$3200 Budget

[DavidDBZ]

I saved my money for a long time and now im ready to buy.
What kind of gaming system would you build on a $3200 Budget?
It has to be built befor the end of march 31st. Im on a deadline.

 

[Waspy]

Check out the post I put up there, it's close to you budget and you could probably tweak it a bit to get to your budget, or significantly below.

 

[lilsage]

You would be better off in the long run to spend maybe a max of $2000 on a new system and save the other $1200 to replace pieces when they need to be replaced.

Take it from someone who has been there. I bought a $2400 machine about 6 years back with all the bells and whistles... and replaced it about two years later with an $800 machine that kicked its butt.

I think you are better to invest money into things that will last a long time... like a multi-use case, CPU coolor with no moving parts (I like the Thermalright IFX-14 myself) then just replace the fan as needed, and a really good power supply with a long warranty (600w min with connectors for 2 CPU's and 2 graphics cards... etc), plus the normal odds and ends like dvd drive, fans, etc.

Then get the MB, Porocessor, RAM, and GPU that you want now... and upgrade more as needed. I told someone else, should get a 8800GTS and then later on upgrade by adding a second one when you start playing games that need the extra power and the prices hopefully drop. Since I also suspect you want two GPUs when spending $3200.

Unless you have to spend the money... that will give you way better useability... and set you up to also get the next dream machine on the list... that will typically start gnawing at the back of your mind a year from now anyways... technology changes fast.

Just a suggestion!

 

[boonality]

I agree to a point. You should definately splurge on this computer if you are absolutely read to build and spend the money. But stick around the $2,000 price point. For that you can still get a quad core, 8GB of corsair dominator and just about any video card you want, and stick it all in a real nice case with a good quality motherboard. For the extra $1,200 the only real advantage you'd have over spending $2,000 is SLI and water cooling.

 

[jitpublisher]

Agree with others here. You could really go all out and build a top of line gaming rig with $3500. But, in 6 months there will be hardware faster and cheaper. For 2g's you can build something that will run at 90% of what a $3500 rig would. The most high-end parts that you pay a premium for are way, way overpriced when you look at the value performance ratio.