I think most folks around here will advise windows 7. If you are a student there's quite a few good deals on cheap software (google). Windows 7 upgrade (for students) is around £60 last time I looked, Win 8 (with 8.1 coming it might be kinda decent) is around... £40 I think? So neither are too crazy expensive.
Agreed on the 2nd hand stuff. It's a shame your new to the forum as the members market is generally rather excellent for picking up cheap parts (but needs 300+ posts so maybe if you stay active here it will be around for when you upgrade).
If you really need to get a build on a shoestring take a look in the "deal of the day", "clearance" and "b-grade" sections of most of the popular e-tailers. It's probably possible to build a similar powered system for the region of £400 with patience.
You want:
The cheapest socket 1155 motherboard you can lay your hands on though go MSI/Asus/Asrock if it's only £2/3/5 more. You will usually be getting a H61 chipset based board. They don't have any bells or whistles but are fine for a basic system.
The cheapest pair of 4GB sticks (8GB total) from a decent brand. Corsair/geil/g.skill/crucial/samsung etc all do a budget range. Make sure DDR3 thought there shouldn't be much else around. Spend a couple more quid on faster sticks. (eg PC3-12800 rather than PC3-10666) You could consider looking for ones with faster timings etc (e.g CAS 9-9-9-27 rather than CAS 11-11-11-28) but you probably won't get to play with many of the more interesting settings on a basic board.
2TB of cheap hard drive. Try and get a couple of drives so you have somewhere for backups.
About £40/50 on a case. Get a regular ATX unless you really want something small. Easier to work with and more options for upgrading.
About £50 on a PSU. Try and get corsair/seasonic/antec/bequiet/coolermaster or other GOOD brand. Avoid cheapo "own brand" ones generally or ask about a specific PSU. It's often overlooked but you should invest a little in a decent unit. Aim for about 500W. Something a bit smaller (the corsair builder CX430W is a reasonably solid "cheap" option) will probably do as well. Bigger than 500w is only needed for highly tuned/overclocked systems or those with bleeding edge parts or dual graphics cards etc.
then:
An i5 3570k retail (or OEM with a fairly inexpensive but decent socket 1155 cooler like arctic freezer whichever is cheaper) OR i5 2500k/2600k/2700k. The 2500 is about 7-10% slower, the 2600 and 2700 are arguably on par so grab one of those if it's a better deal. The 2xxxk chips are generally easier to cool for cheap overclocking and more performance for your money when you get confident enough to try it (and buy a better motherboard). The 3xxxk chip is better at "stock" (factory settings).
The cheapest ATI 7950/GTX670/GTX770/GTX680 you can find. The £175 deal here on the HIS is VERY good, cheapest elsewhere is £185ish. You generally get a TINY bit more for your money going ATI but deals vary, nvidia have arguably better driver support/less niggles.
Agreed on the 2nd hand stuff. It's a shame your new to the forum as the members market is generally rather excellent for picking up cheap parts (but needs 300+ posts so maybe if you stay active here it will be around for when you upgrade).
If you really need to get a build on a shoestring take a look in the "deal of the day", "clearance" and "b-grade" sections of most of the popular e-tailers. It's probably possible to build a similar powered system for the region of £400 with patience.
You want:
The cheapest socket 1155 motherboard you can lay your hands on though go MSI/Asus/Asrock if it's only £2/3/5 more. You will usually be getting a H61 chipset based board. They don't have any bells or whistles but are fine for a basic system.
The cheapest pair of 4GB sticks (8GB total) from a decent brand. Corsair/geil/g.skill/crucial/samsung etc all do a budget range. Make sure DDR3 thought there shouldn't be much else around. Spend a couple more quid on faster sticks. (eg PC3-12800 rather than PC3-10666) You could consider looking for ones with faster timings etc (e.g CAS 9-9-9-27 rather than CAS 11-11-11-28) but you probably won't get to play with many of the more interesting settings on a basic board.
2TB of cheap hard drive. Try and get a couple of drives so you have somewhere for backups.
About £40/50 on a case. Get a regular ATX unless you really want something small. Easier to work with and more options for upgrading.
About £50 on a PSU. Try and get corsair/seasonic/antec/bequiet/coolermaster or other GOOD brand. Avoid cheapo "own brand" ones generally or ask about a specific PSU. It's often overlooked but you should invest a little in a decent unit. Aim for about 500W. Something a bit smaller (the corsair builder CX430W is a reasonably solid "cheap" option) will probably do as well. Bigger than 500w is only needed for highly tuned/overclocked systems or those with bleeding edge parts or dual graphics cards etc.
then:
An i5 3570k retail (or OEM with a fairly inexpensive but decent socket 1155 cooler like arctic freezer whichever is cheaper) OR i5 2500k/2600k/2700k. The 2500 is about 7-10% slower, the 2600 and 2700 are arguably on par so grab one of those if it's a better deal. The 2xxxk chips are generally easier to cool for cheap overclocking and more performance for your money when you get confident enough to try it (and buy a better motherboard). The 3xxxk chip is better at "stock" (factory settings).
The cheapest ATI 7950/GTX670/GTX770/GTX680 you can find. The £175 deal here on the HIS is VERY good, cheapest elsewhere is £185ish. You generally get a TINY bit more for your money going ATI but deals vary, nvidia have arguably better driver support/less niggles.
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Completely legal to download the installer from anywhere (MS even have their own link somewhere) just illegal to bypass activation checks.