Will ya'll please help me build my first gaming desktop? i'm a complet newbie to it and have a budget.?

Question

i am a full time college student and only one part time job. but my current computer is dying a slow death. i'd like to build my own gaming pc but don't know anythin about it. the pc will be responsible for primarily gaming but also school work and web/multimedia.

what parts do i get? what brands? what are there prices? where do i buy them? what should i expect as a final cost? i also own a PS3 and would like to get graphics as close to it as possible. please please help me with AS MUCH INFO as possible.

Answer 1

just buy this one

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...

seriously for $500 this pc is amazing

Answer 2

look up these items at newegg.com

the box

case-----nzxt tempest--------105$

motherboard---evga 750i sli socket 775----------190.00

psu-----corsair tx650watts--------90.00$

gpu---evga 8800gt 512mb--130$

cpu----intel q9300 or a intel e8400 dual core-----quad270.00--e8400--170.00$

ram----corsair dominator pc2 8500  2gigs  1066mhz------85$

cpu cooler---zalman9700---------60$

and optical drive/dvd/cd combo--------30$

hard drives------western digital 320gig 16mb cache------70$

total1,030.00......that will run any game out, plus you have the option to sli......if you overclock the board is very good......that set up with 2 more hard drives in raid0 (extra 200.00) and some overclocking will get ya about 14-15000 3d06 mark...w/ 1 8800gt....so thats an idea of some parts you can look into....you can go with the e8400, it will game really good...get the quad if you do a lot of multitasking........here the link to newegg.....scott

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory....

EDIT-----ok go with the e7200 and just 1 hard drive....880.00

Answer 3

First, figure out your budget.  Don't forget to budget in an operating system (count on spending around $100 or so) and a monitor, if you aren't going to use your current one.  Nowadays, around $800-$1200 or so gets you something pretty good (without monitor).  As you get cheaper than $800, the quality of what you can get drops pretty quickly, though you can still build  an OK gaming PC for less than $800 if you chose parts carefully.  Go to Newegg and browse to get an idea of prices.

Second, figure out what you want to use it for.  You said gaming, but there's a big gap between "runs WoW well" and "runs Crysis on high settings".  Also, does "web/multimedia" mean watching YouTube and web surfing or doing things like video editing with Premiere?

Third, do some research, so you aren't just blindly taking some stranger's advice on Yahoo Answers.  Google for "build  PC" (and search on YouTube, too) to see how to build one.  Look at some of the system building guides, like this:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15009

to see examples of parts that go together.  Visit the forums at sites like HardOCP or Anand Tech or Tom's Hardware to get an idea of what people are building (there are usually lots of "does this build look OK?" questions).  Wikipedia is a good resource for looking up things like "What does LGA775 mean?" or "What is PCI Express?"

When you put together your build, Google for reviews of the components you're thinking about. There are benchmarks and reviews for most of the graphics cards, processors, power supplies, and most other components that you'll be considering.

Here's rough outline of a suggested build, but these are just suggestions.  Browse the parts on Newegg to get a feel for the different alternatives.

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 or 590 or Antec 900

Motherboard: Get some Gigabyte or Asus P35 or P45 board, like a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L or one of the Asus P5Q series of motherboards.

Processor: Intel e7200 or e8400 or q6600

Memory:  Go to http://www.crucial.com and use their memory selector.  Get at least 2GB or (better) 4GB of RAM.

Disk: Maybe a Western Digital WD3200AAKS SATA drive

DVD/CD: Get some Samsung SATA DVD/CD burner/reader

Power supply: A Corsair 450vx or 550vx or maybe 650tx, depending on your processor and video card.

Video card: 9600gt or 512MB 8800gt or Radeon 4850

Operating system: Get Vista 64 Home Premium OEM unless you have specific applications you need to run that won't work under Vista 64 or you want one of the features in Vista Ultimate.

EDIT:

For $800, not including an OS, start by choosing the cheapest of the parts listed above and see how much it adds up to.  If  it's less than $800 (and it should be), then decide if it's worth it to you to get something better and what parts you'd like to upgrade (graphics card vs CPU, etc).

Answer 4

The two above me are wrong one dont buy that computer.

It does not have an os aka vista xp mac. So you have to buy one for like $200 to even get your computer to work.

The girl above me is right in a way though because consoles are graphics and proccesing demons because they have to be like a high end computer for 6 years.

So to really get your pc games to look as good as your consoles is an easy $2000 plus.

Answer 5

First off, you're not going to get PS3 graphics from a gaming PC on a budget.  Consoles are made -- generally -- with graphics solely in mind.  Here's some advice: sell the PS3 and use it to buy a worthwhile gaming computer.

You're going to want to use Newegg.com -- but as far as your specs go, it's so much based on which games you actually want to be able to play and how much money you actually have.

You're going to end up spending up to $1,000+ more than you have to if you don't read up on the hardware yourself and learn about building the machine.  People are going to throw really terrible brands and builds at you that will cost you a lot more than you really need to spend for a machine that can perform better for cheaper.

On top of that, you need to make sure that all of the hardware works together otherwise you'll have wasted all that time and money just to realize it doesn't work.  I'm at least hoping you know how to BUILD a computer if you don't even know how to buy parts for one?

Maybe you should just stick with a Dell XPS or something.

edit: I'm not sure what Andrew, below, is talking about.  You're also not going to want to have Vista or OSX (Mac) as a gaming operating system.  Vista just isn't compatible with a lot of games, especially for whatever budget you've got and there are a lot of hardware compatibility issues with it too.  Stick with XP for now.