I'm looking to build a new computer in about the 700 dollar range; it CAN'T exceed $800. It'll be used purely for gaming. I already have a case/power supply, DVD/CD burner, and floppy drive, so that's not included in the $800 maximum. My main problem is that I haven't built a new computer for 4 years and haven't even looked at new parts in any of that time, so I have no idea what's good and what's not nowadays. I've heard that Intel's processors are doing better than AMDs for now and GeForce 8800 GTs are the ultimate low price video cards around.

Now I've always sucked pretty badly at picking specific parts (for example, when picking a motherboard, really the only thing I know to look for is the socket type), so if anyone could suggest some parts that would probably fit in with a computer around 700 dollars, I'd appreciate it! (Even better if you give a full list of parts! ) One last thing - I was hoping to get 4gb of RAM; Is that plausible with my budget without gimping the other parts?

For my hard drive, I don't think I'll need more than 500gb, so I thought http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148136 would work.

I'm not set at all on video cards as I don't know what's actually the best bang for my buck, but I saw http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121224 on newegg for $160, plus a mail-in rebate to make it $130

As for CPUs and Motherboards, I'm completely lost. And I guess I can't really pick RAM until I know what motherboard I'll be getting. So if you've got any advice for me on any of the parts, lemme know.

Thanks!

Read this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] ld-updated

I was in the same boat.....have not built a computer since well...AMD 400Mhz I think it was? I can't count buying a motherboard\CPU\MEM combo and swapping out as a system build, can I?

What kind of power supply do you currently have? I'm guessing if it's 4 years old, it likely will need to be replaced. And do you have a Monitor?

Awesome thread! I didn't know about it until now Based on it, I picked this stuff:

$90 - Seagate 500gb HD
$160 - ASUS GeForce 8800 GT 512MB - I wasn't sure what the difference between this and this was. Anyone know?
$60 - Power Supply 500W - turns out I do need a power supply; my old one is 350watts, not 450 like I thought
$87 - Corsair 4GB DDR 800
$90 - GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35
$210 - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
$8 - Shipping

$705 - Subtotal
-$70 - Rebates

$635 - Total

Now this is cheaper than I figured it would be. I was thinking of getting Vista which would be about $85 for a total of $720. I've still got about $80 left in my $800 budget, so what can I change up to get better performance? What should I change that I've already got written down?

Change the PSU to a higher tier. I would change out the $60 one for this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ing%2b610W

Higher quality unit.

Go with the eVGA due to their step-up program in case you want to a 2xx series card with 90 days.

Don't go cheap on the PSU....I was debating it in my head for over a week, trying to save money. I decided to get a cheap case, but a
Nice corsair 550W PSU......Wish I got the 650W now for more future stuff for like 10-20 more, but I should be good for quite some time.

http://z3.invisionfree.com/kips_co [...] owtopic=48 <--- There you go. Cheap yet fast.

Anyone know if this power consumption calculator is very accurate? So far I'm getting about 300-320watts

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I'm trying to get a general idea of just how much power my computer would be using. Someone on another forum said that this power supply (430W Antec) would work just fine for my computer. I don't really plan on upgrading my computer much if even at all, so future power consumption can be mostly disregarded.