Recommendation On Building A PC? (first Time)

I'm unsure where this would belong so I put here.

Long story short I'd like to make desktop that's decent for gaming. That's not all the desktop will be used for just so that when i do play games i can enjoy it. Not say a powerhouse gaming desktop but just one that would play them at atleast medium to high settings w/o any problems.

I was going to get a laptop....specifically this one but my friend says I should keep my mind open on that since although I can't put a desk in my room (room to small) he recommends I can get a HDMI abled TV (which i planned anyway) and use that as the desktop's monitor?


Thoughts? Opinion?


As for games... (and maybe other mid resource heavy stuff)

PSO2LOL (maybe) Star Wars: Old Republic (maybe) GC Emulator (dolphin) Potentially other Emulators
Photoshop
Sony Vegas

In terms of price range I'd like to do a cheap as I can but seein that would enjoy to play some games on it doubt that'll be an easy task but if i can....i'd liek to spend no more then 800 (600 if can)


As of right now it's just a thinking phase so any advice would be appreciate....well...non negative :P lol

Do you have all the peripherals like monitor/mouse/keyboard/everything and do you have anything like a case/PSU/GPU to can be reused or just looking for a full new build?

This is a decent build for $800 (Well like *25 with shipping)

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139011

PSU + Heatsink:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103057

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157279

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145315

Video Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127682

Obligatory Optical Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

If you need Windows and stuff feel free to change/cheapen parts. Or if you need more help, I can see what I can do about making it cheaper.

New build all together lol

As for the monitor due to my room being a bit too small for a desk my friend gave me the idea of just getting a decent HDMI TV and use that as a monitor...


Ideally Im looking at this...unless by the time I do this Id find a TV about the same size/quality for cheaper. I could get a cheap TV from this TV store by my house but don't think they have warranty for those unfortunate mishaps that unexpectedly occur lol

Insignia™ - 40" Class - LCD - 1080p - 60Hz - HDTV


I just got in the house so imma bout to look at your links now

Or if you have low moral standards you can just pirate a copy of windows to save money. That's always an option to consider. Then buy a copy later if you feel bad about pirating windows, etc.

This is coming from someone who has no pirated copies of windows across 6 windows pcs but I understand that it can't really be helped sometimes.

Haha I see your point. If my friend still has it, I may can get his copy since he originally bought the 64 bit version when in actuality he had the 32.... lol

I wanna say its Home Premium for 7 .I know its 7 just unsure version not like it really matters....


As for the extra peripherals I was planning on getting a wireless keyboard/ mouse (prevent clutter with mouse since due to the TV being the monitor it'll be more like a home theater system so wireless would probably be better)


With that said i was looking at this...
Again that just varies if i can find something bout the same for lower price but i like the feel of this one...was trying it at bestbuy earlier....although I might do some research on that as I wonder if they have some the same way with thw wrist but charge via USB instead of batteries.....not a huge deal can always get rechargeable AA to solve that problem :P

Logitech - MK550 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse

the most i'd say about peripheral selection would be to get wireless everything since you're going go be using a TV. I'm like 1metre away from my monitors but I don't think you'd want to sit that close to a 40" TV.

@Weakness so far from what I grasped.
(I learned the components of the computer in school but to put together and understand each technical detail im fuzzy at)

It would be good :)
I do have a question(s) though.
1. Would 1GB of Dedicate graphic be enough for game play? I know the games I play aren't resource heavy but would I get a decent graphic detail from games with it?
2. I've gotten mix reviews from various people about i5 vs i7 and 2nd gen vs 3rd gen.

Are they a HUGE difference if you don't get i7/3rd?

Also true....the TV size is debatable since i haven't done proper measurin yet...... just for 300+ but under $400 that one was the better deal for the price.

I can say from the front end of my LOL old tv stand to the back wall is bout 8 feet.
I plan to move my bed closer to the back wall.... we had an extra carpet rolled up I didn't know what to do with (moved here not too long ago) so just left between the wall and the bed....


Currently from the wall to the corner of the bed is 15 inches which will be moved to the wall...

I believe I have a Full size bed so w/e average size that is.....

my TV stand is 32in X19 1/2in


Idk if that's enough info to make a guestimate of a decent TV size

vram mainly affects the performance at high resolutions.
1080p gaming is fine with 1GB of vram but any higher will probably start wearing down.

I might swap the motherboard out for a Z77 chipset board if you're concerned about 3rd gen expandability. Unless you intend to use intel's quicksync extensively, there's no improvement. ivybridge was just a die shrink and intel video ugprade unfortunately.

something like this would support ivybridge in the future:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

Since I tossed out a sandy bridge chip, I just used a sandy bridge mobo.

In reality, you shouldn't need to go above a 2500k (can OC it pretty high with a decent aftermarket cooler).

If you have experience with OC'ing and want to go a bit cheaper, AMD's FX series OC like champs with a little finesse for a bit cheaper. Typically though, Intel with be a slight increase over the AMD counterpart for a little more money.

If you want the absolute best, then yes an i7 is better then an i5 and ivy bridge is better then sandy... but yeah, 2500k is all you realistically need at a decent price point since you're on a budget. Ivy bridge was like a whopping 19% increase or something over sandy, so not like it would be highly noticeable outside of benchmarks.

