[Lettuce]

Yeah, I've asked this on another forum before, but oh well.
I want to invest in a gaming pc, whether it goes from buying a pre-built, or building my own.
I just would like help on what people suggest.

The computer I have now is complete crap, but I want something that can at least run some games decently.
(L4d2, TF2, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, ect)

I don't plan on spending any money until a few months, hence why I'm posting this a few months prior to a certain date. (Saving up > 3 >)

Anyways, any suggestions?

[Misaokawaii]

I recommend going with custom built. It might be a little bit more expensive but being able to easily take parts in and out is just so nice. so cyberpower is a nice place. I got mine from there. hope that helps.
Also steam is going to become your bread and butter. games are so damn cheap.

[Chinchen]

newegg.com is your friend for this kind of stuff.

[Lettuce]

Misaokawaii, on 08 January 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

I recommend going with custom built. It might be a little bit more expensive but being able to easily take parts in and out is just so nice. so cyberpower is a nice place. I got mine from there. hope that helps.
Also steam is going to become your bread and butter. games are so damn cheap.

Chinchen, on 08 January 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

newegg.com is your friend for this kind of stuff.

Taking a look at both sites. The main issue I have is I don't know which parts are good, and which are.. just complete crap.
Another thing that bugs me, for the Newegg (Yes I'm looking~ ) A lot of the reviews of pretty good, but the cons throw me to the side a bit.

[Sypher]

What is your budget?
do you multi task while gaming?
Do you have the operating system?
etc

just tell me what you want out of a comp and ill tell you what to get like if you are interested in upgrading to a better one. So let me know down below.

[Lettuce]

Budget, uh, since I'm not paying for this, and we have a few months.
Even though it won't be as good as those in the thousands, anywhere between 400~800 would be good.
Maybe more, depends. We do have months to save up.
For gaming, the only thing I really do other then the game itself is MSN & skype, things like that.
Other things I would do in general - Sony Vegas, Adobe Audition, ect.

I do have the operating system disks, ect.
But honestly, just something that can run games pretty well.
I'm also pretty sure I can't upgrade my current PC, as I've asked before somewhere else and it was entitled "impossible".
If you need anything else, please tell me.

[セーッラ―ノース]

In a few months time? Great! Ivy Bridge is due in April - the next generation of Intel Core processors, that is. The 3000 series.

I'd simply suggest a Core i5 3000 series, add 8GB of memory and drop an AMD HD 7850 inside. You'd have a pretty great system for the money right there already.

[Chinchen]

セーッラ―ノース, on 09 January 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

In a few months time? Great! Ivy Bridge is due in April - the next generation of Intel Core processors, that is. The 3000 series.

I'd simply suggest a Core i5 3000 series, add 8GB of memory and drop an AMD HD 7850 inside. You'd have a pretty great system for the money right there already.

I think you forgot a motherboard and possibly some other stuff, like a Hard drive and a disk drive. Not only that, but the possibility of a new Monitor can't be discarded at all.

[Hentai]

Well if you are looking to build a gaming PC there are many ways to approach it. The very first thing you will need to ask yourself is:

"What is my budget? How much do I want to spend?"

Depending on your budget there are many paths you can take from DIY make it yourself, to vendors who make pre-built gaming rigs, or even taking a fairly priced non-gaming rig and then doing some minor upgrades.

Determine your budget and then I can advise you on where to go from there. That being said Tom's Hardware Guide is your friend. Pay particular attention to their "Best Graphics Cards For The Money" and "Best Gaming CPUs For The Money" line of articles.

Also how much technical experience do you have? Do you have any really geeky friends IRL that can help you? Would you feel comfortable building your own PC?

[Lettuce]

セーッラ―ノース, on 09 January 2012 - 10:18 AM, said:

In a few months time? Great! Ivy Bridge is due in April - the next generation of Intel Core processors, that is. The 3000 series.

I'd simply suggest a Core i5 3000 series, add 8GB of memory and drop an AMD HD 7850 inside. You'd have a pretty great system for the money right there already.

Ah, really? I plan on at-least trying to get it for the end of April. I'll take a look into those~
And maybe some motherboards, ect.

Chinchen, on 09 January 2012 - 10:31 AM, said:

I think you forgot a motherboard and possibly some other stuff, like a Hard drive and a disk drive. Not only that, but the possibility of a new Monitor can't be discarded at all.

Like I mentioned before, I'll take a look at those after I look at the above. Not sure of everything though.

Hentai, on 09 January 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

Well if you are looking to build a gaming PC there are many ways to approach it. The very first thing you will need to ask yourself is:

"What is my budget? How much do I want to spend?"

Depending on your budget there are many paths you can take from DIY make it yourself, to vendors who make pre-built gaming rigs, or even taking a fairly priced non-gaming rig and then doing some minor upgrades.

Determine your budget and then I can advise you on where to go from there. That being said Tom's Hardware Guide is your friend. Pay particular attention to their "Best Graphics Cards For The Money" and "Best Gaming CPUs For The Money" line of articles.

Also how much technical experience do you have? Do you have any really geeky friends IRL that can help you? Would you feel comfortable building your own PC?

