i have around 900-1.3k to spend looking for the best possible gameing comp (movies music makeing vids etc) great monitor speakers just all around beast any suggestions? desktop only.
Definitely build your own. It isn't difficult, people here can help you with component compatibility, just link everything here before you purchase anything. Plenty of videos and tutorials on how to physically build it... not difficult. How big of a monitor do you want? That will be one of your biggest expenses. I would suggest AMD processors and graphics simply for the price to performance ratio. The AMD hexa-core processors are out and relatively cheap, like $200~ bucks. I just have the quad core which has worked very well for me with processor heavy games, at least for now the hexa-core is overkill. I suggest using one GPU, especially in your price range; Crossfirex or SLI is expensive and unnecessary.
I would personally build my own. It takes some research but in the end it pays off. If you don't want the hassle I would go on the different pc manufacturers websites and see what you can get for the money. Websites like ibuypower & cyberpower seem to be a good value and allow quite a bit of customization. I would also suggest visiting Tom's Hardware Forums There are plenty of articles on the website about computers. The forums are also incredibly helpful.
Again build your own. I spent $700 on my first computer, and my friend got a new HP maybe a month later, and his cost slightly over $2200. Mine ran games at nearly twice the FPS his did. He had a graphics card that was 3 generations before mine, and he paid more for his than I did for mine. Go on computer forums if you have paypal and see what is up for sale. I picked up a nearly new graphics card as soon as the 9 series N-vidias came out for half of retail because the guy used it for benchmarking. It was the top graphics card at the time and I got it for $175 and he paid $430 with 1 day shipping. The graphics card has been overclocked severely since I got it and is still running great The great part about building your own is you can overclock the components if you do some research. I once had a processor running at 4GHz. It requires a lot of cooling, which will be out of your price range, but that does not mean you can't buy a 2.66GHz processor and make it run at 2.8 or even 3.0 as long as you monitor your temperatures.
you can build a nice rig for $900, but not a beast. Heres stuff for a beast of a pc. i7 & aftermarket push & pull heatsink= 4.0ghz+ decent 1366 socket motherboard w/ usb 3.0 ports. tripple channel ddr3 6gb ram ssd for operating system 2gb hdd for storage or more depending on your needs. nvidia gtx580 1000w psu dual 24" monitors. ASUS or SAMSUNG ONLY!!! Just go on newegg and take your time, research if need be. If youve never built a pc before, check out this forum http://tech-forums.net/, ive been a member for 7 years off and on. Really helpful people who would give you a list of parts and all the info your looking for.
Building your own comp is so easy, Im not even joking. Make sure your motherboard fits the case, make sure your processor is compatible with your motherboard, and make sure you get the correct ram make sure the processor supports your mobo, Get a Hd. Some fans It's so simple man but then again it's technical you gotta do some reading first if you're new. It's simple really, but takes time. You save money
Desktop? Why? Laptops can do everything desktops can, and you can take it with you. I've been a laptop guy for some 3 or 4 years now... desktop is good as a "all these spare parts I've collected" thing, but not as a primary PC. What good's a computer I can't take with me? But if you're stuck on a desktop... I dunno, maybe I'm the odd man out here, but you get more bang for your buck when you buy a pre-built one. Buying parts is prone to disaster, most specifically in the assembly stages. Wanna-be "geeks" do such a fucking terrible job of assembling a computer, it'll have less than half the usual life expectancy of an equivalent prebuilt desktop with all the cooling problems, wiring problems, and general lack of knowledge associated with someone that read on some forum somewhere that they should just build their own. The offerings from HP are cheaper, better built (not shitting you here), and come with a full system warranty that would outlast the life expectancy of your home-built system... really, if you don't know how to build a PC from spare parts you've collected, don't jump in and learn using brand-new parts. Only start down that road once you've actually got the hang of it from shit you've collected...
Well there is a price premium on components of a laptop compared to a desktop. Im not saying all laptops are expensive there are certainly cheap ones around, but if hes looking to hit high scores on 3d Mark or get fast render times from video editing, a lowly mobile GPU might not be adequate. As for not building your own, that could be true for several people. There are plenty of idiots out there, however I find that if you can build an erect-a-set, you can assemble a computer, as long as you can follow instructions. You cant assume all first home builds are destined for failure, because I think thats really not true. My brother and I built our first gaming desktop when I was 12 years old and he was 14 with the help of the 3dfiles.com forum. That thing was upgraded over the next 3+ years until new CPU and sockets were introduced and we went from AMD to Intel and built a new machine which he eventually took to college and lasted for a total of 6 years! We were just a couple kids that had the internet.
