First build - approx. $2,500 budget

[fivetiger]

Time for a new computer. I'm tired of having non-upgradable Dells, so I'm building my own this time. I have some basic hardware knowledge, but I'm certainly not savvy, so I need your advice...

Okay, so you have about $2500 to play with, but try not to spend money where it isn't warranted (e.g. 3% performance boosts or neon lights on the case).

Requirements:
1) Mostly used for gaming...internet and e-mail also, but that shouldn't be a problem.
2) Good for 2 years...upgradable for another 2 years or so.
3) Quiet.
4) Also need a quality monitor...19'' is fine.

Since I play a lot of games (including FPS) I would, for once, like to play new games with some settings NOT on low or lowest :roll:...preferably on high...and preferably for a year or two.

I will probably not be overclocking, unless it can be done while still keeping the computer quiet (I would be willing to install a better HS/fan, but no crazy cooling set-ups), and even then only if I need it to get noticable performance increases.

Since I hope to have this computer for at least 4 years, I would likely want to someday install Vista (maybe 64-bit??) on it, so it needs to be compatible with that in the future. Same with DX10.

I will proably wait until after April 22nd and get my components from New Egg (see, I do know SOMETHING ). And thank you very much in advance for your advice!

 

[lyssword]

Get 22" or even 24" monitor, you'll like it
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001096 here's one
rough summary:

CPU:intel dual core e6600
2gb ddr2 memory pc6400 this maybe? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220144
vid card: either 2 of 8800gtx's or wait and see if anything new will be coming up
then again, 2 gtx's will prolly be too loud, maybe just one
motherboard: some type of SLI mobo
2x 750gb seagate 7200.10

Srry for lacking details

 

[tatteredpotato]

Get a 24" widescreen monitor, and I really wouldn't get 2 graphics cards, rather save the money and get a whole new card whenever a new one comes out.

$2500 will get you a long way, just don't buy unnecessary stuff.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: lyssword
Get 22" or even 24" monitor, you'll like it
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001096 here's one
rough summary:

CPU:intel dual core e6600
2gb ddr2 memory pc6400 this maybe? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220144
vid card: either 2 of 8800gtx's or wait and see if anything new will be coming up
then again, 2 gtx's will prolly be too loud, maybe just one
motherboard: some type of SLI mobo
2x 750gb seagate 7200.10

Srry for lacking details

he's got the right idea...

a good 20" widescreen or even a 24" since your budget is pretty high would be good for you. that should last you several years and even more if you get one with lots of other inputs (composite, component, s-video, etc).

there is no reason to go amd now, since intel is at the top. an E6600/E6700 is probably one of the best cpus out to get right now, and later this month, intel is doing price cuts on all core 2 duos, so its probably best to wait a bit to buy the cpu at least.

case? you can pick that out. ill leave it to other ATers to help you on that one.

motherboard can be a good quality asus, gigabyte, or whatever. i have the asus p5w dh deluxe and its been flawless. it has every single port i need (esata, firewire, optical/coax out, and even wireless) and its a very good overclocker. of course, there are more expensive solutions and there is always the option of sli.

video card? you might as well go for an 8800GTX, preferably from evga/bfg/xfx so you get a lifetime warranty even if you choose to overclock or put a 3rd party heatsink on.

as for memory, i think you'll want to go for some nice 2x1GB DDR2-800 or higher rated memory. there are some good deals for DDR2-800 2GB kits right now, like the g.skills and corsairs. i personally have a 2x1GB DDR2-800 g.skill set and it overclocks great and doesnt need that much voltage either.

for hard drives, you cant go wrong with a nice seagate 7200.10 sata drive and/or a western digital sata drive. those western digital raptors are pretty fast, but they are very LOUD. i have 2 seagate 400GB sata 7200.10 drives and they are dead quiet, even when loading off of them.

optical drives - you can either get an ide or sata one. people want to go sata because they want to get rid of the ide cabling. personally, it doesnt really matter to me, and i would just get whichever one you feel is good. nec, lite-on, plextor, samsung, lg are all good dvd-rws to choose from.

