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So I may buy a new computer sometime between 2 weeks from now and infinity. I already got Win7 64 bit, a hard drive and monitor, so don't need those. Also planning on using my old keyboard and mouse. Looking for everything else while staying under $1000! I have no experience with building my own computer. Newegg list so far:

Update!

GB GA-Z68A Intel Mobo - $129

Intel Core i5-2500k Sandy bridge 3.3Ghz + Mushkin Enhanced Blackline DD3 sdram 2x4 - $270 Combo.

Sentey Arvina Case - $100. It comes in 3 colors, think I'm going blue.

Sentey Golden Steel 850w PSU - $160

EVGA Superclocked Geforce GTX 560 2GB GDDR5 video card with SLI support - $245(-$25 mail in rebate)

LG CD/DVD burner and player - $19

Belkin Surge Protector-3996 joules, 12 outlets and phone/ethernet - $26

Here's the Tom's Hardware $1000 build from June. I built a similar system for Felix (in the Odd Couple thread in this forum).

The i5-2500K is the best value for a gaming rig CPU you can get right now. Of course, that would throw your choice of motherboard out as well. The P67 Extreme4 I use is one of the top boards around right now, although the Z68 chipset is the new flavor-of-the-month.

Reviewers agree. If you are building a system for gaming, and you aren't looking to spend a lot of money, then you want to design your system around the Intel i5-2500k. Don't even bother looking at anything else, there's absolutely no point.

Your choice of power supply seems a bit large, unless you are planning to add more drives and/or a second GPU later.

Curious as to your choice of video card.

Does it matter how big your system ends up? If you're just going to be gaming, there are a lot of Micro-ATX boards/cases out there that will draw less juice and be smaller while still being amazingly fast, though you would probably end up giving up the ability to do multi-GPU.

--Patrick

Yes, I wanted to leave multi gpu a future possibility.
Anyway, I'll start looking up the processor you suggested. If I switch to intel, will I have to change anything else other that mobo and ram? Or is the ram choice still fine too?

I was going to say buy a separate power supply rather than one that comes with a case, but you already did that. I'm also not familiar with AMD chips and am a year behind with my rig (i7-950) but I will say you picked a good video card. The GTX 460 is what I have and the 560 is supposed to be the equivalent type card for the 500 series (a.k.a. Great bang for the buck).

Switching to intel psu and mobo will put me over my $1000 limit. Even more so if I gotta switch the ram too. So I will have to downgrade some things for that to work. There is this recommended DVD player. Doesn't have blueray, but no biggie. $19 and good reviews is excellent. Might be able to find a cheaper tower too. Still gotta be roomy though.

There is this Rosewill Blackhawk gaming mid tower, which comes with the same combo deal with the PSU, that would shave off $50. Less big and bulky would be welcome, but I am worried it just wont be roomy enough, if I want a second video card or hard drive in there. Whatcha guys think?

Give me until I get home, I'll try to spec out something for you that will keep you under your $1k limit. I haven't done a build spec for a month or so, it'll help keep me current.

--Patrick

Why do you need a PSU that hefty? the 700W OCZ I have is plenty for the twin 6850s I have.

The Rosewill Blackbone case is only ~$50 and there's plenty of room for multiple hard drives and multiple video cards.

Provided the Rosewill Blackhawk gaming mid tower would be enough size for all future needs, my total with the changes is $959.24+$15.02 shipping. So that's perfect! Of course, the reviews for that processor suggests getting a new fan and heatsink for it. But even if that is the case, I don't believe those kind of extras are all that expensive.

I actually picked that PSU when I was looking up combo deals for the rosewill case. It was similar enough price as the other rosewill 800-1000w PSUs, but without the Christmas light show. The 800W gold certified one for $35 less, I'm sure would be fine. Other combos of PSU+case I was looking at was Coolermaster. They seem to be bit expensive though, but perhaps there is a reason.

Aesthetically I like this NZXT Zero 2 full towerCase. $100 is pretty cheap for a full tower. Question is, is it a cheap piece of crap that will crumble to bits when I touch it?

