NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm in the market for a new computer. My current desktop is ancient; it's running okay right now, but it's not going to be too long before it keels over and dies. Unfortunately, it's been too long since I built this one, and I haven't kept up with the new tech, so I really don't know what to look for. It's got to be a good gaming computer that's going to last me five years or so, with an upgrade or two along the way if necessary. So, Generalites... build me a computer!

EDIT: No, I don't want you to do the actual building. I can do that myself. I just need some help picking out the components, because I really don't know what's good and what's not these days. Oh, and if you could keep the cost hovering around $1,000 or so, that would be helpful, but I can manage up to $1,500.

Fuck you, build yourself a computer.

Oh, wait, you're asking what to put in it.

Go to Pricegrabber, ffs.

What's your budget?

That's the key thing. The prices I put here are generally extrapolations into USD from UK prices or MSRP's as I've seen them reported on review sites.

If I was building a PC today I'd probably get...

Processor - Intel Core2Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz) $320 RRP

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 (about $150 I think)

Graphics Card - Either a Nvidia 7900GTX or ATi Radeon 1900XTX will do. I'd go for the Geforce because it takes up much less power for similar performance. Either way it'll be about $400 I think.

RAM - GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (no idea on price, it's about 140 quid here so maybe $250)

Hard Drive - Get what you want. I'd suggest a Seagate model just because they do very good warranties. Depends how much space you think you'll need. probably a couple of hundred gigabytes.

Power Supply - At least a 500W job I should think to take the strain if you upgrade any major components.

DVD drives etc - pick what you'll need. A fast-read drive for gaming natch.

This is quite biased towards overclockability, if you don't want to fiddle to get the best from your machine you may want to get a slightly lower-end motherboard and cheaper RAM (although the Geil is pretty cheap as they go anyway).

As that stands it'll beat most current setups and last you a long time (my gaming machine has an old P4 3.2 Ghz and Nvidia 5600 graphics card and the only upgrade it's needed to run even the most modern games was to get a 1GB RAM set rather than the 512 it had when we got it).

The only major future-proofing issue will be graphics. The next series of graphics cards from both Nvidia and ATi will come out with Directx 10 and I'm not sure how much difference that would make.

You may want to check out www.arstechnica.com they have a pretty good article on building for different price-ranges.

You may want a sound card or other expansion cards but that depends what else you use your PC for. I find integrated sound generally does the job fine unless you want to run a surround-sound system (and even then...)

<snip>
Thanks very much for the suggestions. I'll check out arstechnica and see what they have to say.

Get a United Retsehcnam a, Notlob, a Nilats VI and most importantly a plehettil.