Uhh, I posted my budget earlier, so I kind of already know. I'll also be looking into the many ways of which to get.
I mean, I don't have a lot of technical experience, but with some videos I saw around plugging everything inside the case, it looked like I could do it. I know for a fact my dad doesn't want to go near building our own, for fear of ruining something. He'd rather go to a vendor and have them set up everything or something, lol.
But yes,
Thank you all for the information so far.

[Sypher]

barebones kit

GIGABYTE GA-Z68AP-D3 V3 Black
$665.99

cpu:i5-2500K / 3.30GHz
RAM:4GB
HDD: 1TB
Video Card:Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 OverClocked 1GB GDDR5

In my opinion the barebones kit is good but limited in what it can do since it only has 4gb of RAM one option is to buy at least 8gb of RAM preferably(CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333)$39.99. This Model is also available to upgrade to an i7 it supports up to 32GB of RAM 8GB per slot and has 600watts of power. with the above Ram modification it will be up to 2gen standards (total $705.98)

By piece

Case
Rosewill Challenger Black
$54.99

CPU
Intel Core i5-650 Clarkdale 3.2GHz LGA 1156
$179.99

Motherboard
ASRock H55M-LE LGA 1156 Intel H55 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
$64.99

Video Card
SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
$149.99

RAM
CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
$39.99

CD/DVD RW
LG 22X Super-Multi DVD Burner
18.99

Hard drive
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1502FAEX 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB
$179.99

Power Supply
(Calculated 350w) (minimum 400w) **reccomended 530w**
Thermaltake Smart SP-530P 530W ATX 12V 2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
$69.99

Total $758.88 before shipping

cpu:Intel Core i5-650 Clarkdale 3.2GHz
RAM: 8GB
Video: SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD
HDD: 1.5TB


The kit i made is already preset the only problem is the processor itself being an i5 only reason it is a little more expensive is because of the hard disk, this version is fully customizable and will last the up coming upgrades.

[Lettuce]

^ Dear holy god.
I love you, I honestly do.
That made my life SO much easier. I will be showing this to my dad later today, and the price is actually pretty good for each of the kits.
If I'm also reading it right, it's upgradable correct? That's another VERY helpful thing included. ( I assume to keep up with games in the near future, I will have to upgrade eventually, and well, that makes it useful.)
I really, can not express my thanks enough. Your kit looks like a good deal, as well as the first one you posted, but yeah. I think I might end up going towards yours.
Thank you very much, and if I have any more questions I'll try and keep you updated.
c :

[Sypher]

Empty, on 09 January 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

^ Dear holy god.
I love you, I honestly do.
That made my life SO much easier. I will be showing this to my dad later today, and the price is actually pretty good for each of the kits.
If I'm also reading it right, it's upgradable correct? That's another VERY helpful thing included. ( I assume to keep up with games in the near future, I will have to upgrade eventually, and well, that makes it useful.)
I really, can not express my thanks enough. Your kit looks like a good deal, as well as the first one you posted, but yeah. I think I might end up going towards yours.
Thank you very much, and if I have any more questions I'll try and keep you updated.
c :

no problemo i do this for a side job anyway and learn some new things XD and yes keep me posted

[Hentai]

Other things to take into account is the cost of an Operating System and if you want a monitor or not. In many cases if you need an OS & Monitor it can be cheaper to buy bundles offered at places like Costco or Dell.

Their $999 Dell XPS 8300 bundle comes with Windows 7, a very fast 3.40GHz i7 processor, a 23" Flat Panel monitor, and a 'decent' 1GB graphics card that should be good for most games.

Their $799 ZT Core Desktop lacks a good video card and monitor but has the same fast i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a BluRay RW drive.

Also keep an eye out for coupon codes and sales. Prices can fluxuate greatly, as much as $50 on some components, or $200 on some pre-built systems from week to week so the best deal one day, might not always be the best deal the next.

Places like FatWallet or TechBargains are good places to see the current promotions and find coupon codes for the various manufacturers.

Beyond that another retailer to consider is Amazon. While NewEgg is the best for browsing often Amazon stocks much of the same products, in less quantity, and offers free shipping, no sales tax, and sometimes different mail-in-rebates.

[セーッラ―ノース]

I was just giving the simple parts of it first.

I'd prefer to know the budget before offering part by part suggestions, so to start off I suggest the platform as a whole.


You need the following;
Central Processing Unit (processor, a.k.a. CPU)
RAM (Random Access Memory, people usually mean this when they say memory)
Motherboard (or Mainboard)
Optical drive (a DVD drive at the least. Technically this isn't actually entirely necessary, but for most purposes, you should get one anyway.)
System drive (either a Hard Disk Drive - HDD, or if you have some extra money, a Solid State Drive - SSD)
Graphics (either integrated or a 'dedicated' graphics card. For gaming, you definitely want a dedicated card.)
Power supply (this takes AC power from the socket and converts it into DC power suitable for each component)
Case
Operating system (i.e., Windows, or Linux. Windows is obviously the gamer's choice)


Nontheless, I stick to my recommendation of holding on till April as you intend and buying an Intel i5 3550K with a matching 70-series chipset motherboard and a HD7850 as the main components. This would likely be the best options available at the time, without costing an extreme arm and leg (compared, to, say, MY machine...).