Christmas Comp. Building

[Redman]

Well my brother wants a computer for Christmas, so I figured I would build him one, only thing is I am on a budget of about $500. I have no clue what components to get that are good for such a budget. I would of put a list of components up, but i figured they would all be wrong :( since i have no clue for this budget, lol. He plays a lot of computer games, including WoW, Unreal, C&C, and basically any games based off of Steam I know you guys are great at pricing, so i figured i would come here. Your input would be greatly appreciated :)

P.S. already bought the case so don't need one and don't need OS software, monitor, or peripherals .

[masked]

what case do you have?

[Jamie Nixx]

Hey Redman no sweat dude i'll get straight on it, i am sure i could put a nice computer together for $500 that will play most if not all games.

You say you have a case, does it take ATX boards and do you have a PSU with it?

[Redman]

I have the Antec Nine Hundred case without a power supply.

[Jamie Nixx]

Sweet, i have one, nice case.

Now the PSU i plan to use on my price up is $100, so thats $400 for other components.

Now what EXACTLY do you have already apart from the monitor, case and OS e.g optical drives ect.

[Redman]

i have:
cd/dvd-rom drive
keyboard/mouse
speakers

[Jamie Nixx]

Thats wicked, i should be able to price a very nice computer for you.

[Redman]

Thanks Jamie, I highly appreciate your help. :)

[Jamie Nixx]

Hmm, is your Bro looking to play games such as Crysis, Stalker, Bioshock ect as well as the ones you listed?

[Redman]

If possible yes. I currently have Bioshock on my pc and I believe it should be played by everyone :) best game I've played in a long time.

[Jamie Nixx]

Hmm, if possible, could you gather say, an extra $100, i can do it for $500 but i really want to compliment the rest of the setup with a good graphics card.

So far i have

Asus P35C Motherboard, awesome motherboard, probably one of the best gaming motherboard around and it supports DDR2 and DDR3 memory.

E4400 Allendale core 2 duo, excellent CPU even for gaming.

Corsair XMS2 memory 2GB, nuff said.

And the Hiper Type R 580w.

All of this comes to $449 on newegg, take of the $40 rebate for the memory and its around $400, i would ideally like to put an ATI Radeon 3850 Pro 512mb in there as well but it costs $200.

Things can be done to take the price down such as replacing the motherboard but the other components are a must really.

[Redman]

yeah i can afford a extra $150 or so. Get it as close as possible a little over or a little under is not a big concern.

[Jamie Nixx]

Thats good, we may be able to go for the 3870 Pro :D

Any ideas what size Harddrive you will be needing in this beast?

[Redman]

No clue. I would say something around 120 should be good for now.

[Jamie Nixx]

Ok well heres the specs list, all from newegg with rebates taken off.

Asus P5KC P35 motherboard, $134.99

Hiper Type R 580w PSU, $99.99

Corsair XMS2 2GB, £47.00

ATI Radeon 3870 Pro, $229.99

C2D E4400 Allendale CPU, $139.99

160GB WD Caviar, $49.99

All of this comes to $701.95, like i said though i could price one for $500, but that computer would not really be capable of playing Crysis and it wouldn't be very futureproof.

What you have here is a top of the range Gaming computer, capable of playing virtually anything.

Of course if it is overbudget by too much i can change some things around.

[Redman]

Looks good to me. Price is good, I am sure he will be happy. :) I just have one more favor. Do you think you could link me some of these parts off of newegg, having trouble finding a few of them. Thanks again for your help, made my shopping a lot easier lol.

[Jamie Nixx]

I created a wish list for you.

https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/WishList/TemporaryWishList.asp?SltWishListNumber=&WishListTitle=

Hope this helps, good luck with the build and if there are any problems ect, just post and we will see what we can do :D

[Redman]

For some reason i can't access the wish list. The link takes me to the temporary page, which shows up blank...

[Jamie Nixx]

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131188

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814161212

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817128013

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115014

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145034

[Redman]

Thanks Jamie for the links, helped me out a lot. Going to order the parts now. I appreciate your help with the component list and I will be back with a built pc after Christmas. :)

[Jamie Nixx]

HOLD UP, don't order that power supply, its not the right one.

You want the Hiper Type R 580w, the modular version, its much better than that.

[Redman]

ok, glad i came back and read this first lol.

[Jamie Nixx]

You will have to try and find it, it might be on amazon but its disappeared from both newegg and tiger direct.

[Redman]

yeah I've been looking, haven't found it anywhere. Thanks for the help.

[Jamie Nixx]

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3444

[Redman]

Done!! put it all together a few days ago and got it all running. Brother was ecstatic with the build. Thanks for the help man, couldn't of done it without you. :D

[Jamie Nixx]

No problemo, glad the build went ok :)