Building new system, need input

[Redweaver]

Putting together a new system, but it's been a couple of years since I put the last one together, so I'm a bit out of the loop for what current tech is. I got a budget of $800-$900 (I could push $1000 if I had to, but it would need to be a good reason). I need some advice as to what parts to buy. Mobo, CPU, RAM, GPU...be specific, please.

It doesn't need a bunch of bells and whistles. It doesn't need to run the latest and greatest on ultra high eyebleed settings. It just needs to be a very solid machine, able to do gaming and some HD video work at decent speeds and quality. Does it still go without saying that upgradability is mandatory?

I prefer Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. I'm thinking 8 gigs of RAM. Would like to have one hard drive for the OS and another for programs (SSDs?).

Thanks for your help guys. Let me know what you think!


*edit*

Is this motherboard alright? It looks like it has a lot of the features I might want.

Folks on Newegg seem to like this CPU.

Maybe a GPU like this?

[Neikun]

I always try to stay away from integrated video as a rule.

I think this would be better suited in the off-topic general discussion.

You could also be safe with 4gbs of ram and upgrading that later.

[Redweaver]

I always try to stay away from integrated video as a rule.

I think this would be better suited in the off-topic general discussion.

You could also be safe with 4gbs of ram and upgrading that later.

Ya, I'll be getting a card. The integrated video just happens to be there. I picked that board because it comes with 8 gigs of ram free right now.

You're right, I should have put this in a different forum. If a mod wants to move it, feel free. I wasn't thinking about that, I just clicked my bookmark (which points to this forum) and posted. My bad.

[Komag]

thread moved

I am not up on the latest hardware at all, zero money to spend for any new computer for the foreseeable future.

[Neikun]

The computer I had cost me about 800-900 CAD.
I had no old parts for with which to salvage, though.
I bought the cheapest case I could. It's a decent case, but it's wires aren't best suited for my motherboard. Case made by Antec

I bought a Gigabyte motherboard (First time branching away from ASUS) I'm a little disappointed in it. No matter how I plug in my case's power/reset buttons, using the manual reset feature or Windows 7 reset feature causes a failure to boot. It also has a really weird angling for the six SATA ports that cause three of them to be essentially unusable. It does do a great job at keeping heat down in the computer though. SO it's not all bad. (I have two fans. One case fan, one CPU fan. [and the graphics card has a fan])
Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 P.S. I recommend that you get a board with DDR3 RAM support.
For my CPU I bought an AMD Phenom II quadcore processor. No problems with it really. 3.40Ghz

I bought for myself the cheapest DVD reader/writer I could for about 20 dollars.

For my harddrive I started with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda. I recently added another 2TB to my machine.
8gbs DD3 RAM
Not sure if I included this in my calculation of the price or not, but I also bought a copy of Windows seven. so +/- 150CAD from my costs
I bought a middle of the road graphics card and have plans to upgrade later:
NVIDIA Geforce GT 440 I play Grimrock on high settings and only experience lag when playing while Skype is open/ have placed too many lights in the editor.

[undeaddemon]

I can comment here - I sorta depends on how you use your computer - but I'll just tell you what I built Circa JULY 2012:

I bought a used Dell T7400 on ebay - came with 16GB, DualQuad X5482's and a 300GB 15K.5 SAS HD - $450 US
I added an LSI 9240-8i controller - $190 US
I added an EVGA GTX 670 FTW - ~$420 US
I added another 300GB 15K.5 SAS HD [from ebay] [for RAID 0]- $100 US
I added (2) WD 3TB CAV Green - $280 US

I run Windows 8 on it and a bunch of VMs, and it's done what I expect of it so far. The only issue is, HD performance is not what I want, but the LSI controller does support SSDs. When I built it, everyone was worried about TRIM, and Garbage Collection for RAID was still new, so I expect the next time I have a some cash, I'll pick up a pair of SSDs.

