I'm building a new gaming PC. Right now I'm at this for the bits:

Mobo: ASUS Z97-Pro LGA 1150 Intel Z97
CPU: i5-4570 Haswell 3.2 GHz
GPU: Saphire Radeon R9 270X
RAM: 2x4 Gig G.Skill DDR3
SSD: Samsung M.2 256 GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
PSU: XFX 650W Modular

This is literally the first time I'm going to try building my own PC. I basically went through Newegg and picked whatever was best rated and in my price range. Any suggestions on bits that are of equal quality (or better) at a similar cost, or less, would be welcome. I want to keep it under $1.3K, before shipping, if possible.

 

Bring the size of the SSD down to 128 GB and improve the gfx card. For £1.3k you should be doing way better than a 270x.

 

Ok, firstly do you plan to overclock? If yes, you should get either a 4670K or a 4690K CPU. If not, then you don't need a Z97 board, and should get an H97 board instead, since the only advantage Z97 gives you is the overclocking ability.

Next the GPU, you should go for a 280X instead of the 270X - the 280X has about 15% more performance, and will give you, on average and depending on the game, at least 10+ more FPS than the 270X (in some games, like Bioshock Infinite for example, you can even get over 20FPS more), which is really worth the $50 more.

The memory is fine, but I personally would go for a normal SATA SSD. Yes the M.2 is faster, but unless you want to constantly write things to it (which would mean that it would die faster), then you most likely won't notice a difference. If you want to go for an H97 board, make sure to check in the specifications that the board has an M.2 slot, since not all of them do. If you want to go for a normal SATA SSD, then get either the Samsung 850 Evo or the Crucial BX100 or MX100 (the 256GB version).

The HDD and PSU are fine. All in all, if you don't plan on overclocking and therefore get an H97 board and buy a normal SATA SSD, you can probably save enough from that to get a GTX 970, which is pretty much the recommended card to get at the moment. Oh and do you already have a case? If not, then don't forget to include one.

 

Thanks. I looked at the H97 boards and I didn't see one I liked that had enough analog audio ports for 5.1, so I'm sticking with the Z97. I'm dropping the M.2 for a Samsung 250 GB SSD, and using the extra cash for the MSI GTX 970.

I had a nice case picked out, but it went out of stock before coming back at almost $300 (!!!). A friend has a case I can have for a bowl of ramen though, so there's that.

 

A quick update on the GTX 970: there's currently lots of drama about it only effectively using 3.5GB of it's VRAM and the specs being a bit lower than thought. More on that here and here. It's still a pretty good card, but if one of those things bother you, you might want to hold of on getting one until that issue is cleared (which could take months) or go for another card like the R9 290(x). Though be aware that AMD announced that they will release new GPU's in Q2 2015, so if you want to go with AMD because of the issue of the 970, then waiting a little longer might be better.

Edit: Also if it's only the audio ports that you don't like about the H97 boards, then getting a soundcard that has all that you want with the H97 board might still come in cheaper.