Building a gaming PC (win a free month of GOLD)

[Bipolar]

Building a gaming PC. Trying to stay under 800.00 if at all possible. Only games I play are COD and wow so it does not have to be the best. Just enough to play thsoe games, (mainly wow) and get good frames with graphics up. (tired of my laptop)

Already have OS, case, mouse, keyboard, monitor.

Looking for some advice as to what would be best since I have been out of the loop in this for a while.

Links would be great. As far as to what mobo/chip, vid card/ram. I am getting a min 500w pw supply and a 1 TB sata drive. (tigerdirect has 1tb drives for 80.00 now)

Thanks.

BP.

[BackdoorJesus]

just buy an xbox 360 for $299 and save your computer for computing. That way you come 500 under budget and you have a dedicated "gaming PC" (well a console but whatev). CoD you can do on Xbox live and sorry buddy but WOW is for faggots and adolescents

[Bipolar]

just buy an xbox 360 for $299 and save your computer for computing. That way you come 500 under budget and you have a dedicated "gaming PC" (well a console but whatev). CoD you can do on Xbox live and sorry buddy but WOW is for faggots and adolescents

Haha, douche. the wow is for my son, and I cannot exactly do my comp programming and network design for college on my xbox can I?

[BackdoorJesus]

on a more serious note though hit up Jackie-0 on IM for some advice - she has been doing a PC rebuild herself the last couple days and may have already done a lot of the research you are looking to do now.

...and you did say "gaming PC" not something for programming and network design

[Bipolar]

At least you replied.

[Bipolar]

Ahh, I feel loved,

[Bipolar]

I would IM her but she never answers me when I send her a msg

[Bipolar]

Ahh, wtf. quad post ftl/ftw

[Bipolar]

On a more serious note. The PC will also be used for my comp programming/network/web design classes.

[BackdoorJesus]

I would IM her but she never answers me when I send her a msgits because you only go online for less than five minutes at a time...none of your friends, myself included, can get a reply out to you before you disappear again!

[Bipolar]

Ahh, very true. guess that is a habit, I need to break.

[BackdoorJesus]

and lo, how this has turned into an IM thread LOL

irony

[lissof]

heh you can get some good deals on the lower end core2duos... the quad core is still a bit pricey imo..

[Jackie-0]

Hola. I'm here to chime in. OK, so what you haven't bought is the MB and processor combo and memory, and video, right?

I love a place called eCost.com. Here's a link to their PC Components directory:

eCOST.com - Computer Components (http://www.ecost.com/ecost/eccp/)

Even if you don't buy from them, they have an excellent selection and you can get a good idea what's out there.

There are so many options available right now. You do not have to spend the extra money on a quad core processor. Dual core at 2.8 or faster is fine. What you really want to spend your money on is a video card. Do a little research on that. You know what games you'll play, just Google those and find out what people are using. But you don't have to spend a ton there either. A good third party video card based on a Standard chip (like nVidia) with enough memory is a good, cheap option.

Here's the brand I have, this is an excellent card, and it's under $70

eCOST.com-Evga GeForce 9500 GT Graphics Card - 01G-P3-N958-LR - Evga 01G-P3-N958-LR (Video Cards) (http://www.ecost.com/Detail/VIDEO+CARDS/Evga/01G-P3-N958-LR/44310692.aspx?navid=155438364)

I would say, find a good, fast, Dual Core processor. If you want to save money, AMD is much cheaper. And I have no bad reports on it. They work, and supposedly they are better for gaming. They are designed for that in mind.

I love ASUS motherboards. I also like MSI. There's also a brand called Gigabyte that looks really interesting, but they are pricey. They make their boards with all kinds of cooling crap on them.

And for the cooling crap, I do recommend buying an aftermarket cooling fan. The one's that come with the chips are loud, and if you want to do overclocking, they will fail. BDJ has one he likes, I'm very happy with Zalman. This is the one I have and I love it. they make them for all the CPU models.

eCOST.com-Zalman Processor Heatsink and Cooling Fan - CNPS7000B-CU LED - Zalman CNPS7000B-CU LED (Motherboards) - eCOST.com - electronics, computers, laptops, mp3 players (http://www.ecost.com/Detail.aspx?edp=37720968&navid=155441519)

OK, there's my $0.02. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

[Bipolar]

Yeah jackie. at the moment I am leaning towards a geforce 9600gt. Asus MB is another thing i am heading towards since I used to like them in the past. Right now I am in the planning stages. will not be getting my taxes back till mid next month so I have some time. At least chips are now easier to get onto the mobo than they used to be. I remember the days of solder and going oh shit.

[Bipolar]

would not mind this but at 200.00 it is a little pricey for me. as well as the power requirements. 750w power supply needed.

GeForce GTX 260 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_260_us.html)

gefore gtx 260

[Bipolar]

Also need the ram. looking at a minimum of 4gb since i will be doing a lot of multitasking including code writing and compiles.

[lissof]

one thing with the intel chips is they do run cooler than the AMD's Most of the pc's i have built have been AMD but as of late i have been using more intel for less heat. less heat =less fans = quiter.. i have one that sounds like a frikkin jet taking off.

