Son building $600 gamer

[Katreat]

My son is looking at building a computer and this is what he has chosen. He is trying to keep the price below $600. He wants it to be able to play most games and just be a good all around machine for school and stuff. He does not need monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.

What do you think?

Antec Sonata III 500 - Retail - $120

Radeon HD 4850 512MB - Retail - $125

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb – OEM - $60

CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail - $47

AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple - Core Black Processor – Retail - $139

SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe – OEM - $ 27.00

GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail - $70

$ 590 total with shipping and rebates figured in.

[flanzig1]

The latest recommendation on HDs are WD Black Caviar. Seagate had/has issues with the firmware on the 7200.12s
For DVD drives look to Asus/Lite-On and get a retail package for the dvd burning software.
What about an OS?

[sage_viper]

-The Motherboard looks pretty good, that's one of their faster chipsets, and its a good brand.
-If you want to save a little money and go with just a dual core, which seem to be the best for gaming, I'd go with this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128376 ... it is a pretty decent CPU, and I was thinking about getting it until I had to pay for a new motherboard. But that Phenom is perfectly good, too. And if you can afford it, then its just fine.
-RAM looks fine to me. Good brand and good speed.
-This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102824 is the same video card but for $100 (after rebate) by Sapphire.

And I think everything looks pretty good to me.

[Khalil]

Seagate Hard Drives are excellent, the advantage with WD is the 5 year warranty. I have built many servers in the last 5 years and my first choice have always been Seagate for SATA arrays.

[sage_viper]

Originally Posted by Khalil Seagate Hard Drives are excellent, the advantage with WD is the 5 year warranty. I have built many servers in the last 5 years and my first choice have always been Seagate for SATA arrays.

I must have been mistaken by a different brand, then.

[chuck4456]

I think that it's the 7200.11 series with firmware issues nevertheless I'd go with the WD BLACK as well.
I have held a cross for SEAGATE for a long time and used many of their drives - an infinite number of 250GB 410AS - but I have had 3 different RAID arrays go out in the past 6 months.
All different systems - all with SEAGATE drives.
I'm abit gunshy when it comes to SEAGATE right now.

[Khalil]

I agree chuck I would go with the WD if for nothing else the warranty is better currently. I used the Enterprise Class Seagates, they are incredibly stable. I have been buying 100% WD for PCs and Laptops for the last 2 years.

[Katreat]

Thx for replys. He does not need an OS, that will be comming off the old computer which is being retured from active service. We have had very good luck with seagate, but we will check out reviews on the new WD. Not sure why he chose samsung burner, we have always used lite-on or sony, good luck with both.

He is not shooting for a pure gamer, just something that will play most of them at good settings.

Would like to hear more about alternatives for MB and processor. Our last two builds where Intel, so this is our first good lock at AMD in about 6 years. If you have any alternative recommendation in this price range we would love to hear them.

Thanks again for the replys.

Kat

[sage_viper]

Well, for a mobo, GIGABYTE is a high quality brand but, according to this, they have poor customer service. The more renowned mobo brand would be an ASUS, but they are way out of your price range for a decent one (some of the cheaper ones that are <$100 seem to have some complaints about incompatibilities.)

Something to pay attention to with motherboards is the main connector and the 12V connector. You need to make sure that you have a power supply that supports what you need.

But it seems to me that the current choice works perfectly well for what it is intended to do.

As for my comment before about being the best for gaming, the dual cores also work well for everything else, and they save money. But as I said, if you aren't worried about it then go with the triple core.