Looking for ideas.

[Rodinia]

Hi all. I'm new to the forum and came here to get some ideas from those more experienced than myself about how to go about putting together a new system. I have some experience pulling out and swapping hard drives and some other components, but have never built my own system, so I am at the beginning stages of my learning about how to go about this. Any thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated. so...

I've been using laptops for the past 7 years or so and my most recent POS hp pavilion just died after a few years, just like the others, which I'm getting pretty sick of these things dying after a few years, so I'm thinking of going back to a desktop setup so that when shit does go wrong, at least I could more easily swap out components as needed. I realize this can be done with laptops as well, but I've never worked on laptops and the local computer repair place charges a ton to work on em because I assume its more challenging than a desktop given the tight space. Is my thknking right here?so...


Here's what I'm wondering about. Mostly I use a computer to stream video, movies and music, web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, email, and ocassionally a game here and there and sometimes I lightly edit some photos. I'm pretty sure I don't need the highest processing and memory power out there for this but would like enough to play a game now and then. I don't watch much tv, so I don't even have one. I'm finally sick of watching movies on a laptop screen, so I'm thinking of going with more of a multimedia setup using a 32/36" flatscreen tv as the monitor. My budget is around $1000. In my inital shopping around I've been seeing some basic DIY computer kits in the $400-500 range from new egg that seem like would do the trick, but then I see some pre builts from Frys with similar components for about the same price, so which way should I go? In my budget range would I really be saving all that much money by doing it myself? Are there any compatibilty issues with using a flatsceen tv as a monitor? What level of processor, memory, and other components do you think I should be looking for? Is this doable for under $1000? In two years when things start failing or being outdated will it be fairly staightfoward to replace or update? your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated. thanks.

[Alan G]

I've built both workstations and Home Theater PCs (HTPC) and it's pretty straight forward. You mention playing an occasional game but don't say what kind. This will impact what type of processing power the system requires and whether you need a separate video card. New Intel CPUs have excellent HD video on the chip so you do not need a video card for HTPC or other uses. They will stream to your flat screen without any problem at all. If you are not playing games you can build a perfectly acceptable system with an i3 CPU, 4GB RAM, and a 350W PSU. If you do plan to play games you will need minimally an i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, a video card, and a 500-550W PSU. For the first build you can probably do it for less than $500; the second build will be $200-300 more depending on the components you desire. For the purposes you set out you don't need to worry about this system going out of date quickly.