[elfoozo]

My money is on the disk being your slow down in code writing and compiles, not in processing. Visual Studio does fine on 3 GB with some of the over bloated turn nuggets in our dev group. The bus and IO are the sore spots.

You should consider buying an inexpensive pre-built from geeks.com and toss in an Intel SSD.

[Graffin]

I bought a bitchin' bare bones kit from Tigerdirect.com a few months ago for about 400 bucks. They send you everything you need at a discounted price, and you put it all together and install your own OS and software.

[lissof]

Gateway DX4200-09 Refurbished Desktop PC at CircuitCity.com (http://www.circuitcity.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?cm_mmc_o=-ddCjC7BBTkw%20zuubkbzfwlCjC-d2CjC-uu&SRCCODE=CCDAFFL&EdpNo=5081926&sku=S445-10040&id=k1971&sessionid=gan_163742730)

:) Quad core for the win?

[Bipolar]

Gateway DX4200-09 Refurbished Desktop PC at CircuitCity.com (http://www.circuitcity.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?cm_mmc_o=-ddCjC7BBTkw%20zuubkbzfwlCjC-d2CjC-uu&SRCCODE=CCDAFFL&EdpNo=5081926&sku=S445-10040&id=k1971&sessionid=gan_163742730)

:) Quad core for the win?


Not bad. but i would have to change so much. already putting together my list. just have to wait for my taxes.

* Vista Home Premium 64-bit - ok
* AMD Phenom X4 9100e 1.80GHz processor - too slow
* 4GB DDR2 memory - want ddr3
* 640GB hard drive - fine
* ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics card - not what i need
* 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet LAN
* 18X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti Drive featuring Labelflash Technology
* 15-in-1 media reader
* 6 USB ports

But thanks for looking at something. Been working with jackie. I will post here once i get it all together.

[fmb]

Vista? WTF?

Let us know what Jackie-O recOmmends.

[Bipolar]

Dont know why i said ok to vista. been running 7 for a while now and loving every bit of it.

[lissof]

there is a free upgrade to 7 through gateway on it...

[Bipolar]

Ok, after a lot of research. Have decided to go with AMD. for price and overclockability. once my head clears I will start working on the other stuff.

[Ryan]

make sure to upgrade the flux capacitor- DirectX19 requires 2.21gigawatts (the older style required 1.21)

on a serious note, make sure you're getting at least a 7200 RPM hard drive... t'would be a shame to get a badass machine and then drop a 5400 RPM drive in there

better yet, play with RAID!

[lissof]

raptor 10,000 rpm drive ftmfw

[Bipolar]

btw, who lieks the new avatra i have?

[Bipolar]

Might make some tweaks.

Processor AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition
Motherboard DFI LANParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 Socket AM3 790FX ATX Motherboard
RAM Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Kit
Graphics Card 2 x Powercolor AX4850 Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Hard Drive 2 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB Hard Drive
Case Antec Nine Hundred Mid-Tower
Power Supply Corsair TX CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

have abt 3 weeks to decide.

suibject to part avail and such and queaks s sn

[Jackie-0]

Bipolar - Your avetar is freaking me out.

Anyway, that machine sounds awesome. I just bought those Hitachi drives, and they seem to be fine. I don't know anything about DFI motherboards. But if it looks good, go for it.

[Jackie-0]

I bought a bitchin' bare bones kit from Tigerdirect.com a few months ago for about 400 bucks. They send you everything you need at a discounted price, and you put it all together and install your own OS and software.


That is actually a great idea. Next time around I will probably buy a bare bones machine. But I wanted the totally cool gaming case that I bought, so I needed to get everything on my own. Next time I will check out Tigerdirect, they are a good company.

[Graffin]

That is actually a great idea. Next time around I will probably buy a bare bones machine. But I wanted the totally cool gaming case that I bought, so I needed to get everything on my own. Next time I will check out Tigerdirect, they are a good company.

You can save a ton of money if you do all the assembling and installing yourself. It's the only way to go if you know what you're doing ;)

[lissof]

Might make some tweaks.

Processor AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition
Motherboard DFI LANParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 Socket AM3 790FX ATX Motherboard
RAM Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Kit
Graphics Card 2 x Powercolor AX4850 Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Hard Drive 2 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB Hard Drive
Case Antec Nine Hundred Mid-Tower
Power Supply Corsair TX CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

have abt 3 weeks to decide.

suibject to part avail and such and queaks s sn

nice
never heard of dfi motherboads though. i got an offbrand mother board once!(AOpen)
that damn motherboard was the VAIN of my existance.... i finally broke it in half. made me feel MUCH better.
damn thing would work fine at my house, i would take it back to my brother-n-law and he would have it less than an hour and it would lock up tight. My blood pressure goes up just thinking of that damn computer....

[BackdoorJesus]

AMD is for fags

[Bipolar]

Bipolar - Your avetar is freaking me out.

Anyway, that machine sounds awesome. I just bought those Hitachi drives, and they seem to be fine. I don't know anything about DFI motherboards. But if it looks good, go for it.

