New homebuilt system, hopefully it works.

[Msufanatic]

So basically I'm a Newbie. I have a little PC experiences, but none building my own personal rig. The computer costs about, $700, but I have a friend who works at Bestbuy, so I get 30% off! So it comes out to be around $500.

Processor: Intel i3-540 3.06GHz

Motherboard: Intel ATX Motherboard
Model:BOXDH55HC

Video Card: VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 5850

Ram: Memory Master - 2GB PC3-10666 DDR3 DIMM (Not a big company, but to keep on budget, it looks good enough.)

Psu: Corsair - 650W ATX

Case: GIGABYTE gz-ph1a3

Hard Drive: Don't know the name, just a 120Gig I have.

Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse,: Already have.

Os: Windows xp, might upgrade to Windows 7, but I love the speed of XP.

Can anybody tell me what sort of games I can play, I've looked at the benchmarks for the 5850, and they look superb. So I'd imagine I could play anygame I wanted too.

 

[WR2]

Any motherboard options available to you besides BOXDH55HC?
Since the BOXDH55HC only has 1 PCI-e x16 video card slot you don't need a PSU as large as the Corsair 650TX. A good 500W PSU is plenty for the HD 5850.

You'll be able to play all modern games. What resolution your monitor has will probably determine how high you can see the graphics quality settings.

 

[WR2]

OK......is this a pre-built PC? or are you talking about building one yourself?

I'd rather see you with 4GB of RAM and a 500W PSU than 2GB RAM with a 650W PSU.

 

[Msufanatic]

No it's not pre-built, I will be willing to go down to a 500W PSU. I just was not sure on the Watts needed, PSU's always confuse me. Also yes there is other motherboards, What I was planning on doing, which is why I had the 650W PSU, was just to get a new motherboard, and 1 more HD 5850 down the road, but I guess it would be cheaper to get a motherboard now with 2 PCI-e X16 slots, and upgrade the PSU later.

Edit: Would this be a good motherboard?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+ATX+Motherboard+2000/1600/1333/1066MHz+(Socket+LGA+1156)/9724535.p?id=1218159865250&skuId=9724535

With this PSU: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Thermaltake+-+500W+TR2+ATX+Power+Supply/9827259.p?id=1218179698118&skuId=9827259

And just another set of the memory I already have down.

 

[Msufanatic]

Best answer selected by Msufanatic.

 

[jming1084]

Just a question, but if you are planning to upgrade the motherboard down the road why don't you just build a new computer yourself. I mean when you get the new MB your going to have to take everything apart and put it back together yourself anyways so you might as well do it now. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Msufanatic]

I am building a computer myself. Those where what I was using, But I decided to change my whole idea drasticaly, might not be as good, but my friends 30% off offer fell through.
So I'm going with a
MSI 770-C45 motherboard
Logisys 575W PSU
AMD Phenom ii x2 555 Black edition processor
G-Skill Ripjaw series 4GB DDR3 Memory
COOLER MASTER Elite RC-310-BWN1-GP
GTX 260 Video Card
I hope this system will run things alright. I plan on trying to unlock the other 2 cores of the processor.