power supply...you'll want at least a 500-600W to be "future-proofed" and not want anything to have low power. a good seasonic, fortron, enermax would be good for you.

fans? im sure other people can help you with those. you want the most airflow with the least amount of noise...

heatsink - you cant go wrong with a zalman/thermalright or any of those name brands. in the case/cooling section, theres a sticky thread of all the heatsink reviews. check that out.

keyboard/mouse - get whichever one you prefer. i have the microsoft wireless optical desktop elite for bluetooth and its pretty damn good.

speakers - logitech has some really good 5.1 speakers for the price....i dont know what happened to klipsch though, cause it seems like they stopped selling their speakers.

do you need a printer too?

hope that helped!

 

[AVP]

Well, not sure if your going to overclock or not, so I will not suggest an aftermarket heatsink or overly expensive ram, but here is my attempt at your $2500....

*edit just read that you are not. Stock cooling and value ram might be the way to go. Though if you do not mind the mail in rebate that ram is not a bad price.

Case - LIAN LI PC-60BPLUSII - $129

or if having one of the best cases made interests you here is the TJ09 for $289

Mobo - Gigabyte DS3 $123

If overclocking, this is suppposed to be better - ASUS P5N32-E SLI - $187

Hdd for OS/Games - Raptor - $189 after MIR

Storage - Seagate 7200.10 - $85

Video Card - 8800gtx- $530 after MIR
or go with the GTS 640 and use EVGA stepup in next 90 days to a currently unreleased 8900 series card. Here - $380 after mir

Ram - Patriot Extreme - $268 for 4gb after two $50mir

PSU Corsair 620hx -$124 after $20mir Free shipping!

Processor - e6600 wait for price drop

Mouse - Logitech mx518 - $37

** clicked reply button too quickly...this setup should leave you between $1500-1800 depending on your choices, i.e. if you want the raptor, 8800gtx or 4gb of ram or not.

That should leave you with plenty of money for OS, speakers and monitor. As far as the monitor goes, i recently bought a 2007wfp and I love it, though I won the lottery and got a S-IPS panel. I paid $350 for mine, and if you don't mind a fixed stand or lack of inputs, something comparable can be had for cheaper.

There is always the option of getting a 32-37inch westy, or a $1000 32' 1080p Sharp Aquos to fit in your budget if you go with a cheaper set up, i.e. 50dollar case (some nice ones exist, like the cooler master centurion 5, or even a $30 Rosewell case isn't bad for the money) , 8800gts, 2gb ram, no raptor. Good luck, I am jealous though a computer upgrade is in store for me this summer

 

[tapir]

Here's my suggestion, based on newegg prices:

Sony NEC Optiarc 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write Silver E-IDE / ATAPI Model 7170A-0S - OEM

LIAN LI PC-V1000APlus II Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

(2x) Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

HITACHI Deskstar T7K500 HDT725040VLA360 (0A33439) 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

X2GEN MW22U Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail

Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GTS TDH GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail

ENERMAX Liberty ELT500AWT ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail

G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail

MSI 975X Platinum V.2 LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

SILVERSTONE FM121-B 120mm Case Fan - Retail

Thermalright SI-128 CPU Cooling Heatsink - Retail

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail

THQ Gift - Supreme Commander PC Game - OEM (free)

total
$2332.87

UPS 3-day
$55.99

grand total
$2,388.86

$65 mail-in-rebates

You can use the extra $$ to get speakers if you need. This should be a quiet combo with 4GB of ram. Substitute in a 680i motherboard if you like all the tweaks and features nVidia provides. My opinion is to go with an 8800gts 320mb or 640mb and get a better graphics card down the road instead of doing SLI.

