So I'm thinking about slowly saving up till the end of the summer, and buying myself a gaming PC before I go back to school. I don't have tons of money to throw around but I'm hoping to maybe have about $700 before the end of this summer. I don't have anything, monitor, keyboard, nothing. I'll be building a new PC completely from scratch.

I realize that this won't be able to play all the new games, but I'm just looking for a good system to start from, and then I can slowly upgrade. Right now I'm looking to be able to play games powered by the Steam engine, such as the upcoming Left 4 Dead, and older games such as Vampire the Masquerade- Bloodlines, and Counter-Strike Source. Would a $700 PC get me enough power to play these games?

I'd like to eventually upgrade the computer so that it is a fairly powerful rig. But now I'm going for the foundation. What do you guys think?

700 really isn't a problem without the monitor. That makes it really difficult.

The Budget Build: ~ $700- Case has a $30 MIR on it.
CPU: Intel Core2Duo E2180 2.0GHz
Motherboard: ASUS P5KPL-VM (Intel G31 chipset)
RAM: G.Skill 2GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-12
Hard Drive: 250GB WD Sata2
Optical Drive: Lite-On SATA 20X burner w/ Nero
Case: Antec Sonta III w/ 500W PSU
OS: Windows XP Home (I don't much care for Vista- but you can sub Vista here if you want for $30 more because Home Basic is ripoff in every possible way)
Input Devices: MS keyboard and Mouse
Video: BFG Tech 8800GT 512

Maybe you can find a cheap monitor somewhere or pawn one off your friends lol

Go with AMD on such a tight budget, the overall platform is cheaper and and better for what you would get with a similarly priced intel set. Especially because you don't have a monitor, but I think you could put something fairly fast together, at least for what you play.

Start looking for deals with friends/relatives/neighbors. Let people know you're going to be building a computer. You'd be surprised how many people have old monitors (like a 17 or 19 inch LCD) because they upgraded their monitor and the old one is sitting in the garage. I just sent off a DVD/cd RW and a dated, but decent video card to a friend. There's also student discounts for Vista home premium @ $80. I bet there's going to be a bunch of 3870s, 8800GT and other GPUs to be had for very reasonable prices once the next generation of cards come out. You might be surprised how much support you'll get from family in something like this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131278

MB for 95.00 USD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819116070

CPU for 90.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231098

memory 45.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148262

Hard drive 60.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129024

PSU and Case for 89.00 after rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827106073

Combo drive 30.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116485

OS/ vista 100.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814143115

GPU 90.00 after 30.00 MIR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6823109156

Keyboard and Mouse 30.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 824176085R

Display 140.00

ok that is a complete system that can play all new games for 770.00 total
mite find better deals here and there to pbring the over all cost down some

I second the asking around for a monitor. Even check the newspaper or listings on craig's list around your area. The thing about a second hand monitor is that the first owner got rid of it for a reason. Most people don't upgrade a monitor just because they feel like it (I know I don't). If you do end up getting a "pre-owned" monitor, it'd be better if you could turn it on and look at it for dead pixels and such before you buy it, thus shopping locally (avoid ebay at all costs, imo).

Mouse and keyboard is easy to skimp on first time around. Buy something cheap that works, and upgrade them first.

The computer itself should be easy to build for sub $600 (assuming $100 for mouse, kb and monitor). While I'm an intel fan myself, you may want to check out AMD's 780G chipset, put a decent Phenom with it, and you have a sub $300 platform that can (supposedly) tear through the source engine. Add the new 4xxx series ATI card later on if you want.

Hope this helps

edit: upon looking around, looks like $300 was a bit of an under estimate, but definitely for way under $400, then add ram and a decent PSU, and toss it all into a case. If budget gets tight, look into the Phenom x3 too. Or just go with a nice trusty Athlon, they're super cheap now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811121032

Here's something for you. If you are on a really tight budget if you have to buy monitor and all, that case could potentially be a good deal. It's got a power supply with it, and I know you guys are going to all scream don't get that PSU, but it is a dual rail PSU, rated at 20 amps on one 12v+ rail and 19 amps on the other. Myself, I'm actually considering a PSU from the same company for a small video card upgrade I'm doing. Antec or something would be nice, but my wife would likely be ticked if I spend too much. So for a 25-35 dollar power supply that's not bad ratings.

Also, depending on resolution, you may consider the 9600gt, or the 8800gs. Depending again on resolutions your playing at and how your budget falls. I'm probably going with an xfx brand overclocked 8800gs myself. The last time I looked at it, it was 150 but had no shipping cost, a free copy of call of duty 4, and a 30 dollar mail in rebate. They come with 384 mb of ram, but the overclocked 8800gs cards according to benchmarks I've seen place themselves somewhere between the 9600gt and 8800gt. So save some money there.

Also, maybe consider an AMD system. I know intel is the king in performance now, but if you don't plan to overclock and are on a budget, I'd suggest AMD. For example, newegg is running the Athlon x2 4600+ for 66 bucks. Or the 4800 x2 chips are like 76. So some good deals out there. Intel or AMD. Your choice. I've read on video cards though, the 8800gs is quite powerful if you play at lower resolutions. So you say your looking for a foundation, I say get something like that and spend your money on a better chip or more memory, etc.

Oh, also do check at your University for a copy of Windows. My old university would sell you a copy of Windows Vista Business if you were a student or faculty for just over 20 bucks. Same thing on office programs and what not. Although for the office program, go to www.openoffice.org

There is a very nice Office program there called Open Office, will do pretty much what MS office will do, and will read and save to most of their formats. The newer version supposed to coming out in september is in beta as far as I know and is supposed to read and write to the newer Microsoft file formats. And it's free. So check into that, save some cash.

Also check within your particular department. I'm a computer engineering student at the University of Arkansas and the engineering department GIVES us copies of Windows, almost any version you could possibly want. So that's definitely worth looking into.