What do you recommend?

[lycsailor17]

this is my first time building a computer, I have looked through all the guides on how to build one so I know how to do that. I want to build a gaming pc, and need some recommendations on what model to use. I want good quality parts, but not top of the line.

I do know that I want an i7, water cooling, fan speed controller, nvidia graphics card, and raid. but What motherboard, memory, hard drives, power supply, and case?

what do you recommend?

 

[MadHappy]

If this is your first build, I'd hold off on water cooling for the time being. There are some excellent air coolers out there for under $100 that will allow you to overclock your Intel i5/i7 to 4.5-4.8GHz. As for a fan controller, you can get one if you want, but I say hold off on that too until you know for a fact that you need one, you can always buy/install it later.

Do you plan on doing a lot video editing, encoding, decoding, etc.? If not, you don't really need an i7, you can save $100 and get the i5 and still have practically identical performance. The only thing that separates the i7 from the i5 is hyper-threading(read about here), which is great for people that use a lot of CPU heavy applications(Aobe Premiere, Photoshop, etc.) But hey, if you don't mind spending the extra $100, go for it! Orrrrrr, you can use the $100 you save to get an SSD :good:

Anways, here's the big question: What's your budget? Then we can start helping you out on what parts to get

 

[lycsailor17]

my budget is about 700-800 dollars

 

[jonnyp11]

for 7-800, i7 not happening, and i5 will be just as fast, minimal difference in performance, water cooling is pointless, expensive, and only needed for extreme overclockers, fan controller is nice and they have some nice ones for around 25 so is dooable, nvidia and radeon don't matter, at each price area they are different, and it's just the best deal you can get at the price, mobo needs to be an lga 1155 z68, should be a good combo with the i5 somewhere on newegg, ram i'd go 8gb's ddr3 1600mhz, 1333 will be fine though, i wouldn't pay more than 5-7 bucks for the difference, hdd's i like seagate barracuda and caviar blue, just preference and i think they are better quality, psu should be silverstone or corsair, those are the 2 best and most popular high end brands, nad for the case, newegg has some really nice ones for under 60, i really don't see a way to justify spending over 100 on a case unless you've got money shooting out of your ass and a budget over 1.2k

 

[MadHappy]

You can build a decent gaming computer for $800, but it will be nowhere near what you're thinking. And I'm guessing that it's a gaming rig you want to build, so if you're looking to play most of today's games at their highest setting, plan to spend at least $1200.

Here's a computer I put together on Newegg a few days ago - $1200
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=18195666

Something like this should be able to play games like Farcry 2 and Mafia II at their highest settings. But if you want to play games like Crysis or Metro 2033, you'll probably get <30 FPS unless you lower the settings. A computer that maxes out Crysis or Metro generally costs $1600+.

I'm saying all this just so you can see the relative costs of computers versus the performance they deliver. Because you're saying, "Core i7 and watercooling!", when that is not exactly possible if your budget is only $800.

This isn't bad, a well built $800 computer can play every game out there, but you'll only be playing them on their medium settings.

 

[daisymtc]

Forget Water Cooling. I won't recommend trying on your first build.
Forget i7, it won't worth the extra money from i5. Also your budget won't allow.
What RAID do you use? If you want speed, go for SSD.

BTW, your budget is not enough for what you want.
And do you need OS included within $800?

 

[NDSUTopGun]

Agreed with the whole i7 situation. they're great, but super expensive. A good friend of mine at my high school who is the technology coordinator (the big cheese, some might call him...) once said that i5 processors are pretty much built the same like an i7, but failed to meet certain i7 design and performance parameters and it's as if quality control simply just flagged them down to i5 status. No worries, man.

What RAID configuration do you plan on using? RAID 0?

I use the Corsair H60 liquid cooler. Everything comes in one piece. Simple enough for the amateur enthusiast (like me) who's interested in water cooling. Works great, keeps the temperature way down. Look for it on Newegg.