 

[Snakexor]

Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update
LIAN LI PC-7B plus II Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: PC-7B PLUS II
Item #: N82E16811112099

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$109.99 -$30.00 Instant $79.99

Update
GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #: GA-965P-DS3
Item #: N82E16813128012

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$132.99 -$10.00 Instant $122.99

Update
Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GTS TDH GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
Model #: PX8800 GTS TDH
Item #: N82E16814122018

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
Mail-in Rebate
$379.99 -$10.00 Instant $369.99

Update
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: CMPSU-620HX
Item #: N82E16817139002

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
Mail-in Rebate
$189.99 -$20.00 Instant $169.99

Update
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail
Model #: BX80557E6600
Item #: N82E16819115003

Return Policy: Processors (CPUs) Return Policy

In Stock
$308.00 $308.00

Update
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail
Model #: F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
Item #: N82E16820231098

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$169.99 -$40.00 Instant $259.98

Update
Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFDRTL 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - Retail
Model #: WD1500ADFDRTL
Item #: N82E16822136034

Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
$239.99 $239.99

Update
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3500630AS
Item #: N82E16822148136

Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
$145.00 $145.00

Update
NEC Display Solutions 20WMGX2 Silver 20.1" 6ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support & 4-port USB 2.0 hub - Retail
Model #: 20WMGX2
Item #: N82E16824002319

Return Policy: [LCD] Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
Mail-in Rebate
$569.99 $569.99

Update
SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology Black SATA Model SH-S183L - OEM
Model #: SH-S183L
Item #: N82E16827151141

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$38.99 $38.99

Update
Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series - Retail
Model #: 70SB046A00000
Item #: N82E16829102005

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
$139.99 $139.99
Subtotal: $2,444.90

 

[fivetiger]

Wow, thanks for the responses, guys.

I'll look these over and will have some comments tomorrow.

 

[trexpesto]

I would suggest saving the old box for email/web, and dedicate this box to gaming. So much easier and faster when you don't have the ever-expanding pile of junk that gets put in your registry, windows folder, Docs'n'Settings, etc. from installing say itunes, realplayer, AIM, Adobe stuff, DVD copying software, MS office or OpenOffice, Camera software, Spyware and antivirus software (PITA), Google Earth............ you get the idea.

A clean machine. You wouldn't drive your Ferrari to the 7-11 for a coke, you take the old civic.

 

[krotchy]

My suggestions:

Get a Dell 2407 Monitor and a single 8800GTX, you will not be remotely disappointed with that combination, and it should last a while and look amazing. Currently I have that combo with an FX-60 and I havent found any games I cant handle. Any core 2 in your budget should be faster

 

[bob4432]

personally i think you could do it for ~$1500, if not $1200

i need to get ready for jury duty :roll: but will fill this in back when i get home.....

 

[fivetiger]

personally i think you could do it for ~$1500, if not $1200

Sounds good to me...after all, $2500 probably IS above the wife's limit .

Okay, I'll just say what I'm thinking on a few components before I leave for work.

CPU: C2C E6600 from Newegg after price drop.

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA

Gaming HDD: I like the idea of putting my games on a Raptor, but someone also said they are very loud. Maybe the Barracuda would be fast enough for me and quieter??

Video: 8800 GTS or GTX. Still can't decide. Unless something revolutionary is coming along in the next couple of years to warrant an upgrade, maybe I should get the GTX and ride it out for a longer time. Or is it terribly overpriced compared to the GTS?

Mobo: The Gigabyte DS3 looks nice, but I am reading a lot about the Asus PB5-E. According to Newegg, they seem to be similar (duo/quad support, up to 8 GB RAM, etc.). Anyone know why I would go with one and not the other?

RAM: 2 x 1GB of DDR2-800, not sure what brand yet, as I don't know the finer details of RAM. With both of those mobos, I should be able to just add on another two sticks of 1 GB RAM later, correct? I'm not sure I would notice more than 2 GB for a little while.

 

[trexpesto]

What OS will you go for?

 

[fivetiger]

XP for now, probably move to Vista in 6 months to a year.

 

[tapir]

Personally I think putting your OS and games on a Raptor/RAID 0 is the biggest performance increase you will actually notice for all the money you're spending. There is some noise but it depends on what you're used to. If you're used to "silent" drives where you can't hear the clicking it will irritate you because the raptors sound a little "heavier" or "clunkier" when they click IMO. But if you're accustomed to hearing a little bit of clicking when your HDD seeks you should get a raptor, and consider it even if you're not.

