$1000 US ($1200 CAD) build for girlfriend

[MrWizard6600]

Been a while since I've been on these boards so bear with me:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
This questions a bit complicated. Ultimately we've got $1200 CAD to spend. I've got an account with Hagens, meaning I have the ability to purchase $800 CAD from the states.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if
Vancouver BC, can accept up to $800 CAD shipping to Blaine, WA.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
box & innards, monitor, mouse & keyboard. Do not need a windows license.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None
6) Will you be overclocking?
I will press a turbo button if you guys give me one (please give me a turbo button). Yeah I'd like to fiddle with settings, but I wont be doing anything aggressive.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
I see no reason no to aim for what appears to have become the standard 23" 1080P TN panel.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAHP
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

• I think I'd like an mATX case and motherboard.
• I'd like to avoid USB 3.0 thats been bridged in (assuming there are south-bridges with USB 3.0 support on them natively).
• I Would very much like an SSD, and any resources you guys have on getting windows to not be stupid about moving content to non C drives.
• Would like to avoid huge density drives in favor of a part thats been on the market for a while without issue, preferably from hitachi.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
yes, 64-bit.


Thanks for any help gents!

 

[tiraides]

What games do you want to play? At what level of eye candy?

Let's say that we have to purchase everything from Canada... which Canadian retailers do you prefer?

Which version of Windows do you have? "64-bit" isn't enough information for us.

Please provide some further clarification about some of your wants:

-- Are you saying that you don't want any motherboard that provides USB 3.0 through the southbridge (even if said option provides more USB ports than on the average board)?

-- Regarding HDD platter density, are you saying that you only want, say, 1TB drives? (I understand your reliability concerns....)

-- What do you mean by "turbo button"? Are you saying that you want to be able to overclock via Windows (versus the BIOS/UEFI)?

 

[Syran]

I didn't want to spend the time doing a lot of currency conversions to deal with how much USD I can spend with 800 CAD, so I priced it all with sourcing from Canadian vendors.

$1148.15CAD after shipping & MIR, no optical drive included (pcpartpicker didn't get me any options for one in Canada. Includes somewhat pricey Keyboard & Mouse, those are hard picks for me, as I tend to go with gaming keyboards & trackballs personally.

 

[MrWizard6600]

What games do you want to play? At what level of eye candy?

I want all of games with all of the eye candy. In other words Assassins Creed Unity.

Let's say that we have to purchase everything from Canada... which Canadian retailers do you prefer?

anybody but NCIX.

Which version of Windows do you have? "64-bit" isn't enough information for us.

this questions a bit complicated, Probably I'll just install a copy of windows 8.1, and if she hates it, I'll go with a copy of windows 7.

Please provide some further clarification about some of your wants:

-- Are you saying that you don't want any motherboard that provides USB 3.0 through the southbridge (even if said option provides more USB ports than on the average board)?

by "bridged-in" what I was referring to is USB 3.0 that's supplied via a 3rd party controller (Marvell being the most common I've seen) chosen by the board partner, not by the chipset manufacturer. Z97, Z87, and X99 all appear to have 6 of them built in to the "south bridge" (the lower intel-branded block in the diagram on page 2).

-- Regarding HDD platter density, are you saying that you only want, say, 1TB drives? (I understand your reliability concerns....)

exactly!

-- What do you mean by "turbo button"? Are you saying that you want to be able to overclock via Windows (versus the BIOS/UEFI)?

 

[MrWizard6600]

I didn't want to spend the time doing a lot of currency conversions to deal with how much USD I can spend with 800 CAD, so I priced it all with sourcing from Canadian vendors.

$1148.15CAD after shipping & MIR, no optical drive included (pcpartpicker didn't get me any options for one in Canada. Includes somewhat pricey Keyboard & Mouse, those are hard picks for me, as I tend to go with gaming keyboards & trackballs personally.

Thanks so much for this, I've never heard of Price picker, that alone has made this thread worth it. Hooray for aggregate searches!

 

[Syran]

Turbo Buttons are very much dead! Sorry, that was a very long time ago! Good old 386/486 era computers and older, where turbo was 2-8 Mhz...

Sorry, I had a lot of NCIX in there, but I was trying to work in as much as possible. Honestly, if you have them already, or can get them cheap, stick with basic keyboard & mouse, then upgrade in the future, those are easy upgrades that let you spend more money on more important things earlier. I was hoping to go with a GTX 970, but it was a bit out of my price range, and when I saw the older, but still very capable R9 280 at sub $200 (after MIR) price point, I felt it was a good compromise. This might be sacrilege, but honestly, if you don't OC (since there won't be a turbo button), you could probably get away with the stock cooler. I really like the AIR 540 case, built 3 machines in them, and generally find corsair cases really to be worthwhile. The 240 is a bit wide, and shorter, but if it's anything like the 540, makes it a dream to work with.

Here is a version with US Pricing.

 

[Yakk]

A quick item check on shopbot.ca can help finding the best prices in Canada. Stick to bigger sellers, flash sales won't appear there though.