Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-7108166-20140322012724/@comment-4441359-20140325051726

You don't use external had drives for building a PC, they are for backup and if you need a portable drive. A SSD (solid state drive) uses flash memory (faster but expensive), while a standard hard drive (HDD or Hard Disc Drive) uses a spinning disc, which is slower but far cheaper. Because of this a small SSD (120-240Gb) to install windows, your programs and your favourite games on, and a large HDD (1Tb or more, 1Tb = 1000Gb) for everything else. A SSD improves load times massively, which is why you should use it for windows, programs and most used games. Go here for more info on the difference.

Windows 7 & 8 cost pretty much exactly the same (around $100 USD), so it just comes down to preference. As I said before though, Windows 8 is faster, and all the differences from Windows 7 can be fixed with a free program (I recommend classic shell as a free option, but Start8 for a paidalternative).

If you want Skyrim Legendary Edition you'll need a disc drive to install it, but there is no need to spend heaps on it, you can get a decent one for $20 or less.

pcpartpicker.com  is a good place to go, it has lists of all current PC hardware, and you can add parts to a list and it will give you a price and warn you if any parts are incompatable.

If you want to you can also link other people to the list, so if you want to ask for help withit you can.