My thoughts on GTS vs GTX is that the price premium is never worth it once you get to the VERY top. When you're talking about the same core running at different frequencies the margins are going to look very small in 12 months when running some absurd new game that eats your resources. Personally I would get an 8800GTS 320mb or 640mb and save the extra money, eBay your GTS in 12-18 months and get whatever is best then. If you spend the extra $200 or whatever it's not going to make your 2007 card = to a 2009 GPU.

 

[newb54]

The Seagate Barracuda is fine for a gaming/app HDD. Raptor/Raid 0 is probably the worst bang for his buck since he is primarly using his comp for games/internet not working with large video/audio files. I went from having two raptors in raid 0, down to one raptor, and then to the 7200 Seagate. I can notice the difference in load times during games, but it is pretty negligible between those 3 setups.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: fivetiger

personally i think you could do it for ~$1500, if not $1200

Sounds good to me...after all, $2500 probably IS above the wife's limit .

Okay, I'll just say what I'm thinking on a few components before I leave for work.

CPU: C2C E6600 from Newegg after price drop.

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA

Gaming HDD: I like the idea of putting my games on a Raptor, but someone also said they are very loud. Maybe the Barracuda would be fast enough for me and quieter??

Video: 8800 GTS or GTX. Still can't decide. Unless something revolutionary is coming along in the next couple of years to warrant an upgrade, maybe I should get the GTX and ride it out for a longer time. Or is it terribly overpriced compared to the GTS?

Mobo: The Gigabyte DS3 looks nice, but I am reading a lot about the Asus PB5-E. According to Newegg, they seem to be similar (duo/quad support, up to 8 GB RAM, etc.). Anyone know why I would go with one and not the other?

RAM: 2 x 1GB of DDR2-800, not sure what brand yet, as I don't know the finer details of RAM. With both of those mobos, I should be able to just add on another two sticks of 1 GB RAM later, correct? I'm not sure I would notice more than 2 GB for a little while.

That's all basically what I have, except the video card is a 7950GX2 that I got for $200. The Gigabyte seems like a good board, but I haven't tried overclocking yet. You might want to consider getting an SLI board so that in the future you can add another 8800. Also, buy whichever 8800 is 640mb and get an 8 bit 24" LCD to go with it. Watch out for 6 bit, no matter what size you get.

 

[hugekebab]

Tapir said:

"My thoughts on GTS vs GTX is that the price premium is never worth it once you get to the VERY top. When you're talking about the same core running at different frequencies the margins are going to look very small in 12 months when running some absurd new game that eats your resources. Personally I would get an 8800GTS 320mb or 640mb and save the extra money, eBay your GTS in 12-18 months and get whatever is best then. If you spend the extra $200 or whatever it's not going to make your 2007 card = to a 2009 GPU."


^^^^very very true^^^^

 

[tatteredpotato]

Run 2 gigs now and grab another 2 when you get Vista. 4gigs will last a long time.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: tapir
...When you're talking about the same core running at different frequencies....

While I completely agree with what you are saying, its worth noting the GTX has 128 shaders while the GTS has only 96, so in the case of the 8800's it isnt only a clock boost.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: fivetiger

personally i think you could do it for ~$1500, if not $1200

Sounds good to me...after all, $2500 probably IS above the wife's limit .

Okay, I'll just say what I'm thinking on a few components before I leave for work.

CPU: C2C E6600 from Newegg after price drop.

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA

Gaming HDD: I like the idea of putting my games on a Raptor, but someone also said they are very loud. Maybe the Barracuda would be fast enough for me and quieter??

Video: 8800 GTS or GTX. Still can't decide. Unless something revolutionary is coming along in the next couple of years to warrant an upgrade, maybe I should get the GTX and ride it out for a longer time. Or is it terribly overpriced compared to the GTS?

Mobo: The Gigabyte DS3 looks nice, but I am reading a lot about the Asus PB5-E. According to Newegg, they seem to be similar (duo/quad support, up to 8 GB RAM, etc.). Anyone know why I would go with one and not the other?

