Attention all pc builders
 

I have decided to start and build myself a kick-ass gaming pc. I was wondering if anyone here could list some 'must have' components, ie
Motherboard + chipset
Ram + rom
Hdd
Graphics card
Sound card
DvD drive
monitor
tower cooling system
any kind of fan filter (lots of dust in my place)
anything that will decrease the humidity
I know I need these things, but if anyone could suggest brands or specs. My ultimate would be to view SHIII GW, like I was watching the TV. A flawless non-jumpy picture

What´s your budget?

Well, ok, to start with I'm just looking at getting 1 component every couple of weeks. So I'm not too sure, but say give me a top range, then a mid range and I'll sort it from there.
My budget will be limited by the Admiral at home, she doesn't see any worth in any of this

That´s not a very good idea for various reason. You should better wait until you can afford to buy all components at once, even if that would take 6 months or more. That saves a lot of money.

Ok. Obviously now you know AMD CPUs are half price! So I hope you didn't buy one last week otherwise you would have wasted alot of money.

Here is what I think you should buy. The prices are in australian dollars.

Gigabyte M55SLI-S4 $152
AM2 Dual Core 5000+ $490
2G Kit Corsair DDR2 667 5300 $225
Maxtor 16M SATA II 250G x2 (raid 0) $230
512MB X1900XT Gigabyte $675
16x Samsung DVD-ROM $30
16x Pioneer 111D Black DVD-RW $53
Thermaltake Soprano case $125
TOTAL $1980

No screen keyboard mouse is included. You can pick you r own stuff there.

I upgraded the guts of my computer (i.e. kept the drives, monitor, keyboard, mouse) a couple of weeks ago in Aus, and here's roughly what I got with rough prices:

MB: Asus A8N-SLI deluxe $200 - This MB rocks, I know several people with one, and it is highly recommended. It uses the nForce 4 chipset.

CPU: AMD athlon64 2700+ $350ish - It seems that dual core's are not really worth the price at the moment unless you do a lot of multitasking

Graphics: XFX GeForce 7900Gt 256Mb 520Mhz (not sure about the speed, but don't get the super-overclocked ones as they die very easily) $450 - Seems to be going very well, not top of the line, but you can get 2 of these for the price of one 7900GTX. It is possible to get a 512mb 7900GT for around the same price from inferior brands, but they are very rare.

RAM: go for 2 gigs if at all possible, I've only got 1gig, but really want a second.

Antec case, not sure which model but it was $170ish, and is very big and roomy and has funky blue LED's (mind you, LED colour shouldn't be the deciding factor).

One place you should check out is http://www.tomshardware.com/ a very useful site with reviews and comparisons of lots of stuff.

Hope this helps.

7900GTX is good, 7950 better and 2x7900GTX the best

you really don't need 2x 7900 for today's game's .My next upgrade is going to be when Direct X10 is out and all new vid cards. As Gizzmoe said save your many and buy all the parts at once.When I did my I got good discount when I bought all the parts in one shop

and my suggestion is instead of getting the best of the best as far as components are concerned, aim to buy, at the very most, the second best. quite a price difference between the newest and the second newest parts of your system, but not much performance difference. could easily shave $500-1000 off the price of your computer with no noticeable performance drop. if you do it right, you shouldn't have to upgrade anything in your computer for at least 3 years.

hell, i built my computer four years ago and all i've changed is more ram (512 --> 1024. actually tried 1.5g, but the third and fourth dimm slots were crapola) and maybe a step or two up with the processor. same mobo, gfx card, hdd, etc. and i've never had problems playing games, except battlefield 2, which was nvidia's wet dream game b/c you had to upgrade your video card in order to play it.

Thanks for your suggestions, if anyone on this forum from Aus can give me an idea of price, I'll speak with Admiral (Mrs) Hueywolf and work on a budget. Buying all at the same time does make more sense.
As my house is on a hill-side in bushland, we get a lot of humidity and a lot of dust. These two factors don't do pc's any favours at all. Has anyone, or does anyone know of anything that can limit this damage other than hermatically sealing off the room?

There are a few points most important here.
Everything is already obsolete; everything.
No matter what expensive toy you buy it is not DX-10 nor is it HD.
So, since no matter what; we will be replacing everything with the next OS, so, there is no point in spending any more than does a good job for what one plays now.

One can buy a non SLI MoBo for under $75.00. A new AMD 3500 is $109.00 shipped from Newegg and a 7600 or X800 256MB VC will insure you run everything at max settings or very close with 1280X1024 resolution.
SLI is not worth it, as the Geek squads repeatedly state
Yes dual core will give you more if you have one PC tower as you can split the functions but if one has an existing 32 bit just leave all the day to day stuff there and build the 64bit just for your games/sims.
It will save you money and no one will give you a turd for your 32bit stuff anyway. A simple switch will allow you to use the same monitor/keyboard/mouse.
The 3500/X850XT/A8N/2GBDDR400 without all the small crap that is running on my 32 bit runs my set up maxed for CoD2 and every game in between at 1280X1024.

Don’t let me stop you from spending money by all means. But, for a lot less you can run the next year maxed, save a few bucks and be ready when we all trash our DX-9/XP stuff for all new systems, no matter how big, bad and bragging right super it is, it is already obsolete.
Wulfmann

Just make sure your new motherboard will be able to handle Windows Vista, which many new ones are capable of already.

Other important items which may have been mentioned already:
1. Dual Core Processor (fast as you can afford)
2. Dual video card capable (as much memory as you can afford)
3. Get 2g of Memory (DDR2 and fast) and expandable for the future
4. Plenty of Power
5. A Good case that is easily accessible and will keep your hardware cool.
6. DVD-R/W
7. Plenty of USB connections
8. A good LCD Monitor (19" or bigger)
9. Plenty of Harddrive space

FB, I respectfully disagree. The new OS (Going by past experience) will be bugged and frustrating for 6 months to a year.
SC 64 bit can handle any game currently out.
S-VC, a good one, can handle any game out. SLI only improves the big cards by a few FPS and buying an SLI so you can use 2 6600 does not give you the performance of a single 7800
DDR2 is 10% faster, not worth the cost increase, again, say the super PC geeks.
All the rest may be good advise but for now I believe build only what runs current spec games.
The new OS and DX-10 plus HD means every item will be old hat for Vista that we buy today. Do you really think in 2008 the CPU and VCs will be the same? They will be on another planet and what we are doing now will compare to Vodoo cards, the ultimate in their day, a day long gone.
Every single item will be useless because a new set of standards are coming. For one it will not be GB anymore; it will be TB
But, like I said, don't let me stop anyone from spending money for bragging rights.
I was going to get a AMD4000SC but could not find anything that needed to run better

Wulfmann

Well I really do appreciate your thoughts Wulfmann, but from what I know and have been told, as long as you get an appropriate motherboard and the right hardware etc, the only thing that someone might want to upgrade for DX-10 would be their video card, so you might want to hold off on that second card at this point. But we are really just guessing. And I don't think Vista is going to have that many bugs based on the amount of beta testing and delays which Microsoft has done to ensure it's quality. IMO

....and the day after you have build it, it's stoneaged.

Markus