Unless you insist on top of the line performance, I think $200+ is a bit much for motherboards and CPUs. The past couple I've gotten have been in the $180 area each. But maybe AMD is still cheaper or something...

If you have a lot of data you care about then I'd suggest getting 2 1TB (or 2 2TB if you can afford it) and mirror them. The more space you have, the more you have to lose if it dies, and thus the more important it becomes to have some method of redundancy.

If you're going for a long term mobo, don't go for an intel socket. I've heard that they're going to have a new socket for each new line of processors they come out with...so if you're going longer term (I'm thinking like 5 years?) use out of your mobo then go with AMD.

Also, 1tb? I laugh at you. HOHOHO.

I would get a smaller and faster HDD, and a bigger and slower (I.E. cheaper) for storage. Its what I did.

all that nice shit and your going to put a crappy 9800 into it?... why not move to the gtx like 550ti its like 130 and better in every way


Are you just building off price?.. I mean shit why do you need a 1000w , a 400 buck mobo and cpu..

If your not going to over clock get the locked cpu(cheaper) and a cheaper non mod board , lower the power to like 750 if you want to sli/crossfire cards

Like muff said a real nice solid state for main shit and a cheaper drive for storage i hear works real well

That definitely doesn't have to equal $$$. The last time I spent that kind of money on a MB I was buying a dual Xeon CPU server motherboard with an onboard SCSI controller. As far as I'm aware or ever cared, so long as the CPU slot/socket is due to have a decent life, there's plenty of room for memory upgrading, and it has a good chipset, that's all that matters.



Definitely. I need to upgrade mine. I only have 4GB and some of it is pretty old.



I'm an AMD man so would recommend the Phenoms, but the stats look good. And I've never bothered with overclocking. But then, I was never the sort who needed to play Crysis at 50k FPS. I'm a bit more down to earth in my expectations.



I honestly don't know power supplies. Every time I buy a new one I get it a little bit bigger than the last, but I'm probably overkilling it.



I use to do ATI until I switched to nVidia. I don't have any hard feeling against ATI but the 8800GT being my intro to nVidia was a mind blower.



Just make sure you get the right kind of motherboard form factor for it. If it's only an ATX, an eATX motherboard might not fit, or you might have to drill some of your own screw holes.

Ive spent that last 6 months doing research before I dropped $2k on my Sager laptop looking into Intel/AMD/Nvidia on what would be the best bang for the $.

If you're going to go AMD for CPU then wait for a few months for their Bulldozer chipset to come out, it's going to blow everything away. I personally went with a 2nd gen i7 and I have to say its a damn good chip and well worth the extra cash.

CPU Fan/Heat Sink - Should always be tailored to fit your CPU. You're not just buying a fan to cool your CPU, you're buying a big hunk of metal called a Heat Sink that sits right on top on the chip directly absorbing heat being given off by it which intern is cooled by cool air being dragged over the heat sink from the fan. Also don't forget to buy a tube of ICdiamond thermal gel to put on top on your chip before you place the heat sink on it. This places a barrier stopping direct contact between the chip and the heat sink preventing long term damage and more efficiently transfering heat off the chip keeping its average temp cooler and extending its life. It's like $40 for a tiny tube, but is honestly worth its weight in gold.

Motherboard - Should always be tailored to fit your CPU best as possible and be able to use the most recent kinds of RAM. Also one shortcut to a better PC you can take with a better motherboard is by making sure it has decent on board sound. It's not super fantastic like you would expect from a Audigy but it's not terrible either and can last till you save up another $200 for a baller sound card.

Graphics Card - As far as video cards go Ive read countless benchmark sites arguing over how much extra performance you get from SLI/Crossfire and unless you have the cash to invest in 2 identical badass cards it's a waste. Makes much more sense to invest in 1 solid card with at least 2g and a higher clock-speed then 2 cards where you may even see graphics issues. I went with the Radeon 6990m over the Nvidia GTX 580m not only cause it cost $250 less it's got a faster clock and still runs everything on max without issue. Played skyrim for hours last night splooging myself on how sick the water effects and everything looks in that game.

Memory - Buy Samsung, Corsair, or Kingston. 8gig is plenty at 1866mhz.

Case - This is one area where people new to building PC's really fuck shit up. First they buy power supplies that can't support everything they have including all the extra fans, lights, and control panels. Second they either don't buy enough fans or go overboard buying way too many having no idea how to setup airflow inside a case. Last is the extra features put on cases which are cool if you know how to use them... but sadly most people don't even know how to hook them up properly so I'd advise against any extra lights/fan speed control panel kind of stuff till you've mastered the basics. Ive had UV blue sound reactive cathodes that sync'd up with sound and would flash on/off so fast and perfectly with the ratatat of gunfire or flash dim and long with a huge bass boom. It was really cool to have and show off to friends, but in the end it cost me like $120 total for the setup and I had it off most of the time because it was too bright in the dark and made playing games annoying. So keep the case for last since it's power output, cooling capacity, and total dimensions should be correct in regard toward the hardware setup going in it. You need to check the exact wattage needed by your graphics card and most everything else before choosing a power supply, and you can go a bit overboard on your power supply wattage since if you buy a decent one it will last years allowing it to be reused in future PC's. Next is case size which shouldn't be huge because it will become a hot air chamber if too much empty space is left. There should be enough space for everything to fit comfortably but at the same time there shouldn't be any excess of air/metal in the case to retain heat. Last is fans which are simple really, you can choose between having exhaust at the back and intake at the front, I'd recommend this since most peoples PC's face toward cooler air and will be blowing warm air back against a wall. Or intake at the back and exhaust at the front, technically this way is better there being much less distance between the intake fans and the CPU/GPU but you need to properly position your case to where there is enough cool air flowing by the back to keep everything cool.

There are so many more things to take into consideration before purchasing parts to build a PC beyond the few I explained today so if you have any questions msg me and I'll get back to you. I'm 27 now and have been building PC's since I was 11 and I can't begin to explain all the changes and advances that have happened in my life time. Do any of you even realize the huge jump in the past few years from games being sold on disc's to now being downloaded most of the time?! It's huge, and I bet even fewer of you guys remember how PC games used to REQUIRE game CD's to be in your 48x(lol)CD-ROM because hard drives couldn't handle all the massive data the game required!(Fallout Super Mega Install 322megs FTW)

I wouldn't buy anything you've listed. 5 months from now there will be newer parts out and the list would change. Best thing you can do right now is do as much research as possible into new chips and motherboards that can support them. Those 2 right there are the core of the machine and what you build everything else around. I'd recommend going with a i7, they're super fast and run great. Gfx is your choice but keep it down to a single card.

http://www.amazon.com/gp..._r=138FEHMFEDG5NREM7A1G

Good price and Asus is a great maker, so a Radeon HD 6970 2GB. 6990 4G is $750 and may come down in price in 5 months so keep looking for new sales etc.