I have decided to build my own PC and the hardest part so far as been choosing the right parts. I have done my best to find good parts that are compatible but I have never done this before so I may be incorrect. I also need to know if any of these parts are overkill because at around $800 it's a bit of a price stretch for me, however, I'd rather get good parts than try to cut cost and regret it later. I am not a majorly hard-core gamer, but I do play games and I'd like it to be up-to-date and be at least upgradable if games come out in the future that I want it to handle. I mainly play WOW and I need it to perform well in 25-man raids at high settings. Case PSU Processor Motherboard Video card Ram Hard drive
Case Good PSU Great, a 550W would be a better choice though CPU Great MOBO Unneccissary, for that price you can get a GA-EP45-UD3R for over 100$ less and its Waaaay better than the ASUS you chose. GPU dont go with the 9800gt. for 109$ you can get a 4770 which blows the 9800gt out of the water. or just invest in a 4850 or 4870 Ram Good HD Good With this build you can run warcraft at full settings on a 24" monitor if you want. As for the 25 man raids you may want to get a network boost card thingy.... not to familiar with them. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833342002&Tpk=Killer K1 Just note that Im not a "complete" expert on computers Im just telling you what I think would be best. wait on some more feed back before you make any purchases.(but Im sure mist people will agree fro the most part)
OK thanks man, I am glad to hear about the gigabyte board. That brings the cost down significantly and the heads up on the video card is very helpful. Are Radeon and Geforce basically interchangeably compatible with the gigabyte board or is there something I have to do to make it accept them? Also..can you tell me how the 4770 compares to the 1gig version of 9600 gt? (please excuse my horrible lack of knowledge) Cheers and thanks
Case: 7/10 - NZXT quality, nice looks, mediocre cooling, but easily sufficient for a low-midrange system like this one. PSU: 9/10, but complete overkill. This will run the system fine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008 CPU: 8/10 - A very fast Dual core CPU, but also a very expensive CPU for only a dual core. M/B: 4/10 - Ridiculously expensive and complex board for this purpose. This board would do the same job, including overclocking. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128380 GPU: 5/10 - Outdated, and quite expensive for what it is. A decent card for its time, but since superceded by cards like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131125 RAM: 10/10 - no problem there HDD: 10/10 - My drive of choice for medium size storage. The HD4770s won't be available for some time due to production problems at ATI. For now the similar performing HD4850 is a good replacement, it just uses more power. #1 rule of networking: You NEVER need a Killer NIC. The whole setup is a scam.
Yeah you have a pretty good build minus the motherboard and GPU. Just DO NOT get either the Motherboard or gpu you first chose. I wasnt to sure about the network booster cards, I just see them advertised for warcraft players all the time.
Thanks a lot for the help guys, I will take all of that into account if I still build. The decision just got a lot harder tho because I was looking at Newegg.com and found this computer. It's basically everything I wanted in my build and the cost is less than I was expecting to pay on parts and the OS is already installed. The only problem is that the reviews for this comp are kinda bad. Is there a problem with ibuypower? Is it cheaper because they use crappy parts or something? Anyway. I really appreciate your help on all my n00bish questions. I'm not a really hard-core gamer but I do need the thing to work well and be reliable for work and gaming.
Thats actually a good question, one I asked myself not too long ago. In short NO. ibuypower has good prices but low quality components plus your build is way better. alot of their psu's are noname, noname ram and sometimes they wont even tell you what motherboard your getting. the graphics card on it was terrible. The best way to go is to build one yourself or get a good prebuilt one like a dell xps or alienware (although overpriced)
OK, that's good to know. Back to building my own: I'm thinking instead of the crazy-go-nuts Intel CPU I might use this AMD instead. For my purposes, the difference between 2.8 and 3 Ghz is not going to make a big difference. But...that kinda brings me back to square one on the motherboard right? Gahh...how about this one by Gigabyte? It has no integrated graphics but because I'm using a graphics card that doesn't matter right? Does this change the options for the graphics card? Someone told me that 9600GT is good. Is Radeon better? I'm sorry to go changing stuff after you guys gave me such good advice already. I should have realized the intel cpu was overkill from the beginning.
The IbuyPower system is cheap because it uses low grade parts in areas it doesn't tell you (and sometimes where they do). It is also a lot slower than the PC you built, the X2 7750 is a very weak CPU compared to the E8400. The 2.7Ghz AMD is about equivalent to a 2.2Ghz Intel from the same area. Clock speed is not what decides CPU performance. The 9600GT is a weak card compared to what's out there now, the HD4850 and HD4770 are both very cheap and will both smash the 9600GT for performance.
