First Build: Cheap Gaming PC

[profoundgrain]

So I would like to spend about $600. Am planning on OC the CPU. Am Planning on running 2 screens; One 20-ish inch HD 1080p screen (Something like that - if anyone has any suggestions), and a 17" LCD screen, neither screen included in the cost. I play World of Warcraft, some picture editing some webpage stuff, nothing requiring too much hard drive space. Would be running windows 7 also not included in the 600. Have mouse and keyboard. So what I was thinking:

CPU: Intel I5 760 $170
Mobo: ASUS P7P55 $99 or possibly $40 if I can get the open box deal
GPU:Radeon HD 5770 $135
PSU: Corsair 650W $70
Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc Black DVD RW $20
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black $80 Micro Center has a refurbished one for $60. Should I spend the extra $20 or is refurbished good?
CPU Cooling: Cool Master Hyper 212+ $30
Case: Antec 900 $80
Memory: I dont really know was looking at OCZ Reaper 4gb (2x 2GB) because there is a combo deal with the PSU which would make the memory cost $60

So I am over my $600 dollar mark but barely, so I was wondering what you guys think? Where can I save a little money or do a little better for my money?

[David M]

Make sure any open box hardware has a warranty and is returnable. Be leery about anything someone else has returned. There is no such thing as refurbishing for most most computer parts...it's kind of an abused word. The more accurate term would be "possibly used, possibly abused, possibly missing parts, possibly broken and then returned".

Get Corsair or Kingston RAM...OCZ is not as reliable.

The rest looks good.

[Nikon]

most definately avoid open box anything. those are items that have been returned. god only knows why they may have been returned, but do you want to take the risk?

also avoid OCZ anything. from my own personal experience, nothing OCZ ever lasted longer then 2 months, many only lasted a few hours. as far as ram, there is a 4gb a-data set for something like 60-70 bucks.

i dont even know how you can 'refurbish' a hdd without sending it overseas to the factory to be rebuilt. stick with the new, it could very well save you a headache and extra shipping costs.

if you really want to OC the processor, your going to need an aftermarket cooler. stock coolers are generally only capable of cooling the cpu at stock speeds.

are you hardset on intel, or are you willing to give amd a try? if so, i just recently built my brother a system on that exact budget for the same reasons. plays WoW on ultra w/o a hiccup.

one last thing, if those monitors run at different resolutions, you are going to put a heck of alot of strain on your gpu. while it doesnt matter the physical size, or native resolution, running them at different resolutions makes the card work 2x as hard. i would try to avoid this by simply setting them at the same resolution

[glc]

Crucial and A-Data are also good ram brands.

I would spend more on the video card and less on the processor if you are building a budget gamer. The i3-540 is plenty good enough to game with, and you can always upgrade that later.

You can certainly get a cheaper case. Coolermaster has a whole line of well-constructed cases that are less expensive than Antec.

[profoundgrain]

Can you give me a recommendation on what graphics card to use?

[glc]

How much can you spend on it?

[profoundgrain]

Well I guess $200

[glc]

Radeon 6850 or GTX 460 1gb. If you can go closer to $250, Radeon 6870.

[Nikon]

idk if i said this already, but just fyi, the gtx 460 1gb will run WoW cataclysm @ ultra w/o a hiccup in even the most demanding areas.

[profoundgrain]

So thinking about the different resolutions on the monitors, would it be smart to get a second cheap GPU to run the 17" plain LCD monitor which will be the secondary monitor?

[Nikon]

ehhh, thats a good question. i can only fear that using 2 dissimilar GPUs will potentially cause driver problems. i have never tried or seen this tbh.

[David M]

You don't necessarily need a second graphics to run a second monitor. Your card needs to have two or more graphics ports, which all of the newer ones do.

So you don't have to buy a second card to run two different monitors each at their native resolution, buy a single card and a second monitor of the same resolution. It will cost you less plus it will allow you to run an Eyefinity setup. The AMD 5000 and 6000 series cards will run Eyefinity. Gaming on multiple monitors is fantastic.

[glc]

You do not need identical resolution monitors to simply extend the Windows desktop.