Building new computerFollow

Thats not an ideal gaming machine budget, but we can get something close. $800-$900 would get you several orders of magnitude faster performance, but in that price range, this is what I would build.


Motherboard: Asus Socket 1155 P8H67-m
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131711
$114

Processor: Intel socket 1155 2.93 Ghz Quad core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115089
$189

Ram: Corsair 4GB (2X 2gb) DDR3 ram kit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145339
$29 (buy a second kit later when funds permit)

Power supply: Antec 650 watt psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044
$59

Hard drive: Western Digital 500GB SATA 7200 RPM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769
$39

Optical drive: samsung 24x DVD burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151233
$17

Case: Cooler Master CM690 II advanced
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119216
$89

Video card: Gigabyte 260 GTX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125391
$99

So thats $635 for the hardware alone.


Operating system if you need a license and don't have access to an educational discount
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992
$134

That puts you right at: $769

If you need to cut corners, there really isn't that much to cut. you could go with a slower duel core processor for around $90. Going with a smaller hard drive doesn't really get you any major savings ($1-$4 dollars at most). You could go with a cheaper case, but seeing as the case is the single component you will have the longest out of any of your computer parts, I wouldn't. Thats not a top of the line video card by any means, but its about the best price vs performance ratio you are going to see for a while. A 460 GTX is going to start at $200ish. Power supply, you need a minimum of a 550 watt anyways with that card, may as well build in a little upgrade budget for $10 more.

That doesn't include monitor, keyboard, etc too, so you may need to budget for those as well.

Bump up the video card to a 460 or 480 GTX, add more ram, add a second 500GB hdd to create a raid 1 backup array and a third faster drive for a faster OS drive.



Aside from the fact that it shows as deactivated so I can't see the price, its not a bad machine. it uses AMD processors and ATI video cards, which tend to be less expensive for the horsepower you get. I just tend to not like to use ATI cards because of their flakey drivers. AMD processors aren't bad, I usually go Intel myself though.

That case is kind of annoying to work with, but if you aren't building it, you won't need to worry about that part.

Here's an update on the computer i bought http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227353 i get it tomorrow it's perfect for what i want and not a bad price for everything.