[Redweaver]

Yeah, that all sounds like a lot of what I'm reading. As far as what I'm using it for, it's going to be my gaming rig and I'll be doing a bit of video editing. So it needs a little omph in it, but it doesn't need to be beast.

[LordYig]

I'll just add my own experience and though here.
I'm also in the process of building a new PC myself so I'm a bit aware of the mistakes to avoid.

• The motherboard you have linked is dedicated to over clocking the CPU.
  The Z77 Chipset is the only recent one to allow this for the Intel 3rd generation Core series of CPU.
  If you do not intend to overclock your CPU stay way from it since it is a waste of money.
• The processor you have linked is indeed a good one but it is from the previous generation of Intel Core CPUs.
  The latest ones in the same series are more energy efficient and generates less heat while in full charge.
  There is a small price difference (20$ or so) and it's generally worth to spend it in the long term, IMHO.
• The graphic is a good one I think, but I did not read review of this one so I cannot be sure about this.

Here is a link to a list of part I have made based on your budget and the help of a hardware review website which propose a choice PC rig based on purpose and budget.
Base Config, this config does not have a screen, keyboard, mouse or an optical drive, since I do not know you preference in the matter (classic or gaming keyboard an d mouse, simple optical reader drive or a writer, DVD or Bluray).
This one as a decent recent cpu, 4gb of RAM, a decent graphic card, an ssd so you can have performance with the system and 1To storage.
You can also change the case if you do not like its design of course.

Alternatively, you can have a more compact pc with more power but at a higher budget.
Obviously it attains your budget limit, and even a little over it maybe, which is certainly not good.
An example could be this build : Higher price and performance example
This one has more performance nearly everywhere and with a more compact platform.

Again those are just examples I came up with and you could find completely different advice on the web.
Especially the graphic card is a tricky part to choose depending on your own preference and usage.
It is still true that AMD (ATI) has generally a better price/performance ratio, but nVidia fans (or addicts!) would certainly say that it is worth to spend a little more money and get a nVidia card since the driver support is better. That can be discussed for hours actually...

I would recommend that you try to ask for others advice at Reddit Build a PC for me or in the forums of PcPartPicker, there are generally could advice there.

[FlashSoul]

I always try to stay away from integrated video as a rule.

Right now it's still a good idea but make sure you don't always keep that rule. Integrated chipsets were truly horrible when they first appeared (including what I use) but they really are improving a lot and should soon compete performance-wise with low-end dedicated cards (which will probably disappear as they cost a lot more).

Intel HD 3000 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ImynJaoCzk

[LordYig]

I always try to stay away from integrated video as a rule.

Right now it's still a good idea but make sure you don't always keep that rule. Integrated chip sets were truly horrible when they first appeared (including what I use) but they really are improving a lot and should soon compete performance-wise with low-end dedicated cards (which will probably disappear as they cost a lot more).

Intel HD 3000 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ImynJaoCzk

When building an Intel based computer and using one of the last generation of CPU this question is quite irrelevant, IMHO.
All 2nd and 3rd generation of Intel CPUs have embedded GPUs of the HD series, the 3rd gen has Intel HD Graphics 2500 or Intel HD Graphics 4000 depending on the CPU model.
Also recent motherboards do not have integrated GPU units anymore because they are simply embedded in the CPU.
With recent computer builds no matter what you do, you have one of those.
Refer to http://ark.intel.com/ for details.

The same seems to apply to recent AMD A-Series of CPU, they have integrated GPU units based on low end ATI cards, but I don't know the details.
Refer to AMD A-Series Page for details.
AMD has good products, but since I had problems years ago with several AMD CPU, it's been years since I bought a cpu from this brand and I do not even think of the possibility of buying one anymore when building a computer.
That's only my own personal choice of course.

In any case, those integrated GPU may have decent rendering power but it entirely depends on the game, the drivers version you are using and these chips are far to be as powerful has AMD or NVidia dedicated cards even cheap ones.
This could be sufficient for casual gaming or low resolution rendering but for most recent games and if you want to play in full HD resolution it does not work smoothly.