Budget of 1400: compare my build with prebuilt machine

T

TeeJay

New Member
Hello.
I am trying to put together a machine with a budget of about 1400. I have a few requirements:

- I would like it to be fast right out of the box. I'm not much of a tweaker, but I'm willing to do so if it's minimal.
- This will be a gaming PC.
- I would like to SLI. Maybe not right away, but in the future.

I have pieced together the system below, and would love some feedback on it (edited with suggestions from posts):

1. Case: 135
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

2. PSU: 120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171024&Tpk=Coolermaster+750W

3. Mobo: 160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188019

4. RAM: 224
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145176

5. Video card: 290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130303

6. Sound Card: 81
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102006

7. CPU: 280
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115028

8. Hard drive: 100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136178

9. Optical: 18
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827101131

Total: 1408

I also came accross this machine, and was wondering if it would be better just going with something like this. I know the components aren't as good, but it does have an SLI setup and an OS with a few accessories:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229004

Thanks much. You folks were a big help to me in the past, I look forward to your responses.
 
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You get twice as much ram but it is AMD and AMD is more gamer oriented from what i understand, also in your build you did not include disc drives, the prebuilt system comes with two, and if i recall you do need a disc drive to play most games...
 
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1. If you don't plan on being bombed anytime soon, I'd go with a cheaper case. However, in the event of a planned attack on your house, that case would possibly deflect any sort of projectiles or grenades. (Jk, to each his own...but you could save a little $$).
2. If you plan to sli with decent vid cards, I'd get a bigger PSU. I'd get 650+, but thats me.
3. Not bad.
4. Good choice, unless you want to wait a bit for the new 8800gts which is better.
5. I'd get rid of the sound card altogether.
6. Again, if it were me, I'd get the Q6600 quadcore. 4 cores are much more future-proof.
7. Good.

As Doug said, you need to account for an optical drive if you don't have one, and also an operating system. That about $150, which you could likely save with a different case and no sound card (my on board sound is fine).

@Doug: fyi, currently Intel is hands-down better than AMD in terms of gaming, or anything else for that matter. AMD was better a couple years ago, but thats not the case anymore.
 
i would get a q6600 cheaper sli capable psu and a 8800gts 640mb


my build cost 1100 and i got a quad 8800gts 640mb 2gb ram and a 700 watt psu
 
treddstone said:
1. If you don't plan on being bombed anytime soon, I'd go with a cheaper case. However, in the event of a planned attack on your house, that case would possibly deflect any sort of projectiles or grenades. (Jk, to each his own...but you could save a little $$).
2. If you plan to sli with decent vid cards, I'd get a bigger PSU. I'd get 650+, but thats me.
3. Not bad.
4. Good choice, unless you want to wait a bit for the new 8800gts which is better.
5. I'd get rid of the sound card altogether.
6. Again, if it were me, I'd get the Q6600 quadcore. 4 cores are much more future-proof.
7. Good.
Click to expand...

What makes you say this? For a gaming PC, I'd say having a sound card is better than using onboard by miles.
 
Simply a personal preference. I don't have a sound card and my games sound just fine (I use the optical output). My main reason for suggesting it though was so he could save money to put toward other components which he may or may not have accounted for.
 
b3rt_d4ni3l said:
What makes you say this? For a gaming PC, I'd say having a sound card is better than using onboard by miles.
Click to expand...


Unless you have killer speakers, it makes no difference on whether you have a onboard vs sound card. You won't hear the difference anyways. Most people have a cheap to moderate set of speakers for their systems. So an expensive sound card is just wasting money.

Now if you do have a good to very good set of speakers, then by all means get a sound card.
 
or...if you have a quadraphonic speaker setup (like me) youll get a decent sound card....i also have a sub i set up on occasion, so its nice to be flexible in my audio setups.
 
Thanks Treddstone, sorry i didn't know. I just vaugely remember hearing something about AMD being more game oriented.
 
Thanks a lot for all the great suggestions. I've updated the original post to reflect the suggestions for the case and PSU, and I added a DVD drive.

After looking a bit more at the motherboard I linked in the original post, I noticed that it doesn't have an PCI-e 2.0 slot. Will it be a problem trying to run the 8800GT with it since this card is apparently a PCI-e 2.0 card? Can someone perhaps recommend a PCI-e 2.0 motherboard for near the same price and performance?

Thank you.
 
TeeJay said:
Thanks a lot for all the great suggestions. I've updated the original post to reflect the suggestions for the case and PSU, and I added a DVD drive.

After looking a bit more at the motherboard I linked in the original post, I noticed that it doesn't have an PCI-e 2.0 slot. Will it be a problem trying to run the 8800GT with it since this card is apparently a PCI-e 2.0 card? Can someone perhaps recommend a PCI-e 2.0 motherboard for near the same price and performance?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Most pci 2.0 are over 200$ so no can do, and i don't really think it should affect it that much
 
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