First Time Build Help

I'm no expert but if you want to be able to upgrade in the future you will want to get the right motherboard. I had one didn't last me for long because the CPU socket standard changed right after I bought it. The current computer I built lasted for much much longer because I researched my motherboard with a view to future proofing. I am still using it many years later and I don't think it has a single original component other than the motherboard now. I have been trying to read up on the new socket standards and chipset series for current motherobards but my mind is boggled and I will leave that for someone more knowledgeable to recommend.

Also, if you want to upgrade later you might want to consider a motherboard with two PCIex16 slots as that would allow you to buy a second matching card later on and run them together in SLI or Crossfire which *might* be a more cost effective option, though a lot of people complain about SLI/Crossfire being a pain in the arse to get working right. Sorry I couldn't be more help but I don't want to sound too authoritative as I am just a hobbyist enthusiast. I will say learning to build your own computer can be a lot of fun and very rewarding if a bit daunting for the first time, so good luck.

For you budget you can certainly build something that works but I doubt you will be playing the latest games in ultra settings. I'm not sure how $/£ compare for electronic components but if you can you probably want to stretch you budget a little bit farther. If it is as low as I think it is you might want to look into getting some good second hand components from somewhere like eBay or some reputable factory seconds, though this comes with an bigger risk of course.

Have you got a friend who might be upgrading their PC? I have a friend who has a comp that can play the latest games (on low settings) and his computer is almost entirely built out of second hand components I gave him or let him buy off me at mate's rates.

I assume you have heard of PCPartPicker, people on these forums seem to use it a lot (I am new here) but if you haven't here is the link: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/

It should let you experiment with different builds, warn you of compatibility problems and give you a rough price summary too.

Edit: Couldn't help myself, was curious how viable this price point was but it appears to be very viable. You wont be gaming in 4k any time soon but you should be able to play all the latest games with this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7r2FNG

This is just an example, it comes out at $681.49.

A couple of notes: I had to reduce the storage to a 64GB SSD so you'd only really be able to use it for your OS rather than installing games. On that note, you might want to swap out the 1TB HDD for another much smaller SDD for around the same price, this will speed up loading times in games massively but obviously you will miss the 1TB of storage if you want 20 games installed at once or to store videos etc. on your hard drive.

I kind of just breezed through the CPU, Motherboard and Graphics card, simply going for what was affordable but powerful and had pretty good reviews. You definitely want to research that more, Tom's Hardware have a lot of great articles for that, search for 'best [CPUs/Motherboards/Graphics cards] for the money' and you should find some good articles.

The case, PSU and optical drive were really just picked based on price/reviews and to complete the build.

I have to say I was quite surprised you could get such a solid build for that price. The Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB is by far the biggest expense but that should be expected for a decent gaming build. The AMD FX-4350 4.2GHz Quad-Core Processor should be fine for almost any gaming as far as I am aware though those CPUs might be getting quite dated now in terms of added extras and tech innovation, not certain.

I hope this helps you, but you should definitely just use this as a guideline and do your own research on components that interest you and definitely tweak the build to your liking on PartPicker if you are at all inclined.