UK PC £1K (~$1.5K) build.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type Item Price
CPU Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor £154.11 @ Ebuyer
Motherboard MSI H97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard £62.36 @ Scan.co.uk
Memory Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory £50.98 @ Amazon UK
Storage Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive £79.85 @ Amazon UK
Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £42.97 @ CCL Computers
Video Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card £278.79 @ Amazon UK
Case Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case £87.13 @ Scan.co.uk
Power Supply XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply £69.78 @ More Computers
Operating System Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) £74.09 @ Amazon UK
Wireless Network Adapter TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter £25.67 @ Aria PC
Keyboard Cooler Master CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle Wired Gaming Keyboard w/Optical Mouse £26.84 @ CCL Computers
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total £952.57
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-07 16:09 GMT+0000

This should do the job.

You can expect 60FPS or higher for pretty much any game at 1080p with ultra settings.

I also included a 256GB SSD, which I recommend you use as a boot drive, as well as installing a couple of most used software/games in there. You can dump the rest of the less important files in the 1TB.

By the way, I did not include an optical drive as nobody really uses them anymore. If you're unsure if you're going to be able to install the OS through USB, then just get this optical drive.

All cables are included with each individual components where necessary. The only thing you actually need is a Phillips screwdriver. You can also pick up some zip ties for cable management, but they're not necessary to make your computer work - it's only for aesthetic purposes.

/r/buildapcforme Thread