What's max budget?

If gaming is secondary (or even less), but you still want a powerful enough PC so that it lasts as much as possible, you need to go with the newer and more powerful processor (I'm not going to say that it's twice as fast, but the 3600 is cleary superior to the first gen Ryzen).

Based on your two setups, I'd go with:

• Motherboard: ASUS Prime B450M Gaming - It's more than enough
• CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 - It's worth the price difference. Alternatively, you could look for deals on the 8 core processors from the Ryzen 2xxx series
• GPU: RX 580 8GB - Don't buy the 4GB variants
• RAM: 2x 8GB DDR4 - Always get them in pairs as they'll work better. ALso, Ryzen performs better with faster RAM. If you can find a 3000MHz or 3200MHz unit in your price range, go for them.
• HDD: Forget Seagate, their HDD are more prone to fail than the rest (Backblaze publishes quaterly reports and they always fail the most). Go with Western Digital (HGST).
• SSD: Brand isn't really important, but capacity is. I have a 240GB unit and, despite having the games on a separate drive, it's almost full. If you have to install extra software for your studies, you'll face that problem a lot sooner. Go with at least 500GB, of whatever brand.
• Power Suppy: 450-500W And don't go for the cheapest one because if it fails, it can destroy your whole PC.

Case isn't very important and depends more on a personal taste. Just make sure it has one or two fans.

Get a quality power supply. My understanding is that PSU quality varies a lot, so look into it just a bit and get a decent one instead of just getting the cheapest one. I imagine 500 W is enough if you get a decent one. Unfortunately I don't know any good ones since I don't keep up with the times and it's been a long time since I got mine, but looking up some good ones should be fairly quick.

I think you underestimate what a PC can do, even your cheap build wild be able to outperform a ps4 in graphics, even play next gen in low graphics in 1080p.

500w is plenty, specially for what you want, I am also researching parts for my PC and 500w is ideal, I made sure I searched for low powered GPU and CPU, I came to the conclusion I can save electricity with Nvidia, which is a shame because AMD is cheaper.

The good thing about electricity on PC is that monitors waste around 20-40w, compared to my projector at 300w.

Now what I find strange is you say the difference between the cheap and expensive build is around 300dollars, but I think its much less, the difference between those graphics cards is only 60 dollars on amazon. The nvidia 1660 OC super with 6GB GDDR6 is around 250dollars brand new, and that will definitely run next gen games. And if you try gta5 on it, you will never play GTA on ps4 again, the difference is massive.

Watts is more than I was willing to go for, its 125w just the graphics.

My big advice to you, wait until the release of next gen consoles, because PC parts will become cheaper/better, there's always a jump in quality and drop in price when new consoles come to market.

January sales are your best bet, or even black Friday if you can wait.

In my case I'm waiting to see the prices of new consoles and such, It might be the first generation that I skip consoles and go full PC, because PCs are fully backwards compatible with thousands of games at much much cheaper prices at much better graphics, example I can play max payne 3 with beautiful graphics, no jaggies on PC, but I would need to buy a 360 to play it and it would look horrible with all the jaggies.

One thing you have to invest in is proper cooling, my brother build his PC recently with my help, we read the reviews saying the graphics was quiet, that's a lie, nowhere near the xbox X or even the pro 3rd revision, PCs get really loud if you max out graphics, my brother ended installing water cooling, so you need to look into that if you are bothered by noisy fan.

The Ryzen 1600 AF is not actually a first gen Ryzen, it's actually a second gen.
It's got more in common with the Ryzen 2600 than anything else... It's actually a *very* decent budget CPU all things considered.

I've used Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, ASUS, XFX, EVGA all been decent units.

Corsair for instance is more than happy to use CWT/Channel Well Technologies for some PSU's... But still drop a 7-10 year warranty on them.

That will be fine. What have you nailed your components down to exactly? Just so we can see your current line of thinking.

I think Corsair uses CWT allot now though.

Seasonic is a very good PSU designer and manufacturer, no doubt.

Corsair just has the better warranty process in Oceania, hence why they obtain my business.

We do. It's more or less the turnaround time, Corsair has a local center so repairs and replacements are quick... Where-as other manufacturers will prefer to send it overseas.

You're starting to fall into the problem of building a PC: that you can get more performance with a little bit more money. The problem is that all those little bits of money end up being a lot. Keep in mind what you want/need that PC for and don't get carried away.

There is an obvious performance difference between both GPUs (here's a comparison between them), but at the end of the day both are capable of running most if not all current games at 1080/1440p without troubles (you'll have to lower some details tho) and also both of them will have troubles running ports from the upcoming consoles, so don't get obsessed. After all, you can get one now and get a more powerful graphics card in two or three years without touching anyhting else. That's the advantage of gaming on PC, after all.

The Purple line of HDDs from Western Digital are for systems that run 24/7. You could save some money going with a Green or Blue one (all of them spin at 5400 rpm, so you won't notice a difference between them).

A 500W power supply is enough, don't worry. You can use one of the PSU calculators available to check it out. That said, nothing is stopping you from getting a more powerful one if you can find a good deal.

I have a mechanical keyboard and I like it a lot, but they're not for everybody. Keep in mind that they're louder than regular keyboards and you need to do a bit more force to press the keys (which could drive you and those around you tired and insane). There are also differences between each of the different type of keys used (red, brown, blue, ...). You'd have to do some research on your own and decide.

I don't know why you want to buy a 580/1660 if you won't be playing demanding games, you could buy something like a used Geforce 960/AMD 280 and save a lot of money, or you could buy an AMD APU (3400G?).

Personally if I wasn't a gamer I'd buy a barebone mini PC like Zotac Zbox, they are cheap, small, quiet, consume almost no power but are powerful for everyday tasks, you just have to throw in RAM and SSD.

* Geforce 1660 is the faster GPU. It is a superior choice to the Radeon RX 580.
* 500W is fine for a 1660 and a Ryzen 5 3600.
* Try and opt for 3200Mhz Ram... And 16GB of the stuff.
* Western Digital Blue is a better choice, it's firmware is better suited to more random reads/writes over the Purples which are better suited to sequentials.

Stoga Mechanical Keyboards are good budget options... But honestly, if you can get by with a cheapo... And spend that bit extra on RAM or CPU or GPU, that is the option I would take.

Cooling looks fine.