Im in the market to build a new and better Computer. First time embarking on this adventure, need a little help with the build. Looking to spend around 700$ on this project.

The machine im running now's specs.


Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
AMD Athlon II X4 630
Propus 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
FOXCONN 2AB1 (CPU 1)
Graphics
HP S2331 (1920x1080@60Hz)
AMD Radeon HD 6670 (ASUStek Computer Inc)
Hard Drives
733GB Hitachi Hitachi HDS721075CLA332 SATA Disk Device (SATA)
Optical Drives
hp CDDVDW TS-H653R SATA CdRom Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

My only advice i can offe is newegg, find what you need and get itball on there i have yet to find anywhere with better prices

My advice: check out the DIY section, "entry/mainstream" on newegg - that's where I bought the system I built for about $500...wasn't bad for the price.

This list made by someone who obviously knows his stuff might help you out:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0AvaYhPmP5kwadHZsOW9QVFRkZEpzcUplak5zZFUyYnc&output=html

If you live near a micro center, find what parts you want on newegg and see if micro center has them. If not then just newegg it. You can save on shipping and in some cases micro center is the same price, if not cheaper.

inb4clorox.

NCIX is another great place for parts and if your not comfortable putting it all together they do it for $50. Pricewise I find them either the same as Newegg or cheaper, but the website is a bit harder to go through then Newegg.

i checked the list and while they would be functioning i wouldnt consider them high functioning systems for that $ range, especially with his "mix and match parts!" When i build a system i generally spend anywhere from 4-8 hours just researching components. Now to make sure all those components loose none of their bang between say a 1k system and 500$ system would require id say at least 20 hours more of research, and would almost defiantly end in either the high end or low end system suffering performance wise. I built my first PC at around age 10, and i can tell you that in all that time ive run into one person online that actually puts the effort in that i do, and understands what each different number means and where and when they matter. to even begin dissecting all of that would take pages of and pages of text though..so i will just leave it at that. would the computers function? yes. more than likely it would even beat out most prebuilt systems from craptastic companys like dell. however are they good home built systems? no.

anyway onto the meat of the subject, kenny i seriously doubt it would be possible to fully explain what to look for to you, even if you had enough of the background it would probably take me longer to explain it all than to pick the correct parts out for you.....

which brings me to my suggestion, if you know when (in other words a day or two from being ready to order at xxx value pc) and want me to find all the best parts in that range i will do so. can even say jump on vent with you to explain my process as i go if you want(though keyless talk would be better so steam chat or mumble. but i digress) Also if at that time anyone wanted to jump in to see what im talkign about that is cool as well, but if you dont have a decent amount of base knowledge than the info is probably going to be over your head. Anyway my schedule is rather open considering i dont have a job......so yeah hit me up if you want.

Oh as far as parts sites i use newegg only, this has a number of reasons behind it. Their ease of search, their prices tend to be VERY hard to beat, often times even when you find the same component cheaper elsewhere you end up paying more in shipping and that negates any advantage.(because your shipping is coming from two or three sites instead of one) not to mention so many newegg products have free shipping. Add to this that their customer service is absolutely outstanding. I've only ever had to return two parts, one DoA one that had been mishandled(a case, the box was crumpled) both times i got replacement parts in a day, add too it i did their customer service survey and they sent us a box of goodies for free just because i took the time to fill out something online?! so yeah absolutely satisfied with the site in so many ways.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... u=B69-1583



Thoughts?

prolly wouldnt trust me..but that looks pretty kick ass...however i dont know much about computers..i know enough to use it and thats about it i dont really know the inner workings of these things

dont know how all to break it to you other than this:its garbage.

The ram is bad, the mobo is horrid(especially for the price! a 130$ mobo should NOT end up with half the people with DOA's or chipsets failing within 3 months), the case is discontinued so i dont have a price on it(other than some ppl talking about 30$ after rebate) but id say out of everything its the best item in the bundle and even then i wouldnt use it without ordering at least 3 high quality fans to install in it. the PSU is a decent voltage for whats in the bundle, but really i would consider it on the low side of acceptable, even then 1 rail in my books is always a huge no no. still for a 1 rail psu its a good one. the card has good reviews, and obviously the processor is the processor.

However without doing any research(price comparisons etc) i cant guarantee all the bang for your buck...but im guessing on both processor and GPU i could get you more for less, the PSU would go up in price some, but that happens when you buy quality, and that is the #1 part on your PC you DONT want going bad, because when they do they can fry everything else. obviously for an extra 50$ spent on your dvd drive you can get a blueray player, the ram is just absolute garbage, bad cas latency mediocre bus speed. no hard drive or OS included in the kit(os really isnt an issue to me but no HD really?)

All in all your looking at 3 parts that either have a high chance of going bad, not working from the start, or needing/being replaced very quickly. The problem with builds like these that you find at places like tiger direct or newegg is that they tend to pull a lot of the parts from cheap/bad companys or discontinued/problematic parts. while this kind of computer is ok for office environment where its rarely going to be under a heavy load, a gaming machine tends to push a machines tolerances much more and it NEEDS to be taken into account while deciding its parts.(not to mention optimization of parts but i digress).


anyway end prognoses: you could damn near get better from dell in this case, and dell F*CKING blows. i mean super hard flying donkey chunks. god does dell suck, and this is something i could see THEM putting out. well ok its a lie, the mobo ram and psu would all be worse than what these are but still not a very good buy in my opinion.


edit: forgot to mention a few things, i tend not to like buying a bundled heatsink/processor these days because of the massive amounts of heat generated, one of the best ways to reduce your case heat (and increase the life of the system) is to get a good after market heatsink/fan. also a good paste. also also :P generally AMD provides more power/l1/l2 cache $ for $ than intel, so i tend to build amd systems. Also also also:didnt look super close at case but its always important to make sure you can vent out the side from the GPU(s) as they are the other big source of case heat. while it did have a vent i didnt look close to see if it has attachment points for 120mm fans, if not you would need to use one of your mobo slots to install fans, which depending on layout of case/slots/heatsinks/psu etc may not be possible. Again part of the reason i said it takes me so long to build a good computer, so many hundreds of factors to take into account and frankly most places do a piss poor job of it, especially for gaming rigs.

