(Theoretical) First Build - Any suggestions?

Hello,
I'm wanting to build a computer for myself so that I can play games, watch Netflix and do general Internet stuff. The games I'd be playing would be GTA V, RO2, War Thunder and possibly some Battlefield. I have a rough budget of £600, this excludes any peripherals as I already have them sorted.

Here is the setup that I'm thinking of buying from Scan.co.uk. Any tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

CPU - Intel Core i5 4590 (Haswell Refresh)
GPU - 2GB EVGA Nvidia GTX 960 SSC ACX 2.0+
MOBO - MSI H97 PC Mate (This is the component I'm least sure whether it is the best fit for my other components)
Case - Corsair Carbide Series 100r Silent Edition
RAM - 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Black
PSU - 500W Corsair CXM Builder Series, Hybrid Modular
HDD - 1TB Seagate Barracuda
SSD - 120GB Corsair Force LS v2 Series

Overall, this build would cost £612.99

As I am a student I'm hoping that I can get my OS (Windows 8.1/10) cheaply/freely. My place of education is registered with Microsoft Dreamspark so if anyone has any experience that would also be well received. As for installing the OS, I went for no CD/DVD drive so any online guides that you've used/ read which you found informative on installing windows with a USB Drive I would like it if you linked that as well.

If I stretched my budget to £682.13, I would be able to buy the new Skylake processor, motherboard and RAM components. These would be the following:

CPU - Intel Core i5 6600k
MOBO - Asus Z170-P D3 (Again, any thoughts?)
RAM - 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black

Would this upgrade be worth it for the money? For future proofing, would this help prolong the effectiveness of the PC or not?

Anyway, thanks for taking the time for reading this post and for any suggestions you may have

If you're increasing the budget then you'll get more futureproof-ness upping the GPU on your original build.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KimJongWill

Would this upgrade be worth it for the money? For future proofing, would this help prolong the effectiveness of the PC or not?

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You need major performance improvements to achieve even modest increases in lifespan. Paying for more raw performance than the mid-range rarely makes sense. Exponential growth is a bugger from that perspective.

The only sensible form of future proofing is technology support. For example Skylake has better support for the next generation of video formats - it can decode HEVC Main10 in dedicated hardware where Haswell has to brute force it. This means that if you went for skylake it'd perform a better job as an HTPC after it was retired from it's gaming duties and extend it's useful lifetime.

In terms of motherboard what do you plan to connect to it? The one you've picked looks to aimed at people who have got old hardware to connect with two PCI slots, a serial port, a parallel port and separate PS/2 keyboard and mouse connector.

A motherboard won't affect CPU, memory or graphics card performance so unless you need to wring the most out of an interface (particularly a rare one like USB 3.1 Gen2) or need top quality analogue sound quality then you're basically buying on features - primarily what ports and connections it has. Oh, and size & shape (form factor) of course.

Generally I'd say the default choice of motherboard should be a B85 Micro-ATX board. The B85 chipset gives you the option of some useful extra features like a second pair of memory slots while keeping the price down while Micro ATX gives you a couple of free expansion slots while keeping the size down . Although obviously feel free to go for ATX if you've fallen in love with a case that takes ATX boards.

Go for a 4GB card at that price, especially if you're going to run it as long as possible.

A modular PSU is a rather redundant in a large non-windowed case. You neither need the space nor neatness. I'd spend £30 on a decent non-modular unit, neither corsair nor modular are worth £25 more.

For the sake of £20 more I'd go for a 250GB SSD.

Thanks for the replies, I have taken some of the suggestions and I've come up with a different build:

CPU - Intel Core i5 4590 (Haswell Refresh)
GPU - 4GB Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX 960 WINDFORCE 2X Graphics Card
MOBO - MSI H97M-G43 Micro-ATX Motherboard
Case - Corsair Carbide Series 100r Silent Edition
RAM - 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Pro Series Blue
PSU - Non-modular 500W EVGA 80Plus Power Supply
HDD - 1TB Seagate Barracuda
SSD - 120GB Corsair Force LX

Is this better than my first build? It costs slightly less at £603.46 but has a better GPU and SSD

You could down-size the case now you've selected a MicroATX motherboard, although it's largely personal preference.

A modest CPU cooler is popular even for many non-overclocked systems to reduce noise levels but as Intel doesn't sell that CPU without the cooler it makes sense to see whether you can live with the bundled cooler first.

Worth comparing the R9 380 if you haven't already, but they're both good choices.

I would seriously consider that larger SSD. 120GB is awfully easy to fill with programs.

Other than that, looks good.