Alright im looking to put together a new comp, but since im 15 i need to keep it fairly cheap 900 or less, not counting monitor or anything else. I need some good advice on what parts i should get, and what brands are good. Plz help me out.
hi PabloParez For $800-$900 you can get a very good system. My basic advice is: CPU - Go with AMD; they offer more performance for the money and gaming performance is excellent. Chips I'd recommend are the Athlon 64 Venice 3500 or a cheaper Venice 3200. Both should be good for a mid range system. Motherboard - A lot of options here, this Abit KN8 Ultra looks good for the price. RAM - You should go for Corsair, Geil, G.Skill, Kingston, OCZ RAM. The specs you'll want are DDR PC3200 minimum, PC3500 or more if you want to do some overclocking. For the RAM timings, look for a module with a CL of 2.5 or less. 2 preferably. Hard drive - Go for Seagate or Western Digital. Western Digital tend to perform better, but Seagate are quiet and reliable as well (they both are). You'll want a drive with SATA, not the old IDE interface. PSU (Power Supply Unit) - Very important component here, don't buy a cheap one or use the one you get with your case, out of experience this is not a good idea. Take a look at this thread for more info: http://www.hardwareforums.com/power-supplies-you-why-you-dont-want-cheap-psu-updated-9-2-05-a-5218/ For the case - any ATX case should do, but if you have more money to spare get a nice one from Coolermaster, or the expensive Lian Li cases (since you're buying a separate PSU don't pay attention to the included one if there is any.) Video card - Depending on how much you want to spend, you could go for nVidia Geforce 6800 cards, or ATi X800 GTOs although there are many more options.
Here's something that'll do the job quite nicely. Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 $76 CPU: Athlon64 3500+ Retail $201 RAM: Patriot 1GB PC3200 dual-channel kit $92.99 Video Card: Sapphire Radeon X800GTO 256MB $149 Hard Drive: Western Digital 250GB SATA2 $95 Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-110BK $39.99 Power Supply: Enermax EG565P-VE 535W $88.50 Case: Chenming 501AWBU-F-0 BLK $45 Total: $787.48 (+ Taxes for CA/NJ residents) +shipping If you need an OS to go with this, WindowsXP Home SP2 is $93.95 That'd bring your total up to $881.43 I'm assuming you'll be reusing your monitor, keyboard, and mouse with this setup.