$240.00 - Intel 2500k CPU
$125.00 - GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 MLB
$60.00 - Kit of 2x4GB quality 1.5V DDR3-1600 or DDR3-1333 (lots of them available in that $ range)
$115.00 - 64GB SATAIII SSD (HDD1)
$175.00 - XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB
$200.00 - Seasonic X-850 PSU
$90.00 - COOLER MASTER RC-692-KKN2 CM690 II case
--------
$1005.00 - Total (less after rebates, should be enough less to maybe get that DVD drive you want)
...or you can leave off the SSD if you want more cash headroom (though you would give up the SSD caching).

All components meticulously chosen for performance under your budget. If you have questions about any specific component, let me know and I will be happy to explain (but I'm not gonna put up 7 paragraphs all at once or they'll get lost).

--Patrick

Wow, that looks like a really nice roomy mid size case, with a light switch! I might go for that one. Is there a reason you went with that PSU? I am asking because it's more expensive than the one I picked, ABS Majesty 1100w gold certified PSU. Also, your pick for a motherboard, is it better than MSI P67A-G43? Any particular brand of ram you recommend? Or recommend not to buy?

Is there a good way to figure out how much power various setups would actually require? I have a couple Thermaltake 650 PSUs kicking around that work beautifully, so if I can keep one for my next build, that would be nice....

-Because it's pretty much the best PSU you can buy for consumer systems. There are others that run neck and neck with it, but not for that price. You can save about $50 by getting the X750 instead of the X850, but a fully-loaded Z68 SLI system (once you get that 2nd GPU) can require about 700W, and I wasn't sure whether you would be happy with only a 50W buffer. More power isn't always better, from a heat/efficiency standpoint. According to ATX specs, a "typical" running load should fall between 50-75% of the PSU's rated wattage.

-The Gigabyte board uses the Z68 chipset, the MSI one uses the P67. That means the MSI one won't be able to do SSD caching nor Quick Sync. You might even be able to save a few more bucks by only getting a 32GB SSD instead of the 64GB one, but I figured you would want the maximum cache size possible. The biggest potential drawback is that the Gigabyte board looks like it uses BIOS instead of EFI, meaning your max C: drive size will be limited to 2TB.

-I recommend DDR3-1333/1600 RAM because testing shows there really isn't that much difference in performance between 1600 and 2133 speed RAM (but there is a difference in price). The brand of RAM matters more for the guarantee the vendor offers than anything else. So long as you choose ram that is rated at 1.5v or less, and has CAS latency of 9 or smaller, you'll be doing pretty well. There are performance vendors with fancy heat spreaders, (the G.Skill ripjaws, for instance), but you will need to make sure that the board and case have room for odd-shaped modules before you purchase them. Good brands (in alphabetical order):Corsair, Geil, G.Skill, Kingston, Mushkin, Samsung. Within each brand, some lines are still better than others, so don't jump at a $20 'value' deal just because it has one of these names.

--Patrick

EDIT: @SpecialKO - There are multiple PSU calculators out there. Just search for "PSU Calculator"

Somehow I am not following you on the psu thing. If I can get more watts by paying less, wouldn't that be good? Or is it that brand that is crap? Unless you can type something slowly, that I understand, I am not changing!
Anyway, updating OP with new STUFFS!!

If I can get more watts by paying less, wouldn't that be good?

Click to expand...

But...are you really?

There's nothing that says you have to change your choices. It's just advice. The ABS brand is not crap. Your choice of power supply is really, really good...unless you need more than 800W, at which point the voltage regulation starts to go so far out of ATX spec that you could actually fry your MLB and processor (now you know why the price has been reduced by so much). Basically it's an 800W PSU which is being advertised as an 1100W. This is absolutely no problem if you will never use more than 800W*. The Seasonic, however, stays rock solid all the way up to its rated maximum of 850W. In fact, it stays rock solid even when loaded beyond 1000W...which makes it more like an 1100W PSU being advertised as an 850W. I think that's a much better deal for your money (since PSU failure is probably the #1 cause of permanent/expensive computer death) , so that's why I called it "...the best PSU you can buy for consumer systems."

I know there are some big numbers on the outside of the ABS box, and I know they are very tempting, but the Seasonic is repeatedly, undeniably, irrefutably better in every way. Even if it does cost $20 more.

--Patrick
*I'm serious about that. It looks like a quality product...but only up to 800W max.

You're probably right. The first 1 egg review is mentioning that you only get 900W usable because they put 200w on the 3.3v rail, or somesuch. I still don't like that price tag! Are there any other brands that are almost as reliable?

