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Give Me Computer Build Suggestions!
Quelreth
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my four year old Alienware is on its last legs and it's time for a new computer. The hardware is old enough and fucking up enough that I figure I might as well start from scratch. I haven't kept up on hardware hardly at all in the last few years, so I'm relying on other people's suggestions to get the most bang for my buck. I don't do anything really hardware intensive on my PC besides gaming.
Anyways - my budget is $1,500, and the goal is to get as close to that as possible. My friend linked me to this build, and it looks pretty good to me. I do have about $140 to play around with and get a little more fancy, which is where you guys come in.
The only thing I'm really iffy on is the case. After having a massive case for so long it'd be nice to have something more compact. My sister is a bigger geek than I, and said the Antec P180 is actually a higher end "quiet" case, which I really don't care about since my current computer sounds like it's about to lift off and fly out my window anyways. So if I can save money with a louder (But smaller) case, that'd be great.
Besides the basic build, I'd like to have a second CD/DVD drive, so recommendations on a cheap and solid DVD player would be great. Other than all of that, I'd like to spend the rest of the available budget on getting as good a processor and/or video card as I can. I'm guessing the video card would be the easiest thing to get a little bit higher-end on, but like I said - I'm way out of the hardware loop. The $40 DVD writer blew my mind.
So, if you've got any good ideas, or have an entire other build that blows this out of the water... post away. I want to be able to run Crysis and Bioshock on the new monstercomp. Thanks!
Anyways - my budget is $1,500, and the goal is to get as close to that as possible. My friend linked me to this build, and it looks pretty good to me. I do have about $140 to play around with and get a little more fancy, which is where you guys come in.
The only thing I'm really iffy on is the case. After having a massive case for so long it'd be nice to have something more compact. My sister is a bigger geek than I, and said the Antec P180 is actually a higher end "quiet" case, which I really don't care about since my current computer sounds like it's about to lift off and fly out my window anyways. So if I can save money with a louder (But smaller) case, that'd be great.
Besides the basic build, I'd like to have a second CD/DVD drive, so recommendations on a cheap and solid DVD player would be great. Other than all of that, I'd like to spend the rest of the available budget on getting as good a processor and/or video card as I can. I'm guessing the video card would be the easiest thing to get a little bit higher-end on, but like I said - I'm way out of the hardware loop. The $40 DVD writer blew my mind.
So, if you've got any good ideas, or have an entire other build that blows this out of the water... post away. I want to be able to run Crysis and Bioshock on the new monstercomp. Thanks!
Quelreth on
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Also don't forget to set aside around $300 for a good directX10 video card.
Better video card than an 8800 GTS 640 is unlikely unless you're willing to really shell out on a GTX. But realistically you'd be looking at diminishing returns. The GTS is a superb card right now, the GTX is the only card at the moment that's better, but for the price I'm not really sure it would be worth it for the relatively minor performance boost it would give you (IIRC somewhere between 15-25%). The GTS will easily take on today's games and should perform well when games like Unreal 3, Crysis and BioShock hit.
The 2900XT did get some improvement with recent drivers, but the GTS still outperforms it by far, especially the 640MB version. Unless you get a really exceptional deal, ATI cards this generation just aren't worth it unfortunately.
The linked build is pretty solid. Just wait a week or two to buy the processor, since Intel's wholesale price cuts take effect today. Maybe buy a different brand of video card (EVGA, BFGTech, XFX) to get a lifetime warranty. You can't really get a case too much smaller without going with a microATX motherboard. If you don't mind a "pre-modded" case you could save a bit of money with a Cooler Master Ammo 533. It is a little louder because of the mesh on the side, but it should also be cooler because of that. You would just have to buy a 120mm fan to go in the back.
You may want to consider shelling out bit more for a Corsair HX620 power supply. Even though it has 1 less 12v rail, it can put out more watts total on those rails (600w compared to 580), has modular cables, and being a rebranded Seasonic is even quieter than the OCZ. Not a big deal, but you might find it worth it.
Also consider buying a soundcard, since Realtek integrated is shit. If you don't mind giving money to Creative, the X-fi XtremeGamer is the best value they have right now. The only thing it really lacks compared to other X-Fi models on the market right now is S/PDIF input. If you want something more high-end and better for home theater, wait for Azunentech's X-Fi Prelude card to come out at the end of this month. The Prelude would put you over budget at $200, but you could always buy it later. If you don't want to buy a Creative product, the bluegears b-Enspirer is a solid card that's excellent at home theater while still being good at gaming.
The P35 boards are good, Asus and Gigabyte are some of the quality brands. 8800GTS 640 is a very nice card like the 2900XT, most favor the 8800 GTS though.
You might want to skip on the Creative soundcards especially when on Vista, because iffy drivers (correct me if I'm wrong).
Also make sure you got atleast 2GB of ramz, if you're going 64bit OS you could even get 4GB (although games don't require it yet, so kinda useless).
Some good cases are the case you mentioned from Antec, some other brands to look at are the Lian-Li (expensive), Coolermaster, Thermaltake, Gigabyte and some others. Lian-Li makes some of the compacter cases, check some of them out.
Also dont skip on a quality PSU, Corsair HX620 is really good.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
Antec P182 ATX Case - $169.99
GIGABYTE Intel P35 ATX Mobo - $228.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz - $225.00
ASUS GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 - $389.99
CORSAIR 620HX PSU - $169.99
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM (PC2 8500) - $174.00
Western Digital 250GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive OEM - $64.99
LG Electronics SATA DVD Burner - OEM $30.99
Total: $1,453.94
Thoughts?
edit: reorganized so I could have the links
You're seriously going to spend $170 on a powersupply? Are you nuts? Your spending more than double on your psu than your harddrive....definetly go with a cheaper psu and get a 500gig sata hdd.
Power supply problems are the #1 cause of computer death, so it's well worth investing in a quality PSU. I own one of these bad boys, and I have to agree with everything the intarwebs says about them. So long as you know what to look for, you really do get what you pay for with PSUs.
I wouldn't want to get anything smaller as the 8800 barely fits in there as is.
ahahahah...
...NO. Corsairs are NOT uber expensive and are exceptional quality PSUs. Expensive would be the 700W 800 1000 1200W etc PSUs at like $300+ in some cases.
You don't want to skimp on the fucking backbone of the PC and get some shitty "cheaper" PSU.
and 500GB SATAs are still a big jump in price up from 320s...
... which is hte only issue I see with an otherwise very good build. What's the warranty on WDs? If it's not 5 years like Seagate, switch. In either case get a 320GB as it's only like 5-10$ more than a 250