Pulling hair out new build

[hdwizard]

Hello all,
I am new to forum and have spent hours reading which has led to more confusion. I am looking to build a gaming/general use rig. I want to spend about 800-$900. I am more concerning about value for my buck and ability to upgrade than anything. Last time I build a rig I put in an ASUS Pentium board and two weeks later they came out with Pentium ll, so much for the upgrade. With that in mind can someone recommend a build for this noob.

[Kantastic]

At this moment both 1366 and AM3 have a year or two worth of upgrades pathed. You can't go wrong with either but if you want a gaming computer I would suggest going AM3, this way you have more of the budget to spend on a good video card.

Give this forum a little more time and I'm sure someone will have a great build put together for you.

[crazyeyesreaper]

alright revised my list comes in at $1052 before shipping but worth the price considering the GPU thats in there namely a 5850 which is head and shoulders above the 5770

DVD burner:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136177

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129066

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131402

GPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814129141

Ram:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145260

Cpu + stock heatsink:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103674

Combo PSU + HDD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.319410

OS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116754

i believe thats everything im sure another forum member can come up with something better but otherwise as i stated before something you can start with and edit as needed

[EastCoasthandle]

Are you particular as to what CPU you want to use? You have AMD phenom series Intel i7s that come in socket 775, socket 1156 and socket 1356. Intel is lining up to release new chipsets for their i7 platform. Currently they are using x58 and P55. That will change to x68 and P65 by summer of this year with notable improvements.

BTW: are you buying in the USA or else where?

[theonedub]

Originally Posted by EastCoasthandle

Are you particular as to what CPU you want to use? You have AMD phenom series Intel i7s that come in socket 775, socket 1156 and socket 1356. Intel is lining up to release new chipsets for their i7 platform. Currently they are using x58 and P55. That will change to x68 and P65 by summer of this year with notable improvements.

BTW: are you buying in the USA or else where?

I dont want the OP to get confused, there are Phenom IIs (AM3 and AM2+), Core 2 Quads (LGA 775), Core i5 (socket 1156) and Core i7 (socket 1156 and 1366).

[hdwizard]

To make sure I understand EastCoast, are you saying that the board I get now for the i7 will not support the new i7's this summer?

[pantherx12]

Originally Posted by hdwizard

To make sure I understand EastCoast, are you saying that the board I get now for the i7 will not support the new i7's this summer?

They will, its the same socket just the chipset will be improved.

Intel are making things needlessly complicated with their latest series of chips in my opinion.

Easily confusing to people that are not following what's going on.

[hdwizard]

Can someone tell me if the MB that Crazy suggests will support an NVIDIA card with SLI?

[crazyeyesreaper]

no SLI is not supported on that motherboard has only Crossfire support for ATI gpus

now the GTS 250 will work in that mobo but only in a single card configuration no sli

[hdwizard]

Any suggestions on if I should add a sound card? I do jam sometimes with my system. Not sure what the mobo will provide.

[SnoopKatt]

It depends. If you have a nice stereo, it makes a pretty big difference, but if you're just using generic computer speakers it's hardly going to be noticeable. I went from an ALC888 integrated set to an Auzentech CMI 8770 on my custom stereo and the difference was night and day. I think there's some nice sound cards in the BST forums for good prices.

[TheLaughingMan]

What SnoopKatt said. Just for the computer, the intergrated sound will be more than enough. If you are hooking up something series, media center equipment and such, a nice sound card is a must.

While there is room for cost effective choices in Crazy's setup for you, he was going more for quality. The list of parts he has are all from some of the best in those areas. Very, very, very unlikely to get DOA, hard to use items, or any issues at all for that matter. While you could save some money and keep the quality level, you would sacrifices some reliability. For your first build, it is best to spend a little extra to avoid Returns, exchanges, etc.

[hdwizard]

ok, starting to get a grip on things. More reading, more or less confusing?
What would you suggest if I wanted to go with intel chip. The truth is WOW is about the only game I play now (no judgements please). I figure I can save some money now, but want to be able to upgrade without having to replace the entire rig.

