quiet solution to cooling and you will be on your way.