RAM: 2 x 1GB of DDR2-800, not sure what brand yet, as I don't know the finer details of RAM. With both of those mobos, I should be able to just add on another two sticks of 1 GB RAM later, correct? I'm not sure I would notice more than 2 GB for a little while.

i have not seen the #s on the proposed price drop, but if the 6600 comes in under $200 that would be nice.

storage hdd - imho any that has a 5yr warranty - they are all pretty close

main hdd - imho i always run a smaller os/app hdd. when i was running 7.2k storage drives i would run at least 10k main, now i run all 15k and that is how it will always be until something faster comes out. the reason being is the my computer is for many differenent purposes and all the seeking i do the extra rotational speed pays off. i like my rig to be extremely responsive - things just need to open and that happens with 10 and 15k hdds. personally if you don't want to go scsi then a 16MB raptor is where i would go, probably the 74GB one if you can get away with that amount of space. personally i don't have many programs installed on my rig and only use ~15GB of my 36GB main drive but others use more.

video - any way you can wait until we see what amd/ati puts out? i think if it is good it will drive the cost of the current high end nvidia cards down

mobo - if i was going to do a build right now, i would use a ds3 or s3 - they work nicely from all that i have read

ram - 2GB will be good. don't worry about 4GB until you are pushing in excess of 2GB routinely. the issue is is that if you go w/ 32bit vista i am assuming you will only get to use ~3.25 of it, just like 32bit xp, but i could be wrong - i haven't been too impressed w/ vista so i will be using xp pro until i am forced to move, and at that point i may just go linux....

this year should be decent for fps gamers with quake wars and frontlines: fuel of war. not sure how hard they are going to be on hardware but at least we will have something since i hvae gaming bf2 snce it came out....

if you watch the deals, i think you could do this w/ a 20-22" for a decent price, much lower than 2500, if you figure $400 for a 22" 1680x1050 lcd, then you still have $900 for a machine - very reasonable.

can anybody point me in the direction of the price drops???

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Good choices

The 7200.10's are nice drives and not alot slower than the Raptor, I have both. The raptors aren't that loud they just have a different pitch, and they are fast.

The GPU depends on what monitor you will use, if your going to use a 24" or larger the GTX is the way to go. 22" or less and the GTS would be my choice. And if your going with a 20" or smaller the GTS 320mb would be plenty

Either of those mobo's is good. I have the P5B-E and like it alot. If overclocking your ram is important and you go with Asus make sure you get the rev 1.02 because it has higher ram voltages. Newegg was shipping only the 1.02's for awhile, but recent reports say they have been shipping some 1.01's again

I would stick with 2gb's and get the cheapest DD2-800 unless you want to overclock it

 

[AVP]

Even with a 20" monitor running at 1680x1050 I would go with the 640, benchmarks show that 1600x1200 is where the extra memory starts to make a difference, and 1680x1050 is hardly much smaller. Given your budget, and the fact that you will want to stay up to date, I say 640 over the gtx and 320. But then again, I would look carefully at benchmarks of the games you like to play and see if it will make a difference.

 

[fivetiger]

Thank you everyone for the replies. I'm currently reading up on overclocking to see how much overclocking I can do, if any at all.

The key is to keep the computer as quiet as possible. The computer will be in our office where my wife reads and works at her desk.

Once I determine how cool/quiet I can keep everything, I'll have a better idea whether I can OC, and therefore whether or not I'm over-buying on the CPU, RAM, video card, etc. (Of course, how cool/quiet I can keep it also depends on those very components...aarggh...this isn't easy!)

 

[bob4432]

not sure how loud the stock hsf combo is for the 6600, but the thermalright units w/ 92-120mm fans do a good job and are quiet by virtue of the fan size - and get the results of some liquid cooling setups.

i wold say that the gpu is probably going to be the noisiest component in your build

o/cing is nearly guaranteed and quite easily. even good o/c at stock V is usually not a problem. my current cpu, a x2 3800 which @ stock run 2.0GHz, i can run at 2.5GHz stock V and still be perfectly stable, before that i ran a opteron 144 - stock = 1.8GHz and i was able to get 2.5GHz out of it stock V too. may want to hit the processor forum to see what people are getting and you may want to look at a 6400 and o/c it to 6600+ speeds more than likely easily