Yea... I disagree with this post completely. With the amount of people in the PC building community, there are so many huge resources to utilize in building your own PC. Also, manufactured PCs and heat? Are you kidding me? I work in a restaurant, not an electronics retailer, and I have fixed so many pre-built computers and almost all of them suffer from heat damage. Laptops particularly. They stuff so many small, heat producing components into such small places. HP in particular has a desktop model in which the RAM is covered completely by an optical drive, it allows no airflow to get to the RAM. This is a common problem among such models, as I learned in the trouble shooting of my coworkers computer problems. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely mistakes to be made. My first home brew PC had many failures, the worst of which was user error. I didn't use any stand offs and short circuited my motherboard. Luckily my processor didn't go up, and it was a $40 fix for a new motherboard. I'm just saying that you can build a 'modern' PC for less than $300 with a 3 GHz dual core processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM, assuming you have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. Have fun trying to find that with a PC manufacturer. I just recently did a build for someone with these specs. The total was $250, $270 shipped. You simply can not find that price with a manufacturer. Period.
I do agree there are many spots where you COULD mess up, but we live in an age with computers. Look up an answer if you have a question. As far as heat issues with pre built machines, I have to laugh at that. At my work, none of the 4 year old computers work anymore because of the cluster of wires in the middle of the air pattern. Between the wires, the way the air system was poorly designed (positive air flow being channeled into a restrictive case). Basically of the 5 computers, 2 still work and thats because I took the working parts of the 5 computers and made 2. The 2 that do work don't do a very good job. 1 has a fan that runs about 50% of the time after I lubed it, and the other is passively cooled. I just love the fact that my computer costs so much less than the ones dell offers. I just priced a dell for this thread, and it costs $1100 without a monitor or any other accessories, has a slower processor and an equal video card. It also didn't have the hard drive configuration I have, which is a lot more than the 2TB they offered. My system costed me about $900 a couple of years ago. If I rebought the hard drives now, it would have cost me $800 to build. If I rebought the graphics card now it would probably be around $750, and I could probably pick up a CPU for dirt, bringing it down to around $700. Also, can someone tell me why dell offers DDR3 in a 4DIMM configuration? Hasn't anyone told them to run them in triple channel yet?
I couldnt agree more. i was recently browsing around best buy the other day. I was throughly unimpressed at the selection of Desktop Pc, laptops, components, and video cards that they had. The video cards were really outdated and overpriced. Building a pc is not a daunting task these days. As someone mentioned, if you can read and follow directions, you'll be more than fine. And besides most, if not all parts come with manufacturers warranty. Some longer than others depending on what brand you buy.
My buddy is building his parents a 'future proof' machine. A 6 core AMD processor, 6 gigabytes of DDR3 1333, a motherboard that has USB 3.0 and SATA 6 gbits/s connectors, and a 500 gigabyte hard drive... Including the operating system this machine was built for $570. He didn't specify which version of Windows 7 he got, and he never told me about the PSU or optical drives or anything (which he may be taking from their old PC). It just goes to show how much cheaper you can build a computer as opposed to buying a computer.
Oh and I forgot to mention before, EVGA makes graphics cards that have a double lifetime warranty, meaning even if you sell it, it still carries a lifetime warranty. They also allow you to turn in your card for money when the new generation comes out and get the new card at a decently discounted price. How can you beat a DOUBLE lifetime warranty on one of the most expensive components?
Wow, I sure got ripped a new one here. I just don't hold much faith in the average "derp immma build a me my own PC!" computer-builder. I've seen so many busted-ass homebrew systems it makes me sick. Every single homebrew system that I didn't put together myself, being used by some "but I just wanted a computer" kind of guy, had some kind of huge glaring flaw (or two, or ten, depending on the amount of money/parts involved) that made me stare in awe that the owner thought they could build a computer. When you get an OEM system, you get a professionally-assembled unit, with full hardware warranty (INCLUDING the case of if their poor thermal design causes problems - but at least it HAD a thermal design!), and at a very marginal (if any!) cost over building it yourself. Fact is, you can build your own for, say, $400, including OS... or you can get an OEM system for, say, $400, pre-assembled and guaranteed to last. What about voiding your component warranties in that prized homebrew system by improperly installing the component (surprise surprise)? Seriously, the OEMs like HP and Dell get such huge discounts on their components, the computer cost ends up being about the price of the individual parts on Newegg. And as for a poor selection of OEM computers... have you even LOOKED at Newegg's selection of OEM systems? There's practically too many to choose from. Not a spokesman for OEM systems here, I just have seen too many computers trashed by people that don't know what they're doing... over-ballsy video cards thinking it helps them with "video editing"... 8gb RAM and playing Farmville... and on the assembly side of things, I've had someone bring a homebrew computer into the shop, wondering why it won't work. It only took a few minutes and one single power-on to realize that the motherboard was mounted directly to the backplate without any standoffs. And they wonder why it won't work. There's always that issue of "how would you know without trying?"... I agree, it's a bit of a catch-22. But the place to start is with old hand-me-down parts, not with a new system. I didn't build my first brand-new desktop from brand-new parts for some 9 years after I first started building computers. It's just not the right place to start, IMO... :/