Hi there! My name is Robotmutt, awhile back I decided to build my own PC for gaming and a bit of work. I was using a good desktop from acer but it was my brothers! So I set about on the adventure to build my PC, how little did I know how hard picking your components was! I posted on a forum my situation and you can go look at it here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2079669/build-900euros-200-750pounds-needed-beginner.html

I set out with a budget of 900 euros ($,1226) but then gained money from jobs and allowed it to go up to 1,100 euros ($1,500). I got several answers from people eager to help (1 person who helped me all the way until now - jshoop). We spoke for a long time and picked all the components over long discussions. I highly doubt you want to read through the entire thread to see why I picked each part and so on. As I am so generous I have collected all the information and will tell you the reasons :) :

CPU: I didn't plan to overclock as it is my first build I didn't want to over complicate things (that's why I didn't do water cooling). Started off the with i5 4440 as suggested, but then considered I might be doing film editing and rendering etc so I upgraded it to the i5 4570 as the price difference was so little. It does the job, good temperatures and works well with games and work. I didn't buy a CPU cooler as the temperatures don't go too high and it saved me money so I stuck with the box cooler.

RAM: I didn't know what RAM to go with and heard 8GB is similar to 16GB and for what I was doing I only needed 8GB for mainly gaming. NOTE: I bought black as I could not find the same RAM in black on pcpartpicker. I bought low profile in case I would install a larger CPU cooler so that the sticks would not get in the way.

Motherboard: I had no idea what motherboard to choose, I wanted one where I could possibly upgrade in the future and was just good quality. That's where jshoop went with a H87 as I was not planning to overclock now or in the future. I was going along with the H87 motherboard but after awhile jshoop wrote to me with recommended upgrades for the build and added a H97N motherboard from gigabyte and it looked better and had wifi so I went with that. I definitely think it's good quality and has plenty of sata ports and is exactly what I need!

GPU: This! This is my favourite thing! :D It performs amazingly and looks awesome! I picked a 780 obviously for gaming and it does really well, I was going to go with MSI gtx 780 but then last minute switched to the Asus one as I preferred how it looked and the price difference wasn't a lot.

PSU: I was originally going with a Corsair CX 500W I believe then saw the CX series is not very high in PSU ratings and switched to XFX and bumped up the 500W to 650W as recommended from my technicians as the GPU uses a lot of power so the 650W was a better option. Also it is semi-modular so that helps, if I could change it I would definitely get a modular PSU with such a small case it makes things way easier.

Storage: I have a fair amount of games on steam and didn't mind too much about the type of storage I had. I read up having a HDD and SSD was a good combo, so I decided that's what I would do. I let the people in the forums pick my storage and went along with it and I am very pleased with the HDD and SSD. If need I will buy another HDD to install in my empty drive bay in the future.

Disk drive: I had this spare Blu-ray drive lying around my house, why not! I also have a lot of blu-rays so watching them on this monitor is a beauty!

Case: I went with a Mini ITX as suggested from speaking with people in the forum and I liked the look of a small build. I was origionally looking at the Corsair 250D but then found out about the Bitfenix Prodigy and loved it way more than the 250D, it looks nicer, friendly with cable management, well designed interior layout and is very easy to take around.

Monitor: I wasn't entirely sure what monitor to pick as there are so many out there, I found the monitor I have now from watching Pewdiepie's setup video and when I saw the 21:9 cinematic monitors my jaw hit the floor. I went up and researched the monitor and loved it, I definitely wanted a wide screen over 16:9. I saw good reviews and decided to pick this one. It was payed for as a birthday present so that's why the price is $0.00.

Peripherals: The mouse I bought a long time ago I can't exactly remember the price but I wanted something cheap and I love it! Only problem is the blue light on top indicating different dpi levels doesn't change colour.. Same with headset I bought it awhile back, can't exactly remember the price but they are good quality, robust and comfy (Turtlebeaches)! I currently am using a boring Acer keyboard but will be buying the Razer DeathStalker and that shall look good matching my colourscheme!

In total I bought everything for about 1,100 euros from amazon.it which is about $1,500 (exluding the monitor and peripherals).

During the build I ran into a few problems but had them sorted and everything turned out okay. I took my PC to the technicians at my school and they managed to give me windows 8.1 for free as they had a spare code lying around so that was nice. I don't think windows 8.1 is actually that bad, the technicians installed a program which makes it similar to windows 7 where you can still open the 'tab' in the bottom left corner and you don't have to deal with the annoying windows 8 panel layout (with a mouse is a nightmare but with touch it is nice). When doing the build I tried my best with cable management and I think I did a fairly good job hiding the cables for a first timer in a Mini ITX case. What do you think?

Once I built the entire PC I was stuck on what colour scheme to do as I bought a window side panel for my case. I had different suggestions but I decided to go with Black&Green because it just looks awesome! :D So from there I decided the buy a Bitfenix spectre 230mm green LED fan and also needed it for airflow to prevent my GPU from heating up too much. I then bought a Bitfenix alchemy 300mm green LED strip to light up the entire case. I had problems finding a good place for it to go, it was in fact too long to fit on the side panels so in the end I stuck on the top as you can see in the images. I know, I know the GPU does not match the colour scheme! But hey it still looks sexy! :D

If you are still reading my life long novel you are awesome! I can't do something like this without going into a lot of detail. I also hope you liked my background I think it's very fitting with colour scheme and works well on the monitor. Oh and this is not my ideal desk it's all I have for the moment but it does the job. I put a lot of effort into taking good photos so I hope you enjoy them and like my first PC build! Let me know what you think and if you have any questions feel free to ask!

EDIT: I might be getting a motherboard and i7 processor from a friend and if I do I will buy the razer nzxt h440.