Help me build a desktop

[secol]

So I'm looking to take advantage of boxing day/week sales to upgrade my old PC. Mainly general use with mid gaming, video card doesn't need to be too fancy just looking for good bang-for-buck components and also won't be doing any overclocking either. Dual monitor setup, but I only need to buy one 20" monitor (got an old one laying around), and keyboard/mouse/etc. Will likely PM through MemEx or NCIX and get them to build it as well. My old computer gets dusty fast so hopefully a case with enough fans/filters can help reduce the cleaning I need to do. Budget is probably around $1000 for everything since I don't need top of the line stuff, but if there's an upgrade available at a marginal additional cost for better bang-for-buck that would be great too.



Thanks for any help, kind of a noob with the individual components

[Diemenz]

[PsYcNeT]

Ugh the 3220 is a piece of crap. Everything else looks okay, but grab this CPU/Mobo combo instead:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/BDL_3570K_Z77VLK

Far better bang for your buck.

Also, a wireless mouse for gaming? Yikes.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Ugh the 3220 is a piece of crap. Everything else looks okay, but grab this CPU/Mobo combo instead:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/BDL_3570K_Z77VLK

Far better bang for your buck.

Also, a wireless mouse for gaming? Yikes.

Yeah your combo looks good. I'd also consider this PS for $70 less MIR of $20.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=75...r&promoid=1033

This case at $100 less MIR of $20.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62...r&promoid=1033

One of these monitors. Benq MVA 24" at $160

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=69...Q&promoid=1033

or this LG IPS 23" at $140.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=74...s&promoid=1033

[Vulcan]

or maybe instead a SSD for your boot drive such as

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=69...K&promoid=1033

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Ugh the 3220 is a piece of crap. Everything else looks okay, but grab this CPU/Mobo combo instead:

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/BDL_3570K_Z77VLK

Far better bang for your buck.

Also, a wireless mouse for gaming? Yikes.

Completely agree the i5 is considerably better was trying to keep cost down, must have missed that bundle but I would defiantly go that route as well.

Secol games on his PS3, I imagine he will do next to no gaming on his Desktop.

I use a wireless mouse for my gaming needs and never had an issue but different stroke for different folks

[secol]

ok so i fiddled around a bit and this is what i came up with. don't know if anything works/doesn't work together, just went based off of Diemenz's build and looked for bundles with mail-in-rebates/sales...




Mail in rebates total to -300, not sure if the PSU works for the processor/GPU or if the case is suitable or if the CPU/GPU are a match

for monitors I saw MemEx has a BenQ bundle deal, two 21.5 inch widescreen for 179.98

so total with 2 monitors should be just under 1K after MIR

[Vulcan]

The case is fine, I have it. It gives over 12" of room for a video card. Your card is 9". The card also needs a 500 watt PS so you're fine there too. Do you need a $340 MB?

Also consider a CPU cooler such as this for $28.

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=64...R&promoid=1033

[secol]

yeah the main reason why i picked it was cause it was on sale but they were OOS pretty quick anyways.....i'll have to come up with an alternative build later this week >.<

[Coys1882]

If you can - grab the 27" BenQ monitor for $199.00 - I have it and it's brilliant.

[Jacks]

You should be able to get a good motherboard for much less than that.

RAM is so cheap you should get at least 8GB.

[Nehkara]

I would suggest this instead:

[Jacks]

Upgraded to an i7, 8GB of RAM and a bigger power supply.

Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Nvidia Edition Mid Tower
On sale for $29.99

Core™ i7-3820 Processor, 3.60GHz w/ 10MB Cache
On sale $269.99

Asus P8Z77-V LK w/ DDR3, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, CrossFireX / SLI
129.99 after rebate

Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 Power Supply
On sale $99.99

Barracuda 1TB $59.99

DVD writer $12.99

Kingston HyperX blu 8GB DDR3-1600MHz CL9 Dual Channel Kit (2 x 4GB)
On sale $39.99

MSI N650 Ti Power Edition OC GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI
$139.99 after rebate

BenQ GW2250 21.5in Widescreen VA LED LCD Monitor
On Sale $99.99

Assemble and load OS $70.00

Total $952.91 + G.S.T. = $1000.55

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

or maybe instead a SSD for your boot drive such as

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=69...K&promoid=1033

Worth noting this one on sale this week:
http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/ca...p?webid=108127

I have this one in my desktop as my O/S drive, and it's nice to see the boot time well under 30 seconds. That is from pressing the power button to being at the desktop and ready to launch applications.

[Diemenz]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Upgraded to an i7, 8GB of RAM and a bigger power supply.

Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Nvidia Edition Mid Tower
On sale for $29.99

Core™ i7-3820 Processor, 3.60GHz w/ 10MB Cache
On sale $269.99

Asus P8Z77-V LK w/ DDR3, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, CrossFireX / SLI
129.99 after rebate

Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 Power Supply
On sale $99.99

Barracuda 1TB $59.99

DVD writer $12.99

Kingston HyperX blu 8GB DDR3-1600MHz CL9 Dual Channel Kit (2 x 4GB)
On sale $39.99

MSI N650 Ti Power Edition OC GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI
$139.99 after rebate

BenQ GW2250 21.5in Widescreen VA LED LCD Monitor
On Sale $99.99

Assemble and load OS $70.00

Total $952.91 + G.S.T. = $1000.55

I strongly support this build, great pieces.

Secol I know you already have a 20" Monitor and that's why your trying to get a second 20".

[secol]

i'm thinking i'm better off getting the BenQ bundle with 2 of the same monitors. my old monitor is like a 205BW syncmaster so it's pretty old.

i7 seems to be not as good for gaming and i won't need hyperthreading or be doing little if any video/picture editing stuff. will probably go with the 3570k if it's still around the same price as a 3570

i'm probably going to go with GTX 660 or HD7870 or HD7850, whatever PM's best at MemEx

i have around 150 ish left to spend on a PSU and motherboard.

[Rathji]

Maybe its just me and my usage, but I would not be buying a PC with less than 16gb RAM at this point.

[Jacks]

If you can upgrade from i5 to i7 for $40 you should consider it.

$150.00 isn't enough for a motherboard and a PSU, they are both critical components. I'd sooner have a smaller video card but have a PSU that can supply enough stable power for it.

I would just use the old monitor as the secondary display until you get a spare $100.

[Clarkey]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Maybe its just me and my usage, but I would not be buying a PC with less than 16gb RAM at this point.

I think when I got my computer with Vista a while back they said it can't even utilize more than 4gb ram (or maybe it was 8) so there's no point getting more. Do you face the same limitations with the newer Windows 7 & 8? Or are you suggesting getting 16gb for future operating systems?

[ken0042]

The key there is a 64 bit O/S. 32 bit systems will only see about 3.5 GB of ram.