[crazyeyesreaper]

intell = more expensive for equal speed at this point and im not really familar with intell so someone will have to do that build for you i gave a decent starting point to work from for amd because the only way to get a quad for cheap thats fast is AMD hell if you change out the Phenom II 955 for a Athlon II x4 630 propus you can cut the price by $50 and still get a decent quadcore

you can change the PSU to a 500-550 watt and get rid of the 1 terabyte HDD for a 500gig point is tho in terms of speed at that price point your probably going to have a hard time finding something better then what i listed

changing to a 550watt PSU and a 500gig HDD should save about $20-25 switch out the Phenom II 955 ( i still highly recommend it) to an Athlon II X4 630 and you can save $50 thats $70-75 saved right there and you can save another $10 by dropping down 1 lvl on the asus boards but the point is what you lose is alot just to save a few $$$

anyway i respectfully ask any other forum goer to take a crack at this with an intel build and see if you can equal it with cpu / gpu / etc with everything included and the only thing i can think of is an intel dual core or a i5 750 but thats still more expensive meaning a lesser gpu to get there

the AM3 platform offers the ability to upgrade to a 6 core CPU later as well as crossfire and the 5850 slaughters every game out there

[hdwizard]

Budget is not really the problem. I am just very value oriented and want to make sure (if possible) that I can up grade the rig and run it for 5 or 6 years. I have to say I love this forum, might get me divorced though! I have spent at least 10 hours reading here since I joined.

[crazyeyesreaper]

well quadcore now 6 core thuban later 4 gigs ram now 8gigs + later 1terabyte HDD now SSD later 5850 now 2 5850s later or a better gpu from the next series etc

[hdwizard]

Very cool. That is what I needed to see.

[crazyeyesreaper]

so you can save money if needed but the Phenom II i still highly recommend

WoW isnt the most demanding game its actually a crappy game in its optimization in that it dosent use multiple threads well it has crappy SLI or Crossfire suport basically you can spend $5000 on a PC but its still gonna lag with wow in certain cities not because of the PC not being fast enough but because WoW dosent use resources effectively now with that said the rig i specced out above will run Crysis at High settings and depending on resolution Very High settings and be fluid at least point with the rig above you have to wait for Game devs and software companies to actually CATCH UP since most games / software uses 2 cores at max

you have to remember WoW is a 6 year old game its based during a time when games like the Elder Scrolls III Morrowind were popular back when 1ghz processors could still run games etc the game just isnt up to using hardware as it should but with that said if Blizzard ever makes a new MMO from the ground up well at least you can play that for another 6 years

[pantherx12]

I've found WOW actually performs better with integrated graphics then proper graphics cards.

[crazyeyesreaper]

there ya go ^^ epic point made thank you panterx12

id thank the post more then once but im unable to

[musek]

Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

there ya go ^^ epic point made thank you panterx12

id thank the post more then once but im unable to

And because I don't like WOW i can give you my own thank you.

But seriously, hdwizard, with budget like that, go with the rig that crazyeyesreaper's made for you. It's golden and future-proof.

[surfingerman]

you can probably save another 10-20 on the OS if you check ebay

[werez]

My suggestions :
MOTHERBOARD : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-398-_-Product ( it is crossfire capable , but i advise you to go for a single card setup / a really strong GPU will provide you enough performance for all the games , and will save you some money that you can invest in another component )
RAM : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-260-_-Product
CASE : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-237-_-Product ( there are other alternatives .. i just picked one that i like ... there are cheaper ones that do the same job ... )
CPU : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-808-_-Product ( keep the stock cooler - trust me it does it's job if you don't overclock / or mild overclocking without voltage tweaking )
HDD : http://www.newegg.com/Shopping/Shopp...82E16822136319
PSU : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-004-_-Product
VCARD : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131184

And that is less than 900$ .
From what i'm reading you don`t actually need an HD5850 , so if you want to save some money go for a combo PHENOM II x3 720 / HD5770 and in time buy another one . IF you want a single video card setup you should wait because in February the HD5830 will launch , and i believe it will be 50$ cheaper and that will be a really good deal . The corsair PSU will do the job anyway you want to go .

[crazyeyesreaper]

except like everyone else you forget the damn operating system when ppl ask about a build

if i add an operating system to your build it becomes $990 which is a mere $60 cheaper

the asus board is better supported and is the 790x chipset the replacement for the 790gx boards not to mention you forgot a dvd burner meaning your build is $1020 making it a mere $30 difference and you have a lesser psu (not by much its still corsair so thumbs up) lesser HDD no OS and no ODD meaning the build above is basically a rehash of my own with no improvements and more things taken away for no real tangible effect on the price

its an option sure but not one i would take to save a mere $20-30

Considering that the new i3's outperform some phenoms I wouldnt suggest the AMD route, id go for an i5 750 for a gaming rig or a hot dual core 775, like an E8600.