My First Build!

[Dirkpitt45]

Hey guys, been lurking this forum for a week or so now.

My current dell POS is badly in need of a replacement. My budget is around 1k, less would be nice. I'm attempting to build something that can play anything at relatively high settings. I'm not a serious gamer or anything, I just like playing them in my spare time. So having crysis running at 60 fps with everything maxed isn't a priority. I'd just like it run everything in the medium-high area. I also won't have this kind of money to spare for a few years (school) so it has to be able to keep up with new programs and such.

Dvd Drive/Burner
Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16827118030

Power Supply
Rosewill RP550V2-D-SL 550W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817182030

Video Card
EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814130339

Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16822136320

RAM
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16820145184

Motherboard
ASUS M4A78 Plus AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16813131381

Processor
AMD Phenom 9950 Agena 2.6GHz black edition

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16819103291

Case
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16811129021

As for the case I've yet to decide on wether to order one from online or look around at home for one at a local store. Pretty sure I've got everything Relatively new to computer hardware, but I have been researching for a bit now. Looking for some opinions from the pros and people with first hand experience with this.

Any and all help/suggestions are appreciated, thanks in advance

Ok I looked up some parts from newegg and have to say I do like it a lot better than tiger. I'm pretty sure the new parts are about equal to the old and for $200 less The case still poses a problem, with it S&H is 59.97 so that makes it a 140$ case.

Ryan.

[Khalil]

Welcome to PCmech.
For $1000 you can build an excellent machine.
Tigerdirect is rubbish. They sell distressed merchandise, have aweful customer support.
That power supply is a low end, look at FSP, Sea Sonic, OCZ and Corsair.
MSI has no customer support, you need an Asus motherboard.
The CPU is great.
Look around here www.newegg.com Let us know what you think then we will give you a nice list of excellent hardware.

[Dirkpitt45]

Thanks for the quick reply, I just finished reading a post about tiger vs newegg, only reason I went with tiger was that when I started I was on my mom's laptop and newegg popped up with a horizontal scroll bar and it was rather annoying.

Mostly clicked on that MSI board because my dad's friend saw me looking around, said he bought one and it was great, but I think I trust you more .

[Dirkpitt45]

Ok updated with parts from newegg.

I was wondering on the video card though, changed it to a 9800 gtx mostly because of price, 82$ with the 15$ mail in rebate. Figured if there was a noticeable performance difference I could always buy 2 in SLI and still come out ahead in price. But if the EVEGA GTS 250 is a lot better then I'd stick with that.

[Khalil]

I like everything other than that Rosewill power supply.
Here is what I recommend http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139004
Unless you are in love with Nvidia I recommend you go with an ATi 4850, either an Asus or Diamond

[chuck4456]

Take it from a fellow CLIVE CUSSLER reader, you'll like this much better:

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/4954/44943597.jpg

The reason that I put 3 hard drives on the list is because since you will be in college, you will probably accumulate a lot of stuff and need the storage. You can set them up in RAID 5 and have plenty of storage and back up. At the very least you should plan on having at least one back up hard drive.
You want a case with good airflow and ventilation options.
Don't forget your monitor and operating system. If you already have those, great.

[LeftyAce]

I have to disagree with chuck...with the availability of huge low cost harddrives, trying to deal with RAID isn't worth it. Get a big enough harddrive (they have them up to 1.5 or 2 TB), and if you outgrow it, you can always add one. The price per gigabyte of harddrives is constantly falling, so you'll get a better deal when you actually need the space anyhow.

[Dirkpitt45]

On hardrives, the one I have now is only 145mb and it's lasted me two years with 8 gb still free. I figured a 500gb would be large enough, as I don't download much and word docs/psd's don't take up a huge amount of space. To me it's like buying an 80 gb ipod, nice sure, but why spend more when you can make an effort to keep your computer clean and organized?



http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814129112
Is this card good? Has lots of good reviews and is a good price.

[Khalil]

It is an ok card but if it fails you might not get the customer support you need. This is why I suggested Asus or Diamond, they both have quick RMA service in the event the unlikely failure.

I believe the OP was looking at an AMD system with a Quad Core.
Raid 5 is a very bad idea for a non server or high end workstation application because onboard Raid controllers don't hack it. To go with Raid one would want a proper controller to have reliability.