Good deal for 400 bucks?

[Wizzdingo]

Wow, thanks for all that feedback. I'm feeling pretty good about myself because I understood most of it, meaning I might be able to take this bad boy on yet.

Thanks for the brand warnings, sometimes is just hard to know what is quality and what isn't without trial an error, and that's not my preferred method.

With all this in mind, i believe its time for me to start gathering parts.

[x1SHOTx3KILLSx]

It's always a good sign when people understand/read my wall of text posts . Good luck gathering parts and if you have any other questions please ask. I (or someone else I'm sure) will try to help. Also, when you've got a list together, post it so we can double check compatability and stuff (no one wants to start building a system and then notice that something doesn't fit).

Oh, and as for brands:

Motherboards:
- ASUS: The only manufacturer that really matters in my (and many people's) opinion. They absolutely dominate the market and deserve to. Unlike many they build for both AMD and Intel sockets and since they have been doing so for such a long time, they have an absolutely ridiculous portfolio of boards available. You can literally find a board for any budget and you'll still be impressed.
- MSI: I have never used one however I have always heard great things about them. They are very solid but since they can't compete with the massive market that ASUS has developed their boards do not span every budget. You'll still find quality, but it may be difficult to find certain features for certain prices.
- Gigabyte: A decent manufacturer and currently the only builder of the XL-ATX board designed for stupid amounts of expansion. My only issue with them is that their boards are always some wacky neon color or something which simply does not fit with my sleek builds.

Power Supplies:
- Corsair: They jumped into the PSU game recently (or at least with a lot of products) and have already managed to grab quite a few titles for PSU development. Of course I will be biased towards them since they have never done me wrong but they have reasonably priced components spanning many wattages and forms. Also, since it's Corsair, they all come with nice warranties and the nice shiny ones (high wattage/modular) will come with lifetimes.
- Antec: The best for a very long time. Their PSU's you'll notice to be very cheap compared to others but trust me when I say they are quality work. They also have a larger market than Corsair so you can definitely find some oddball wattages if you need to.
- Ultra: First to get into the modular game and they are definitely nice looking. However, I have heard that they have a noticeable failure rate and I think they know this since if you register your PSU online you will get a lifetime warranty. But to be honest, I'd really not like to use a warranty on a PSU, since the last thing I want is a giant box of electricity to break in my expensive system.

ATI Graphics Cards:
- XFX: They used to be only decent but now that most cards (of the same number) are the same price, you definitely can't beat their instant lifetime warranty. I mean, the last thing you want is for your $300 5850 to go up in smoke after a year of heavy gaming. As I mentioned before, in the current market, you're buying warranties.
- Sapphire: The only other manufacturer I would recommend. They are also the only manufacturer that you'll notice to price their cards higher than others. This is because they clock their cards slightly higher than the factory default settings. To be honest though, if you want to do that you can simply clock it yourself. The hardware is the same though so you could clock any card up to their frequency and save the money. Once again though, great quality here but I'd still go for the better warranty.

Hard Drives:
- Western Digital: The only drives I will ever buy...ever. I have used many brands (which I will list) but nothing feels as reliable as a good old WD. They may be slightly more expensive (hardly) but they are worth it. For ~$10 extra (compared to similar sized WD drives) you can get the Black version which comes with a nice 5 year warranty that I doubt you will ever need to use. The usual lifespan of a HDD is supposed to be a little over a year. My server has 2 in it and it's been cranking for 4.
- Seagate: Don't. They only exist for their overpriced 15k RPM Data Center drives. Otherwise their normal stuff has probably the highest failure rate of any drive manufacturer. My old server has 3 500 GB's in it (2 WD, 1 Seagate) and they're sitting in a RAID 0 array. It's been running fine for about 2 years now but it does get loud and it does get hot compared to the others. I'm currently ordering a triplet of WD 1TB's so I can completely ditch the thing before it blows up. Yes, their $50 1TB drives may look nice, but in the HDD market, you get what you pay for.
- Maxtor: If you want to live in what sounds like a wind tunnel, get a few. I think that speaks for itself.
- Hitachi: Probably my second choice if all the WD hard drives in the world disappeard. My friend runs them in his server farm and if they're good enough for him they're good enough for me. He also endorses WD but his company gets good prices with Hitachi.

