Build Advice $1000 Budget

[Squintos_86]

Hey,
My little brother is heading off to college and is in need of a desktop. Light to mid-level gaming, I'm guessing 1600x1050 at medium settings is all he can afford.Need everything from the ground up, with the exception of some arctic silver. Thanks in advance, you guys are great.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Light Gaming, web browsing, word processing
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1000, preferably under, tax and shipping included
3) Where do you live?
Tomahawk, Wisconsin
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Case, CPU, MB, RAM, DVD, PS, HD, GPU (pref ati), etc
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?
no
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
20-24", 1900x1200 nice but prolly out of budget
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This week
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Windows 7 64 bit


I was thinking the standard 5770 , phenom II, spinpoint 1tb,and an ASUS m4a78, etc, would be pretty much the limit, but am looking forward to what you guys have to say! Once again, thanks a lot for the help!

 

[Dangman]

$285 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU + Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 Intel P55 mATX Motherboard Combo
$160 - XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W PSU + G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL Ripjaws Series 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$230 - Gigabyte GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$55 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$20 - LG GH22NS40 DVD Burner
$70 - Cooler Master CM690 II ATX Case
$164 - Asus VW224T Black 22" DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor
---
Total: $984 shipped.

Lemme know if you want a cheaper build.

Yes the above setup will play most games at max settings at 1680x1050.

 

[MrGuvernment]

see:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1538939

The $1k build threads are coming up almost daily, i think it is time [H] did a sticky of one of these that someone can update as new parts come out.

 

[Dangman]

The $1k build threads are coming up almost daily, i think it is time [H] did a sticky of one of these that someone can update as new parts come out.

Those tend to not work out for long. It's been tried quite a few times already in this part of the forum. But those threads usually fail/end/not work out as a result of the following:
- Deals, prices, and availability change week to week and sometimes day to day.
- Not everyone is starting from scratch.
- Not everyone is willing to continually updating the list
- Not everyone agrees on a certain build type for a certain budget range.

 

[Squintos_86]

Thanks for the replies! I started a new thread because this one included a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, which weren't in any of the other >$1000 builds I had seen. He would need a mouse and keyboard to go along with it, so a little cheaper wouldn't hurt, but thanks for the i5 recommendation, I didn't realize the motherboards for those had come down in price so much. I was thinking of swapping out the gpu for something a bit cheaper; would a fermi be overkill for 1680x1050?

 

[MrGuvernment]

god points Danny, so very very true.

 

[tiraides]

That GTX 460 would be perfect for most games at 1680x1050; you should be able to play just about any game available at reasonable frame rates.

Keyboards and mice are as much about personal preference as they are about available features, so we don't often recommend them often here. That said, you can get a "basic" keyboard and mouse set from Logitech or Microsoft for around $30 online.