# Need some help on building a Gaming PC



## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

Hey there, I plan on saving some money from my job I just got and buying a new computer in a few months after saving some cash. I plan to save up at least $800 Canadian and spend up to $1000 for a tower, the monitor and other stuff I have now works just fine, just a new tower I need.

At the moment I'm running this:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
ASUSTeK Computer K8VB Motherboard
DDR-SDRAM Single Channel 1024 MBytes
Radeon 9600 Series Graphics Card
160GB Hard Drive
CD/DVD 52x32x52 Burner/Drive
DVD 16x Burner/Drive
4 USB Ports Back, 2 Front

Pretty much my comp I bought about 4 years ago, it's getting kinda old now for the games coming out and I need to get something that can actually support a lot of the games + a bigger hard drive for sure.

This comps shared between myself and two others as well so would like something of my own to game on, my max budget is $1,000 if it's like $50-$100 over with taxes and such that's ok. I have an Atop Computers, NCIX, and Generic Computers close to me to have custom PC's built if you could rig me up a nice one from one of those guys. I'm located in BC, Canada btw. Thanks :smile:


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## themisiek1 (Aug 20, 2007)

I live in the United States so I dont really know where you are able to buy from but I am able to give an opinion.

1. 2Gb Ram MINIMUM for games these new games coming out. I would recommend this if you could find a site for Canada that sells it. It is real fast and it has great timings. 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098

2. I would recommend a Nvidia 8600 256MB for DX10. Something like this would be excellent.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150229

3. The AMD processor is too slow. 1.8Ghz isnt going to get you far on todays games like Crysis, Call of Duty 4, even some oldies like Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142. I would recommend something along these lines.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773

Or if you need something cheaper

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103759

Or if you need something even cheaper

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103747

Asus makes great motherboards but I' am not the best with that. So there is my recommendations. If you were to get those (including the expensive processor) you should not go over your budget of 800 dollars.

I would like to apologize I' am not able to get you links to sites that you can actually purchase from. Maybe if I get some sort of link to a site I can help you out.


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## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

http://ncix.com/ I have one located near me I can customize and pickup from.

http://atoponline.com/ Same thing as above.

These two places are within a 10-30minute drive of me that I can go to.


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## themisiek1 (Aug 20, 2007)

oh your not building it alright. iam going to let someone better than me help you out because I could show you a few good parts I know but Iam not good with picking out a whole computer.


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## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

Heh, alright no problem, yeah I'm like you, I can pick some decent parts but to piece together a whole computer I'm not too keen on.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

If you answer these questions I will find some good parts for you.


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## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

1. Budget: How much money are you willing to spend on the new build? $1,050

2. Brands: Are there any brands of components you want or don't want? Nvidia and AMD

3. Multitasking: Will you be multitasking with this computer and if so, how much? Will have Music/A Game/MSN/Maybe another program as well running at the same time.

4. Gaming: Will you be gaming and if so, how much and how new are the games? Yes and recent/new games like Hellgate London, Bioshock, etc. 

5. Calculations: Will you be doing any intense calculations or media encoding? Yes.

6. Overclocking: Do you plan on overclocking and if so, how much? No.

7. Storage: How much storage will you need and what will you be storing? Looking for 500GB - 1000GB

8. Operating System: Do you want Windows XP or Vista, or Linux compatibility? XP

9. Case: Do you want help selecting a case and if so, how big do you want it? Sure, and just an average size case will do.

10. Accessories: Do you want a keyboard, mouse, or other items included? No.

11. Recycled Components: Will you be reusing any components you already have? No.

12. Monitor: If you want a monitor, what size do you want and should it be widescreen? No monitor.

13. Stores: Do you have any online stores that you prefer to purchase from? NCIX.com or atoponline.com

14. Location: What country do you live in? BC, Canada.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

> 2. Brands: Are there any brands of components you want or don't want? Nvidia and AMD


Did you mean you did or didn't want nVidia and AMD?