Memory:
- When I get home since I'm at work typing this .
tl;dr: Corsair >= Kingston > OCZ

-x1

[Dean Wormer]

x1 LOVES his ATI/AMD products. I've always had great success with nVidia and Intel, but I guess it's just personal preference. Might be my imagination, but I feel like nVidia cards have better compatibility with games as well. Otherwise it's A+ advice.

Just want to balance out his mild bias by reminding you of other options

[x1SHOTx3KILLSx]

x1 LOVES his ATI/AMD products. I've always had great success with nVidia and Intel, but I guess it's just personal preference. Might be my imagination, but I feel like nVidia cards have better compatibility with games as well. Otherwise it's A+ advice.

Just want to balance out his mild bias by reminding you of other options

Nah, I like Intel, just not there overpriced i-series. The server that I helped design for the house is going to have a Xeon in it since cheap Opterons hardly exist anymore. And as for nVidia, there is one in my old desktop and I can't complain, but currently they have absolutely nothing on ATI. Their cards are weaker, use more power, are more expensive, and lets face it, aren't as badass looking .

Oh and Wizz here wanted a budget rig, and I'm sorry, but this just doesn't sound right "Intel isn't expensive."

-x1

[Wizzdingo]

Alrighty, here's the rig. Its all from Newegg, and some utilize their weekend deals. However, $605.54 is a bit high for my taste. I still need to pick up a peripherals (Mouse and Keyboard mainly) as well as a cd/dvd drive and OS. All together i think it'll be a pretty good rig, but is there anywhere I can cut a bit of cost? Hopefully everything is compatible, and hopefully I'll make this purchase Sunday.

Shopping Cart

Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ,comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm ...
Item #: N82E16811147153

$39.99 LINK

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822136074


$49.99 LINK


ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813131398


$99.99 LINK


XFX HD-567X-ZNF3 Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814150467

$10.00 Mail-in Rebate14-150-467


$104.99 LINK

Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Item #: N82E16817371016

$64.99 LINK


Kingston ValueRAM 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3K3/3GR
Item #: N82E16820134853


$73.99 LINK

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX
Item #: N82E16819103808

$159.99 LINK


Subtotal: $593.93

Shipping: $11.61

Grand Total: $604.54

Hopefully A Link To Full System

Or maybe scrap buying each piece and going with one of newegg's combo rigs HERE, where it looks like all i need is to throw in a GFx Card.

[Wizzdingo]

OR..... I decided to try to throw together some other parts and got a rig for about $518 not including shipping

CASE/PSU/DVD $50
MOBO/CPU $235
HDD $44
RAM $94
GFX $95 (MIR)

I dont know if the Video Card is PCIe 2.0 x2 and therefore wont work with the mother board. When I sorted for 1x PCIe 2.0 it came up with that card.

[x1SHOTx3KILLSx]

I don't know if this is completely true, but last I checked, any 5k Series graphcis card will most likely be a dual form factor card. I know you want to save some cash, but you really shouldn't try to save a few pennies on the important parts and when it comes to boards, I wouldn't recommend a Micro-ATX. They simply won't last you as long as a normal ATX board will due to their lack of expandability. $20 more and you'll have a full ATX board with an AM3 slot that will easily last you 4+ years.

-x1

[FoolsRushIn]

Just an update on my new rig.

Finally got ahold of the guy and bought an extra 4gigs of ram and installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Let me tell you - this thing is a beast! Going from 20-30fps in TF2 to a constant 90-120 FPS is a HUGE difference. Really happy with the deal, and thanks to you all for a little guidance.

Happy high FPS gaming!

Fools

[Wizzdingo]

Just an update on my new rig.

Finally got ahold of the guy and bought an extra 4gigs of ram and installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Let me tell you - this thing is a beast! Going from 20-30fps in TF2 to a constant 90-120 FPS is a HUGE difference. Really happy with the deal, and thanks to you all for a little guidance.

Happy high FPS gaming!

Fools

Hurray for new Toys! Happy Fragging

[Lightnin_ch0wn]

NICE!

no wonder you've been blowing me away in game more recently