Then it is doing what it is supposed to.

might change out the motherboard. that one was reccomended. just need to find one that will work with crossfire. looking for a decent asus as i prefer that brand.

[Bipolar]

AMD is for fags

hehe, amd is what is allowing me to stay under budget. also, that particular chip is unlockable and overclock very well.

still debating if i want to install a liquid cooler instead of a fan cooling system. the case I am getting allows for me to havbe that op[tion.

[Jackie-0]

Don't listen to BDJ, there's nothing wrong with AMD. And I don't believe there's any documentation proving that homosexuals prefer AMD to Intel, because we all know fags have Apples.

[Bipolar]

Don't listen to BDJ, there's nothing wrong with AMD. And I don't believe there's any documentation proving that homosexuals prefer AMD to Intel, because we all know BDJ have Apples.

quoted for extreme truth.

[licupssy]

I'm looking to up grade my system too and seen this while looking around.

Asus M4A785-M Motherboard & AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core Processor w/Fan Bundle at TigerDirect.com (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5241602&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs)

At $179 this appears to be a decent package for moderate gaming.

ASUS Motherboard with AMD X4 260, 2.6 ghz processor includes on board 8 channel audio and Radeon HD 4200 sharing 512 MB of memory. Has slots for 16 MB of 1200 MHz DDR2 memory so it is ready for Win7 64 bit if you go to it.

All you need is 4MB of memory and you have a good start.

[Shadow-Wulf]

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor

GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 AM3 AMD 790FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ

Thermaltake Toughpower XT W0229RU 750W ATX12V V2.3 80PLUS BRONZE ATI CrossFireX Certified AMD GAME READY FanDelayCool Modular

Vid card ATI Radeaon HD 4890 or 4870, 5770 about same price but has driver issues with win7 64

[lissof]

Fry's has a combo of Athlon II X4 630 Processor + Asus M4A785T-M/CSM Motherboard for $130.

Product Specification Summary

* AMD Socket AM3 Phenom™II /Athlon™II /Sempron™ 100 Series Processors
* AMD 785G/SB710
* 4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR3 1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066
* Gb LAN
* 6 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports Support RAID 0,1,10,JBOD

Highlighted Key Features

* ASUS Turbo Key- One button levels up the system performance
* ASUS EPU - Efficient Energy & Low Noise
* ASUS Express Gate -Instant online! Instant fun!

# ASUS Unique features ASUS EPU-4 engine
# Express Gate
# ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
# ASUS EZ Flash 2
# ASUS Q-FAN
# ASUS AI NET2
# Anti surge
# ASUS MyLogo 2

[lissof]

All you need is 4MB of memory and you have a good start.

i would personly go for about 1024X 4MB but if you just want 4MB of memory more power to you...

[Bipolar]

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor

GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 AM3 AMD 790FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ

Thermaltake Toughpower XT W0229RU 750W ATX12V V2.3 80PLUS BRONZE ATI CrossFireX Certified AMD GAME READY FanDelayCool Modular

Vid card ATI Radeaon HD 4890 or 4870, 5770 about same price but has driver issues with win7 64

Is this what you are suggesting shadow or a premade kit?

I have decided to go with the XFX Radeon HD 4850 1GB. MIght go with crossfire setup if i can get 2 of them.

Also decided since I am able to bump up my budget a little more to buy myself a 22" widescreen monitor.

[Jackie-0]

I'm saddened to realize that I must upgrade my PC if I am to stay on Windows 7. My MB does not support Windows 7, and apparently there is a known firmware update for my CPU, that is supposed to be installed with the MB firmware. Well, my MB is no longer supported, I don't get the firmware update, and my PC freezes pretty regularly.

I could get a new MB, or I could just get a new combo. Given the cost of some of the suggested MBs, I could probably get a new combo for a similar price. I don't need a gaming board. But, I do need lots of slots (heh) for many hard drives, etc. My machine is a combination of a regular business computer, and a media storage device.

[Bipolar]

well, scheduled to get my taxes back on the 12th of feb. so i a, running out of time. i think i have everything i want except my mobo. will post a list later of what i have put to gethethe and maybe someone will be nice enough to tell me oif it is all compatible later.

[Bipolar]

ok, things have changed slightly,

budget is now 1000.00 1200.00 including a 22 inch monitor

Free month or two gold for anyone able to put together a list of mats (with links from newegg/ecost/tigerdirect)
that i use to put together this system.

I prefer to use AMD as it is cheaper and better for gaming atm. Also prefer ati vid cards.

Games it should be ablet o play on high settings with high fps is: COD, WOW
would like to also play on Crysis with medium settings at a decent framerate. (game looks awesome)

Liquid cooling is a plus but not nessecarilaly a requirement. I will be bying the parts next weekend. So until next wednsday i will let this run.

This might be the start of my monthly gold contests that I used to hold.

Thanks for the input everyone else has given. I am weighing those options as well.

Thanks.

the concussed one.

[elfoozo]

Newegg.com - HITACHI Deskstar 7K2000 HDS722020ALA330 (0F10311) 2TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298)

A bit more than the $80 mentioned but I got two of these for use in VMware machines. So far so good.