PC Power & Cooling, OCZ, Enermax, Antec (usually), Thermaltake (usually). Most of the time, total up your wattage and your cabling needs, add 10%, then start hunting through the review sites (there's a lot of 'em out there) for PSUs that are in your wattage range until you find something in your price range. Just because something has one of these brand names is no guarantee, though. You will want to make sure the model you are considering is actually good. Everybody has their lemons.

--Patrick

Here's an unrelated question, on a lot of the newegg consumer reviews of various different towers and motherboards, there are people complaining that the front USB or audio ports has static or causes their computer to short out. Since it's so common I was wondering if it's a manufacturers error or if the buyer simply put the computer together sloppily. If it's the latter, I would of course like to avoid that. So is there some kind of make sure the red wire doesn't cross the blue wire advice that can prevent this?

For the psu I might go for a brand called Sentey. Cheap and pretty unknown, they still seem to be getting very good reviews. Like here. Now should I get 850w for $160 or 1000w for $190?

Front USB ports are connected by an 18in (or s0) cable to headers on the board. These cables act as antennae inside the computer, picking up electrical noise generated by other components. USB ports on the back of the computer are connected directly to the MLB, meaning they have (next to) none of this antenna effect.

Sentey (and their OEM manufacturer, Superflower) PSUs appear to get pretty good ratings. Most importantly, they seem to be getting good ratings from people who electrically test PSUs, and not just review their looks. As to whether you get the 850W or the 1000W, that depends on the needs of your rig. PSUs work their best when your 'usual' load is at about 70-80% of the max capacity, so get the 1000W if your typical load will be 700-800W, or get the 850W if your typical load will be 500-650W.

--Patrick

Sentey seem to have some pretty nice cases too. Not offered on newegg atm, though. So would have to get it from amazon, or somewhere else.

*Edit* Nevermind, here is their newegg case selection ---> http://www.newegg.com/Store/BrandSubCategory.aspx?Brand=13670&SubCategory=7&name=Computer-Cases

Many component makers are often 'rebranders' rather than 'manufacturers.' If you can find the OEM mfr, you have a better chance of knowing how good a product is. So even if you can't find any cases made by "Sentey," you might be able to find one made by the people who contract Sentey to make their cases.

--Patrick

Think that list is done. Unless I happen upon something I can't pass up.

Thank you PatrThom and everyone else! You helped keep the overwhelming to a minimum. If I would've found out after the fact that I was buying exactly the wrong thing, I would have made this face -->

I still want to check and make sure that ram and mobo work well together. That they are sold together is not a guarantee, according to newegg's disclaimer. Also need to read some reviews and tests on that video card to make sure it's not a total dud. One thing I notice is it says sli support instead of sli ready. Is there a difference?

Hey, which one of you hacks bought the entire selection of sentey PSUs at newegg? Not a single 850w or 1000w left! Hopefully, they will be restocked by the time I can place my order. Gonna start looking at alternatives, just in case though. Either buy that PSU from a different online store, or buy a different brand from newegg.

However it ends up, let us know what you chose and how it works. I'm sure there are others out there (besides me) who are interested to know how it all went together.

--Patrick

I've had my new computer for little over a month now and so far it's running great and is silent like a ninja! Managed to stay just under $1000 and I got a Bree Batman Arkam City cupon. So far I've mostly been playing City of Heroes and Lord of the Rings online on it. Graphics turned all the way up looks amazing. Can't wait to see Skyrim on it. My old computer is so slow it couldn't even run Morrowind (which I also plan on now buying).

Here's what I ended up with:

Sentey Arvina Only I bought the blue, not red one. Not listed anymore for some reason.
GA-Z68XP-UD3
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
Evga Superclocked Geforce GTX 560 2GB GDDR5
Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 1000W
ADTA Premier Series 2x4GB DDR3
Sony 24X DVD-Drive (was free)
Belkin Surge Protector

Thank you everyone for the help. Thanks to you instead of a good computer I got an amazing one. PatrThorn's advice was very educational.

More importantly, you've got one that'll last you a while. You might have to upgrade the GPU later or add more RAM, but the rest of it will still be kickin' butt for a few years to come. You put away $1/day until this system becomes inadequate and when that day comes you'll be back up to enough to build Killer System II: The Sequel.

--Patrick