25miles and you don't see him that often? That's like, right next door in my world.

These same symptoms occurred on my pc when the motherboard capacitors failed (A fairly common occurrence among older motherboards.) I would still say go for a new system if you can but just giving my input.

Oh and I was able to resurrect the motherboard by soldering in new capacitors, so you may be able to make the old rig glide along for a little while longer if that is the case.

Ahhh. Looks like one of the balls under GPU un-soldered itself. May be solved by reballing the card - you need to bake it. This was perfectly often happening with 8800-9800 and ati-ish x800-x1900 and should be fixable.

Actually, the MB have connectors and circuitry, but not the GPU itself. It is only if you buy a CPU with an integrated intel "GPU" that you will have functional integrated graphics. All LGA 1151 pentium G /i3/i5/i7 feature an HD 510/530 graphic core. Xeon E3 do not.
A common occurrence. If you don't like adapters, check the MSI gaming M3/M5 MB's, they feature HDMI & DVI

Cool info. It would be a core i processor that I'd get. The onboard graphics ports aren't too much of a consideration as I wouldn't be relying on the onboard graphics, but it could be a useful backup. Ports on the GPU, however, they will be a consideration.

Sure an Intel HD530 remains a "debugging" solution. Helpful whenever you build your config, or even at a later stage, if you encounter issues with the discrete GFX.

GFX ports are fortunately more accomdative. The norm accross the board is pretty much triple connectors DVI / HDMI / MiniDP for "serious" cards ( Radeon R9 , Geforce 960 + ). Low profile cards tend to favour dual connectors (DVI/HDMI ) .

Okay, it is now confirmed, my GPU has had it. My techy friend came over this evening with his PC and when we put his GPU into mine it was all working fine, and even though we cleaned my computer and GPU up it still wouldn't work, so yes, the GPU is gone.

Now to decide whether to get a cheap replacement to tide me by or to just go straight for the full new PC.

Any opinions on the Skylake CPUs and LGA1511 boards? Is it worth going for the latest architecture or would it be more powerful going with a 4790K, say, even though it is older? Is DDR4 worth it? And which is better alongside a high end GPU?

On LGA1151 itself, very little to say. It's newer, better ( but not massively). The main interest is to be able to use DDR4. As far as I am concerned, DDR4 is not interesting right now. the additional perf you get from 2800, 3000 or 3200 DDR4 is not worth the price differential with 2133 DDR3, and won't for another year or two if the DDR3 story repeats.

On Skylake, from what I have seen, an I7 6700k is worth considering above an i7 4970K, but weirdly enough, if it's an I5 you're after, the 4670k remains a sweeter spot : the equivalent skylake offers a marginal perf increase, but is somewhat more expensive.

In the end, right now, I'd probably stick with LGA1150, DDR3 and the best 4xxx I could afford, with a better GPU and a good SSD as system drive, rather than go for skylake/ddr4/lga1151 if that meant compromising on the GPU and SSD. Because a higher end cpu needs to be paired to other higher end components to be effectively worth the expense.

now, all of this is based on continental prices, meaning a Z97 rather than an equivalent Z170 MB saves me 30-50€, ddr3 rather than ddr4 saves me 200€ on 32gb, and a previous gen cpu saves me 20-30€, which can allow me to have a 500GB ssd and a better GPU...

That sounds reasonable. I'm looking for an i7 and as good a GPU as I can get. 16GB RAM, as I'm not sure 32GB would be worth it yet. I don't need to get any peripherals as my existing ones should be fine (I'll think about changing my monitor maybe towards the end of the year, but right now it does its job fine). Budget I'm not yet set on. £1500 is fine, and I'd stretch to £1700 if I felt what I was getting was worth it. Beyond that I'd need a really good reason to spend more.

EDIT: Being as this is now moving away from the original topic to being one about a new PC build, I've started a new thread. http://www.gog.com/forum/general/looking_for_advicerecommendations_for_a_new_pc_build