[chrisbchicken]

I seriously need to upgrade from my dual core computer. This is my first computer build and I have no idea what I'm doing. I search for memory, cpu, gpu, motherboards, etc but all I see is numbers and words I've never heard of. I don't want to go purchase something that I end up finding cheaper, or isn't compatible with other parts.

Can someone give me the exact parts I need for as cheap as possible. Its going to be a gaming pc which I want to run at the highest settings. For the case you don't have to give suggestions for it but if you do I want something compact. I'm not looking for flashing lights or see through cases. I think I provided all information needed but if I'm missing something please let me know.

Any help would be appreciated. Sorry for the trouble.

[Advertisements]

Hi and welcome to the forums

If you want a cheap gaming PC to run at the highest settings, you're gonna have a hard time. Let's just say you can choose 2 of the following 3:

Cheap
High Performance
Reliable



Seriously what is your anticipated budget for the build, this will help out a lot in recommending parts.

Cheers

Troy

[Troy]

Hi and welcome to the forums

If you want a cheap gaming PC to run at the highest settings, you're gonna have a hard time. Let's just say you can choose 2 of the following 3:

Cheap
High Performance
Reliable



Seriously what is your anticipated budget for the build, this will help out a lot in recommending parts.

Cheers

Troy

[chrisbchicken]

When I said cheap I meant cheap as in the cheapest website for the parts. I know that a gaming pc wasn't going to be cheap to begin with. I'm looking around $800-1000.

[Troy]

OK cool, where are you from? I'm actually from Australia, even though it says "Darkest Peru" because I have Paddington Bear as my avatar.

Also what are we going to need, just the tower? Or keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers to be included?

Cheers

[chrisbchicken]

I'm from the United States in Ohio. The only thing other than the parts inside the computer I need is the tower itself.

[Troy]

I just updated my profile, "Darkest Peru" wasn't very helpful, although it was funny

[Troy]

OK well I'll make some general recommendations and I'll also put a query in the Staff thread for a US staff member to recommend some cheap sites. I know Newegg is pretty good but there are some others that I can't remember any more.

[chrisbchicken]

Thanks I appreciate it. I looked it up myself for weeks. I always end up finding a shady site that would tell me something is better than what I was actually looking at. It was kind of obvious that they were just looking for more money. So if you can just give me suggestions that will be compatible with each other it would help a lot.

[admin]

Just off the top of my head, frys.com, buy.com, amazon.com, tigerdirect.com. Or if you really want the most bang-for-your-buck, watch the deals sites like fatwallet.com, and slickdeals.net for deals on individual components. Hardforum.com and Anandtech.com also have some good tech deals posted in their forums. Pricewatch.com is sometimes worth a look.

[iammykyl]

Long time no see Troy.

A site for selecting parts, register and make sure to select your country, top right. > http://pcpartpicker.com/


Edit spelling.

Edited by iammykyl, 09 August 2012 - 06:13 PM.

[Troy]

Hey thanks guys, that'll help out great. I have done a bit of research and have a decent build here but it's a little over $1000. I'll put it up and you can research the same parts on some of those websites and see if you get it cheaper. Otherwise I'll have to do a bit of revising later, time to get back to work for me.

Here we go:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811119193

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813157294

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814127664

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817371059

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115233

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820167093

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231489

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822148702

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16832116986

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835103060

Cheers

[chrisbchicken]

Thanks for the help. I will do some more research myself. So you sure all those parts are compatible and would have no problem fitting into that tower?

[Troy]

Yes of course, the biggest worry in a small case would be the graphics card (i.e. length) however the card is just over 9" and the case can reportedly take up to 12.6" length cards. It is an mATX case and mATX motherboard. It should all be fine.

[chrisbchicken]

To maybe save me some money I have in this computer a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. Would this be a suitable graphics card in that build?

[Troy]

It would certainly fit however this card is a number of years old and would not suit your criteria of running at the highest settings.

However what you could do is use the 8800GT for now and then save up for a new graphics card in a month or two, as the computer will be easily upgradeable for that purpose. If you wanted to save a few dollars again, you could drop the 750GB SATA hard drive which I included to be used as a data drive - you likely have a SATA drive in your current build which could be used in place, as long as it is in good running condition. Feel free to run a diagnostic on your current drive and if it passes in good health, then you could do that for now also.

Also another option to drop the price a bit further would be to go for 8GB RAM now, running 2x 4GB modules such as this kit: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231544

You could easily add another kit down the track to have 16GB total however 8GB would likely be plenty enough for the time being.