If you want to "play most games" I would figure out a way to build the one I just posted.
I don't think you are going to be happy with the build you've made.

These days, the build I posted...is a budget build. It's also a build that will last you a while.





/e This would be a serious build...just for comparison...

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Nq9r7h

This post was edited by Ghot on Jun 25 2016 03:14am

I'm not expecting to play anything on ultra settings at 60fps, if I can run medium settings at a reasonable frame rate then that's fine, I'll most likely end up playing slightly older games anyway, will probably re-visit a few games that my old PC struggled to run 10 years ago, and a few more recent but less demanding ones like DayZ, AOE2:HD, CS:GO, etc...

Ugh you gotta get at least 120gb ssd. A system without one is so slow an unresponsive.

Well it turns out I had a brand new WD Green 2TB in the cupboard, I know it's not the best but as I've already got it I can now remove the HD off the list, for that amount of money I could have a 120GB SSD but I imagine that would fill up pretty quickly with the operating system and a few games on it. I think I'll spend an extra £10-20 for a 240GB, that should be enough for some games and OS, and anything else can go on the 2TB HD.

Looking at SSD's I can get a 240-256GB for a reasonable price, but SSD's are new to me so I did a bit of research and came across M.2 SSD's that use PCIe instead of SATA. I didn't even know these existed, but it seems like a clear advantage for the M.2 PCIe when for near enough the same price I can get something that's "faster" and does not require any wires connected to it.

I've also been reading about PCIe, and "lanes". The i5-6500 supports 16 lanes and the Z170 chipset supports 20, so am I right in saying that with the GPU using the x16 slot which connects to the CPU, that will be using all of the CPU's lanes but because the motherboard also has 20 lanes the M.2 is connected to the motherboard chip set and not the CPU so it wont affect the GPU as it would if you were to connect two GPU's which would make them run at two x8 instead of one x16 or whatever?


I hope I've got that right, trying to get my head around it all lol. Are M.2 PCIe SSD's worth it or should I just stick with a 2.5" SATA SSD?

Unbelievable. You say you dont need to run high demand games and are approaching the nostalgia road. What kind of gimps me real bad here is you opting for an Intel cpu when AMD's are equal, let's say the 8350 vs intel i5. You get way more bang for your buck with an AMD since Intel are simply more expensive. Not saying Intel is bad, Infact Intel outshines AMD cpus in a lot but bang for the buck? AMD forever.

The r9 is a good pick, relatively cheap and it does great on todays games. If you are about to go with older games then you could downgrade this aswell but its nice to have there regardless, if you do wanna play some up to date games.

You say older games, they are a lot smaller than todays games in GB size overall. Why not opt for a 120gb SSD? It's cheaper and fills your purpose, its not hard to fit your OS and a couple of games on it and then simply change to the storage unit whenever you want to mix things up..and for the record, I sit on a 2.5'' SATA SSD aswell and I doubt you or me could notice a difference between the two lol.

What is a bit worrying is the part where you say you picked a random 650w psu, please dont do that. Go on pcpartpicker later when you've decided on your equipment and see what the estimated watt usage will be then opt for a GOOD brand, this is the most important part of your whole build. I highly doubt that you'll need anything above 500w. As it is right now atleast.