If you are doing encoding you will see much better performance with Intel. Gaming will benefit slightly more from a high end AMD X2.


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## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

I would perfer an Nvidia graphics card and AMD cpu, but if intel will give me just as good performance I'll use that instead.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Take a look at this:'

Gigabyte N650SLI-DS4 Nforce 650I LGA775 ATX 2PCI-E16 3PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard - $152
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=23809&vpn=GA-N650SLI-DS4&manufacture=Gigabyte

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 2.33GHZ 1333FSB 4MB Retail - $210
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25297&vpn=BX80557E6550&manufacture=Intel

Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-5400 DDR2-667 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory - $97
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18582&vpn=TWIN2X2048-5400C4&manufacture=CORSAIR

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive 5YR MFR Warranty - $82
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=25667&vpn=ST3250410AS&manufacture=Seagate

XFX GeForce 8800GTS 560MHZ 320MB 1.7GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card - $330
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=22630&vpn=PVT80GGHE4&manufacture=XFX

OCZ GameXStream 700W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX Power Supply 120MM Fan Black - $139
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18185&vpn=OCZ700GXSSLI&manufacture=OCZ Technology

Now for the case, there is a nice combo deal on the Antec Nine Hundred, but what size case will you be looking for?

Antec Nine Hundred Mid Tower Gamer Case 900 ATX 9 Drive Bay No PS Top USB2.0 1394 Audio - $117
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=21123&vpn=NINE HUNDRED&manufacture=ANTEC


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## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

That all looks great thanks.


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

Ask back with anymore questions and even if nothing goes wronge pop in for a vist evry once and a while.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

I forgot the optical drive. Take a look at this:

Pioneer DVR-112D Black DVD-RW 18X6X18 DVD+RW 18X8X18 DL 10X IDE OEM DVD Burner No Software - $40
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=22862&vpn=DVR-112DBK&manufacture=Pioneer

My apologies.


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## Blu (Apr 20, 2007)

just from recently, ncix, and tigerdirect.ca are sorta conflicting, I'm ordering half my rig from each, ncix has some great deals, and so does tiger so watch for the prices  (tiger also has pretty cheap shipping)


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Tiger might have a nice deal on the OCZ power supply as that frequently goes on sale on Tiger's US site.


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## butterfly77049 (Aug 26, 2007)

If you have PCI-E video card slot than just upgrade the video card to at least a 256mb card that supports DX-10 (G Force 8400 and up)? Then if you still want to spend more money, give it a try? Maybe another memory chip? You've got a powerful system, I would think upgrading the video card and memory would give you more time, time for prices to go down, more bang for the buck?


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## themisiek1 (Aug 20, 2007)

That build by TheMatt looks great. I love it lol and its not even a suggestion for me!


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## 1 g0t 0wn3d (Jan 31, 2007)

butterfly77049 said:


> If you have PCI-E video card slot than just upgrade the video card to at least a 256mb card that supports DX-10 (G Force 8400 and up)? Then if you still want to spend more money, give it a try? Maybe another memory chip? You've got a powerful system, I would think upgrading the video card and memory would give you more time, time for prices to go down, more bang for the buck?


Please make your own thread to ask a question, but yes and video ram is not the only thing that matters.


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## Fantomxyz (Jun 1, 2007)

The optical drive looks good as well, nice cheap price. I'm not going to be buying this PC for about 2-3months so the prices of the build you suggested might go down which would be great as I'm quite satisfied with the parts you picked.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Look for the motherboard and hard drive prices to go down as I think those are the most likely to have price drops.


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## themisiek1 (Aug 20, 2007)

yep i agree with you thematt. hard drive prices are going down real fast lately. what i have noticed RAM prices on the drop to but not nearly as fast as the harddrives.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Magnetic storage media prices will likely drop the fastest. With 1 TB drives coming more and more common (and affordable) out, people are looking less at the smaller hard drives even though it is better to have many smaller drives than one bigger drives.


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