And I'm using a GTX 570 myself and have yet to bump into any issues. I play games mostly at 1080... but there isn't a huge difference between 1080 and 720. So bumping down screen resolution to compensate VRAM isn't the end of the world if you have to.

Edit:
My dad has that exact keyboard/mouse set... I use it when I am over there on slow days and I don't mind them. The keyboard is just a basic keyboard, but the mouse is kind of small for me (I have kinda big hands though, so you may find it comfortable).

Oh and about the TV thing. Not all TV's, but every one that I have used is bitchy about screen resolution with HDMI. At 1080 my 42" has the edges cut off and only doesn't have this effect at native resolution for the TV (1360x768)... had this same issue with 3 TVs.

So if 1080 is a big thing for you, HDMI might not be the way to go. If you don't give a ***then go for it. Personally, I don't mind... stuff looks fine at 1360x768 on the TV and if I am just duplicating my monitor the run off is about half the windows bar all the way around at 1080.

Ok I was talking with a friend about your selection weakness and he suggested a few different things. (Bold will be the changes)

I forgot when you change the Mobo you have to change the power supply at times as well...
He mentioned that since the processor was 2500K states it can overclock and if I wish to do so....would be recommended to use Liquid Cooler Heatsink....otherwise can just use the heatsink you recommended.

Still undetermined whether to overclock since i don't fully know the In's and Out's of it

Check up on the TV itself...the max res on the TV
1920 x 1080 if that means anything

You can change what you like, I'm just a fan of corsair products so I'm a bit of a brand loyalist. GSkill tends to be a bit cheaper RAM wise as well for a few extra pennies. Modular PSUs are quite nice, but the case I suggested has plenty of room for airflow even with a non-modular.

As for all in one coolers, I wouldn't suggest anything below an H-80. They are a bit pricey, and really only perform on par with higher air cooling kits. The N520 is great, a 212 with 2 fans works wonderful as well for cheaper solutions. I personally used an N520 for a while on my OC'ed FX-8120 and it cooled very well (idled around 28C, just under 60C at load) and upgraded to an H80 to OC further. I was at 4GHz at that time.

I'm currently at 4.44GHz at a 240 BUS and idle at 19~20C and ~50 under load.

And if you don't plan on OC'ing, you might just look into a locked CPU. Usually about the same stock performance and cheaper.

I derped pretty hard on my build... you might be needing a HDD. I have a lot of spares hanging around, so I tend not to buy them lol.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

I recommend against OCZ powersupplies because they've already left the ram market because they wanted to concentrate on SSDs so who knows what else might happen especially with the talks of OCZ maybe selling to the highest bidder (Seagate?)

Most air coolers are liquid coolers for the most part, that's how heatpipes work and that's why many cheaper closed-loop all-in-one liquid coolers aren't any better if at all.

ah ok looking from th build it seems like it would be ~800-900+
Be better off just finding a rig for that much wouldn't it? lol

Not really... a $900 pre-built probably wouldn't even put up 3/4 of the power of the crap we're throwing at you.

I'll take a look again tomorrow and tone it down some and try to hit the 700~800 mark. $600 is possible (I built my wife's for "$400"), but that is really the meat and potatoes part. Helps when you have things like a case/PSU/memory/etc laying around from previous builds to keep costs down.

Same everything else, swapping out cpu/mobo and adding the HDD I showed earlier.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157281

Brings my total cost (with shipping) to $853.55

And here is a great cheap case if you want to knock another $20 off.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

Personally would prefer the Corsair case, same one I used for my wife's build. Both sides are detachable with thumb screws on it, very well built, nice ventilation... just nothing bad I can say about Corsair cases other then they are a little expensive.

Edit: Heh... with everything that way looks very similar to my current PC.

just don't go with antec cases. they're crap

Ah ok thanks.

Unfortunately Don't have any other desktop parts laying around lol
So pretty much have to be going through catch here :P

This is a fun project though I real say.
Guess it gives a personal satisfaction that you made your own stuff :)

Hey guys....
What's your opinion on this?

HP - Pavilion HPE Desktop - 10GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive


Over all seems rather sturdy...
1GB Dedicated
"up to 4855MB total available video memory"


And it's only 700!!! lol

that graphics card is so bad my jaw dropped when i looked up the benchmark LOL

Yeah... just no to that one. I'm curious how they got to 10G memory, 2x 4G and 2x 1G? I dunno... boggles me on that one.

I'm curious as to how a GPU that's less powerful than most modern CPU integrated graphics has 1GB of memory attached to it

AMD tend to go overboard on VRAM... their 79xx series all have 3GB

heres a half decent prebuilt i found on newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227408

just know that with prebuilts they usually lack on decent mobo's and PSU's. (and the cases tend to be meh overall as well)

so don't be suprised if you have to replace the PSU* sometime down the road. (shouldn't be more than 50~60$ though)


edit- accidentally typed cpu instead of psu lol.

those are top tier cards though, those would have a use for 3gb vram.

not something that literally probably doesn't even out perform amd's integrated graphics >.> (def not intels)

I give that one a thumbs up for price/what you get ratio.

AMD FX series is pure win, one of the most powerful stable series AMD makes, used this in hundreds of custom builds and have got 0 negative remarks.