I am preparing for building a PC. I do a lot of AutoCad and multitasking. I don't really do a lot of gaming on the PC, but I do enjoy PS3 and Xbox360 so I would consider utilizing gaming components if it did not jeapordize my main needs. Everyone has a budget as I will with this build, but I don't really know what my budget is yet. I don't want to narrow out any options that I may really need with too low of a budget. In all honesty, I'd love to build this as inexpensive as possible but have a top notch PC for my primary needs. I do plan to purchase components slowly. What I mean by this is by buying a case and other options which may not go out of date quite as quickly first and then buying other components a few weeks later. This is one reason I don't want to set a budget. I'd rather extend the amount of time it takes to get all of the components in order to get the PC I want/need rather than skip on performance for a low budget. What are some recommendations?
Can't spec components without a rough budget to work with. Also, if you're not buying everything now, we can't really help. Prices and available products change too quickly in the PC industry - what I tell you to buy now may seem a pretty poor choice in as little as 6 weeks' time.
I realize the PC industry is subject to change on a daily basis. I only intend to buy items which do not change quite as often and are more universal suchas a case and power supply early. I realize I can't buy a processor or motherboard now and wait for a month or two before getting everything else. I will buy everything within 6 weeks or quicker anyway once I begin to see actual parts. It will be like a new toy and I will not want to wait on building it. In regards to the budget. I understand what you're saying, but I don't want to limit my performance by setting a budget too low. In all honesty; I'd love to be able to build this PC for under $500 and get a super preforming PC, but I realize this is probably not possible. With that said, I don't follow the PC industry close enough to understand how large my budget should be in order to get a PC which will preform as I desire. Performance is more important than the budget for me. I currently have an old desktop with an intel 2.53 GHz processor and 2GB or ram. (The ram was just recently upgraded from 500MB to 2GB, so I'm probably use to it as having 500MB of ram.) My laptop is an AMD 1.90 GHz processor with 2GB of ram. I want the results of this new PC I plan to build to be a PC which will out-preform both my laptop and old desktop with ease. I think I want at least a quad core processor, but I'm not sure why.
It won't be difficult to surpass your current PCs for $500 but that won't get you a high end system, nowhere near it. The case is not so much a problem but the PSU you need is directly related to thr othet components used. A 400W PSU will make do for a PC up to about $700-$800, but beyond that it'll likely need to be highet. If you're after good games performance, which games will you want to play?
Thanks for the helpful response. If I went with a PSU capable of more than the 400W PSU, would it still work if I built a smaller PC that really only required a 400W PSU? I'm just trying to understand if you can oversize without porblems or if oversizing can be as problematic as undersizing? I honestly believe I will end up going with a system which requires a bigger PSU. I can't really say I'm after a good game performance, but I know how I am. I'm building it to do my normal PC needs and common PC hobbies which includes a lot of AutoCAD, Excel with detailed macros, Email and web browser open most all the time, minor video encoding and editing. I will also want it to have one of the best sound systems available for a PC (within reason). With that said, I love playing games on the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360; so I could see myself getting into PC gaming if my PC was capable. I'd also be interested in streaming video from my PC to a HD TV output if capable and doesn't add a lot of cost to the build. I'm not stuck on $500 or even $800 as a budget. If I need to spend $1000 to $1500 in order to get a high end system, then I will go there as a budget. I've looked around at CPUs, and there seems to be a value for the buck threshold around $300. (I may be completly off base here.) It seems to me that the performance gain you get in the $200 to $300 CPUs over the $100 to $200 CPUs is significant whereas the CPUs over $300 do not seem to have as much performance gain over the $200 to $300 CPUs. If I've come to a correct conclusion with this, I'm looking to build a high end PC where I'm using components such as this tier. Does that make sense? Again, thanks for the help.
Nah you can have as big a PSU as you like and it won't do any harm. As for the budget, there is an extent beyond which you get diminishing returns, and it's a bit over $1000, providing you're a gamer, and a bit less if not, as the majority of games will run on relatively inexpensive graphics cards and still look better than on consoles.