Unless you are worried about warranty type shit, I wouldn't go the retail route. Like this guy is selling a much better machine than the one you linked and it's only about 150 more. And I think he is overcharging and could be jewed down quite a bit.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1 ... 1039823943

If you are willing to piece it together you can save quite a bit of cash though. I don't wanna spend 20-30 minutes doing it, but for right around 600 bucks you can make a killer machine these days.

For the price that is not a bad system, yes the burner is not the greatest but it's a good CPU and a half decent Mobo. I don't know about the maker of the PSU and the case is an older Thermaltake but it's still a Thermaltake case so you have to save money some place to offer that deal. Kingston makes good solid Ram but yes it's not the best Ram on the market but for what Kenny needs and his budget it's more then good. Try building a system in his budget and you are not putting a i7 system together without sacrificing some huge parts.

Kenny you can't afford the most kick ass system in the world but that system has solid brand names on the essential parts. Read the reviews and if it's right for you I say get it.

Get a bigger budget. Save and wait if you have to.

I'm updating my hardware too. The CPU, mobo, RAM, and vid card, the most important components, will be over $700 alone. Luckily, I don't need anything else except a 120mm fan.

Micro center is actually cheaper for buying your CPU and mobo.

Not only will the CPU and mobo be cheaper by a little bit, but Micro Center gives you $40 off when you buy a CPU and mobo together.

So, actually much cheaper than newegg for those two parts.

Only 2 parts I have for my upgrade so far. Memory prices are through the roof right now. The RAM I want has literally gone up $100 since I was researching it in November, so I'm waiting for it to come back down.

The CPU should be an easy decision, just get an i5 3570k and be done. Anything more is a waste of money unless you really need it.

Garbage.

Rule of thumb: bundles are garbage, don't buy them.

Also, an i7 is way more than you need. That's spending like an extra $100+ for no reason.

The power supply is also garbage. Buy something quality like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139006 (Or this, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139021 it's on sale right now, or this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139022 extra 100 watts, slightly more expensive but, also on sale right now)

That's what I have (the first link). You need the extra juice (power) and quality, since you know, it plugs into almost every component, especially a good video card that's going to require TWO plugs from the power supply.

My frist suggestion would be to find out what parts of your old Pc you want to keep and move over to the new build. Things like dvd drives, hard drives, Ram and even the case is often reusable. I woudl suggest upgrading and getting a more modern cpu, motherboard, adding 4 more gigs of ram and getting a better video card. youc an likely switch to an intel i5 and new motherboard and upgrade your ram and video for around 500 bucks, Doing so will give you the same effect as a rebuild but will help you save on the cost so you can buy more games or just bank the extra cash.

actually had you bothered to read my post(either of them) you would have understood that it IS a bad system for the price. As stated by others, knock the processor down to an i5 save 100+ dollars for the same l1/l2 cache size(and bus speed), and unless your doing something INSANELY data intensive you will never notice the difference. go with amd save probably another 25$ and loose even less horsepower on the processor side. find a better AND cheaper mobo, knock another 50 off. Now you have room to spend 5-15$ to get much better ram in the same range as that same 8 gig stick but with better bus speed and cas latency. Toss an extra 50-75 from your savings to a quad rail 750w+ PSU. use the remainder on extra case fans. Thats not even counting the money that could either be spent equally(or saved) researching a better GPU/good discounted(or discontinued) case/better burner etc. For the 750-800$ range he seems to be looking at he can build a DAMN nice machine, one that will out perform most 1200$ machines bought from any prebuild company. Hell a bit of proper tweeking in the fun parts of windows and he can skull F*CK most 1500$ machines if not all of them. Dont tell me its not possible, every pre built i have EVER made has kicked the shit out of anything even close to its price range's benchmarks. My 2k system in 2004 with a friggen 256 card could play doom 3 on ultra with minimal tearing. 4k rigs with 2 512's crossfired didnt have my benchmarks. sure some of it was system tweeking, but a lot of it came down to not having "wasted" potential.

Here is my current build for my system that I run for work and play. Not over the top but wont need updating for a while.


GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8150FRGUBOX

Zalman CNPS14X Pure Aluminum High Performance 140mm Fan Ultra Quiet Interactive Heatpipe Transfer Design CPU Cooler

8 - COUGAR CF-V12H Vortex Hydro-Dynamic-Bearing (Fluid) 300,000 Hours 12CM Silent Cooling Fan

to keep my case cool and my processor nice and cold


G.SKILL Sniper Gaming Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9Q-16GBSR
Timing 9-11-10-28 stock ( mine is over clocked and timings adjusted )

Boot Drive - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

3 - shitty 500 GB hard drives

High Current Pro HCP-850 850W TX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

And I have a older 275 with upgraded heatsink and fan

and as my graphics accelerator a old 9800 GTX