Pics first for those interested!

After years of console gaming, several of my friends have made the switch to PC gaming, but I was still holding out. I made the transition over (built back in March), and I'm finally getting around to making the post! I started the build process around Christmas last year, searching for parts on sale, find the best bang-for-my-buck options, while not hindering the performance as best as I could. Being my first build, it was much easier than anticipated and a bunch of fun to do!

A friend of mine generously gave me his old GPU (a 970, enough to get me rolling) to get me started and as I mentioned, I shopped the sales as much as I could. The best deal that I acted on was Cooler Master's bundle sale (Hyper 212 RGB, 650 gold full mod, and H500 case) to get either the exact part I was eyeing or higher tier for cheaper than what I was originally going to spend. All others were deals of at least $10 off - with the m.2 being about ~$60 off - shout out to r/buildapcsales for these deals!

In some cases, I reused some other parts/peripherals that I had already - namely my monitors (which is why my friend's 970 is more than enough for me right now). Fortunately, I also saved a bit of money on the Windows front as well by deactivating and reusing an older key that I had on my old laptop.

The main reason for the delay in my post is that I had a few issues post-build. Everything booted up normally with my first attempt. Then, I tried to make a few RAM tweaks in BIOS and had some intermittent blue screen issues. The problem was that it was happening randomly, so it was tough for me to pinpoint.

I tried getting back into BIOS to undo the tweaks, but I must've changed the boot order improperly for my m2, because it would be a black screen from powering on until Windows login, with no way to get into BIOS. With some help from folks here - thanks again! - I was able to get into BIOS. I reset the CMOS battery and disconnected both my m2 and HDD to force it into BIOS. There, I reset my RAM timings to the already configured xAMP profile, and it's been smooth as butter since!

I'm still a PC newb, but feel free to ask any questions!

PCPartPicker Part List