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#1 Aug 31 2011 at 4:23 AM Rating: Good
Howdy,

My old PC is dying a slow death, so it's time to look for a new one. I'm fairly tech. savy, but I've never built a PC from scratch before so I'm hesitant to go the entire "build your own" route as I don't really want to risk getting a motherboard that doesn't fit the case, not enough fans, nor ***** up installing the processors. I've installed power supplies, slave drives, RAM, & video cards though so I'm not a complete n00b, however I've always found it easier to purchase a decent system then upgrade from there.

I wanna spend less than $1000 & have a good monitor already, so looking around New Egg I found this.

The Good:

Price: $699
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Quad-Core processor (Sandy Bridge)
8GB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

The Meh:

1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM
600W Power Supply

The Bad:

AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB PCI-E Graphics Card
PCI Slots: 1x PCI-e x16, 1x PCI-e x1, 2 x PCI

Would this be a decent starting point? Looking around New Egg & not really wanting to go the alienware route, this looks like the best "starting" gaming PC I could find. Any thoughts on upgrades? Thanks for any & all input!
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#2 Aug 31 2011 at 3:06 PM Rating: Good
Omegavegeta wrote:
Howdy,

My old PC is dying a slow death, so it's time to look for a new one. I'm fairly tech. savy, but I've never built a PC from scratch before so I'm hesitant to go the entire "build your own" route as I don't really want to risk getting a motherboard that doesn't fit the case, not enough fans, nor ***** up installing the processors. I've installed power supplies, slave drives, RAM, & video cards though so I'm not a complete n00b, however I've always found it easier to purchase a decent system then upgrade from there.

I wanna spend less than $1000 & have a good monitor already, so looking around New Egg I found this.

The Good:

Price: $699
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Quad-Core processor (Sandy Bridge)
8GB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

The Meh:

1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM
600W Power Supply

The Bad:

AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB PCI-E Graphics Card
PCI Slots: 1x PCI-e x16, 1x PCI-e x1, 2 x PCI

Would this be a decent starting point? Looking around New Egg & not really wanting to go the alienware route, this looks like the best "starting" gaming PC I could find. Any thoughts on upgrades? Thanks for any & all input!


If you are concerned about getting ill-fitting parts but know how to build your own stuff, look into DIY kits. They do all the grunt work of ensuring that bits fit together for you, so you get the fun of putting it together on your kitchen table without any worries. It'll probably knock a couple hundred bucks off to do it that way. I stalked NewEgg and got my last kit for $297, tossing in a $75 video card to complete the set for around $400.
#3 Aug 31 2011 at 7:05 PM Rating: Good
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yeah.. the kits are a sweet route if you have some decent conmponents to transfer over (drives, vid card, etc) and the Windows installation disks. A bare-bones kit saves a LOT if you don't mind a little extra work porting parts over. I haven't bought a new system since 1996 myself.

Looking back.. that was a real POS machine too. IDK how I survived on a 486DX.
#4 Aug 31 2011 at 9:35 PM Rating: Excellent
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Thats not a bad starting point, though your motherboard and to some degree your case are going to offer limited upgrade potential. Costwise it's a decent price if you factor in the Operating system.
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#5 Aug 31 2011 at 10:20 PM Rating: Good
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If you want Im building a PC for Moderate gaming that after rebate Im looking at 500 with shipping I can post all my parts. I left room for upgrading and it should play mostly everything at good rez. Its an i3 Sandy core with Geforce460
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#6 Aug 31 2011 at 10:51 PM Rating: Good
Kao wrote:
Costwise it's a decent price if you factor in the Operating system.


That's what I'm thinking, as the OS is going to be an additional $150 - $200. My only real "gripe" with this system is it only has one PCI - E x16 slot & I've never been able to run SLI/Crossfire before. However, I'm thinking with a 600W Power Supply, I'd have to go with two lower end graphics cards to do so even if the motherboard had two PCI-E x16 slots.

So, besides swapping out the mid/low range graphics card it comes with & upping the RAM, anything else you think I'd want to upgrade?

Edited, Sep 1st 2011 12:52am by Omegavegeta
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"The Rich are there to take all of the money & pay none of the taxes, the middle class is there to do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor are there to scare the crap out of the middle class." -George Carlin


#7 Sep 01 2011 at 1:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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I guess the real thing to consider is "what do you want to do with this box in the future?" Do you plan to replace it in X years? or are you looking at upgrading? If SLI is something you might consider, maybe take a look at this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229264 Thats got 3 PCI express 16X slots and a 700 watt PSU, and a very nice, albiet smaller than I usually go, case. You could easily rebuild that with a new motherboard and larger PSU later on in the future. So basically an extra $140 gets you much better rebuild options. 700 watt is fine for 2x SLI on mid range cards. If you are throwing a pair of 580 GTX's in there, you might need an 800, depending on drives and other factors. If you aren't looking to rebuild this or add SLI in, the other box would save you a bit of money.

The other thing I would reccommend, is pick up a pair of 500GB - 1TB hard drives, and install them both in your computer in a "Raid 1" mirrored array. Basically, what that would give you is an instant backup device. You save a file on one of the drives, and it automatically is on the other one, so in theory in 3 years when one of the drives fails, you still have all your data on the other one. Takes a bit of doing to set up, but the instructions are in the motherboard manual. A pair of 500GB western digital drives will run you $35 each right now. Cheap insurance.

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#8 Sep 01 2011 at 4:04 AM Rating: Good
I ended up going for the one I linked in the original post. With the warranty the other box, while vastly superior when it comes to the upgrade potential (2 Graphics Cards & a dedicated PHYSX card would be sweet), goes just out of my price range & I don't really need the power. I want the power, mind you, but don't need it for my sole monitor setup that I use exclusively for gaming & internet.

Hell, I probably won't even upgrade the $100 card it comes with until November when I hit the big 3-0.

Thanks for your input! Now, anyone with Steam ever go to a new computer & know if they can re-download games with the same account on a different PC?

Edited, Sep 1st 2011 6:06am by Omegavegeta
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"The Rich are there to take all of the money & pay none of the taxes, the middle class is there to do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor are there to scare the crap out of the middle class." -George Carlin


#9 Sep 01 2011 at 6:37 AM Rating: Good
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Steam is tied to the account not the computer. Other DRM running under steam may limit the computer installs. SECUROM and Ubisoft I am looking at you.

I have moved my steam account to a different computer or new hard drives without any problems.
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