Hi. This is my first build. I think I should go with the $500 bare bones here. I don't know what graphics card I should get. I have a 1024 by 768 at 75hz monitor and I don't plan on changing soon. I want to do some moderate gaming, I don't mind lower settings (I'm going to be playing at 1024 by 768 anyway) but I'd like some relatively good graphics. Games I'm likely to play: call of duty: Modern Warfare 2, mass effect (2), left 4 dead 2, quake live (no problems for this game), and The Sims 3 (torturing and experimenting with sims can be fun). What would be a good graphics card? I think I might want to get a cheap one to start with and then get a decent one once nvidia and ati start releasing more directx 11 cards. The graphics card should be under 150 dollars (a little more is fine if it really helps).
I don't think you should go with that barebones, you're getting less than $500 worth of components for that $500, quite a lot less. Instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128375 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145265 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136283 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436 $900 total including a good graphics card. $35 of mail-in rebates.
Thanks for the quick reply, but I'm looking for something under $700 The only benefit I see from going with that rather then the bare bones and that graphics card is the more expensive, lower wattage power supply and the slightly faster ram. I don't know about the motherboard though. Can you even use a LGA 1156 cpu with a LGA 1366 motherboards?
Sorry, I gave you the wrong link there, my apologies. (Trying to write too many forum posts at once!) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128401 That's the one I meant - that's $50 saved, though obviously less rebates. The case in the barebones is horrible, it will be a real problem for cooling, and the PSU is a deathtrap as well, so that's essentially where the extra cost is coming from.
Forgot to preview. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136283 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157170 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215] http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.264824
Case: 9/10 - great value case HDD: 10/10 - well priced, reliable RAM: 5/10 - no heatspreaders at all, in this day and age? It's also pretty slow. Better idea: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260 Mobo: 2/10 - cheap, nasty, ASRock. If you want a cheap microATX i5 board, it should be this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128405 but in all honesty, why a microATX board? Really, get this instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128406 PSU and Graphics combo is fine - a little bizarre since that isn't an ideal PSU for the card, but it will certainly work with the use of an adapter. The CPU link didn't work, but I assume you must have meant this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215
I'm thinking of rethinking this build but if I used this build I'd probably get this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858 gpu instead since it's only like 5 bucks more or somthing like that.
How about this build? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341018 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148212 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.273426 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138146 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706 for people who read this after the combo deal expires) If I want to OC I can just add an aftermarket cooler.
The HD5770 looks promising, I haven't seen any real world tests yet, but it looks like it will perform somewhat between the HD4870 and HD4890, so not a great performance improvement for the price, but a much more efficient card. The build you've listed isn't as powerful as the one I posted CPU-wise and there's no reason for a 700W PSU, the PC won't even use half that much. You're better off going with a lower rated unit from a more reliable brand than OCZ. The same goes for the memory, Crucial Ballistix RAM isn't very good, stick with G-Skill, Corsair or Mushkin.
I think I'm going to wait until Windows 7 comes out and Nvidia releases some new graphics hardware. Thanks for all the suggestions though.
I've just spotted the edit. An Athlon II X4? I can only assume you've suddenly cut your budget in half. The A2 X4s are cheap but they're vastly inferior to i5s.
I know that they're inferior. I didn't lower my budget, I just lowered my expectations of what I can get for under $700. How about this build: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136167 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136358 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131397 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161306 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103704 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134 (I know this is Athlon x4 and not Phenom but supposedly It has 95% of the performance of a Phenom with the same cpu speed, and I should be able to overclock.) Do you have any suggestions for a case?
Why? The Athlon II X4 630 does not offer performance even that close to a proper Phenom II, as it roughly equals the Core 2 Quad Q8200, i.e. the budget model. The Phenom II X4 940 can at least rival the Q8400. The overclocking of the 630, whilst poorer than with the Q8200 is still relatively reasonable. The use of a Green drive for an OS will work, but it will be quite slow. Unless you're going for very stringent low noise, I'd suggest replacing the WD5000AADS with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073 - it's only $2 more and your PC will run much faster for it. I generally tell people to avoid Asus motherboards for quality reasons, and the cheap ones are even worse. If you're going to get an AMD CPU, go with something like this board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392 Realistically though, I think you would be better off with: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128380 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184 Any extra budget you have can be used to upgrade that with a faster CPU still. The PSU you've chosen is fine, but the CPU cooler, while fine for the AMDs, obviously has to be changed for this if you use an Intel: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134 The graphics card chosen is fine. As for the case, a lot of it's personal preference. Low budget cases I often recommend: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146059 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146041 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119106 A slightly more expensive case I recommend for most high end builds: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047
