Build suggestions.

Dreaz

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
1,656
Hey all, so here's the questions answered.

) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming, web browsing, movies.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

The lower the better. $500 is the goal for now with future expandability later for parts that aren't necessary at the moment (blu-ray, SSD, larger storage)

3) Where do you live?

Illinois.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

This is from scratch, so everything.

6) Will you be overclocking?

I could. However, if buying overclockable parts exceeds my budgets, I'm okay with standard clocks. I see overclocking as a perk. If it happens, hey great. If not, oh well.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

I plan on this computer to run mostly on a 1080p TV. HDMI is obviously a must. So 19x12 res.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

Soon, although if their are price drops or new hardware that is coming out within a month or two that would lower prices, I'll wait.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

HDMI. Other than that, the rest are perks.

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

I already have Windows 7 64bit.


What I have so far:
computer-1.jpg


Unsure about the PSU, was thinking of replacing it with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104079

Thoughts?

How is the case? I don't need anything fancy, just something that'll hold it all together.

Links to the items:
DVD drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517003
HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073
Videocard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127484
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231319
MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.344675
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.344675

Other random thoughts.
As you can see, I enjoy combo deals and free shipping. So if you link something, I will consider the shipping as part of the price. As of right now, the build comes to $568.93 with only $11.68 of that as shipping. The ram and the PSU currently do not have free shipping. Getting something with free shipping with equal or lesser the price would be excellent (and comparable quality). If any of these parts could be switched with something cheaper that is comparable quality (or can be O/C to comparable quality), I will do it and greatly appreciate the advice.

Also, I'm not married to anything. I went AMD because generally AMD systems are cheaper. If this isn't the case, I would switch in a heartbeat. I went 5770 because reviews indicate it'll do what I want: 19x12 gaming. I don't need AA, to me it's a perk. But I want something that'll make PC games look and play nice at that res with no fuss.

Okay. I think I've covered everything. Thank you.
 
The Ripjaws are $105 w/ FS, but they're definitely not 1.35v rated, which is nice for a DDR3-1600 set. :eek:

I'd go for the Corsair 400W instead of the CM, better quality for the same amount of power on the +12v rail.

If you can find it in stock, the Samsung F3 500GB is a much faster drive than the CavBlue 500GB. The other fast alternatives are the 640GB and 1TB Caviar Blue/Black drives (they use higher density platters than the 50GB AFAIK, unless WD changed something recently).

What games do you plan on playing with only an HD5770 at 1900x1200?
 
Good question about the gaming. In all honesty, I don't know. I haven't had a gaming rig for about 5 years now. Here's what I know so far:
Starcraft 2
Diablo 3
Guild Wars 2
Half Life 3 (lol whenever that comes out)
World of Warcaft
Doom 4
Rage

And very importantly, emulators to run my older games on with updated sweetness 19x12 and eyecandy(PS2, DC, SNES, SEGA, etc).

If I go for the corsair, I would want to switch out my ram for the ripjaws, since doing so will negate the price difference between the corsair and the coolmax PSUs.
 
If I go for the corsair, I would want to switch out my ram for the ripjaws, since doing so will negate the price difference between the corsair and the coolmax PSUs.

Worth doing. The Corsair is a huge step-up in quality over that Coolermaster PSU.
 
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