I'm planning on building my first gaming rig in anticipation for some sterling titles coming out in the next year, my PS3 is fighting strong but I want more MMO's than Console games an my PC just isn't feeling up to the challenge any more. The problem is, I'm not tech savvy at all, I have no idea where to start.

But I know that plenty of people here on BGSF know plenty on the subject. I think assembling the hardware will be easy enough for me, but knowing what hardware will be appropriate is a different story.

So I ask, what hardware should i aim for if I want to play games like Skyrim for instance? Will I need to get instalation disks for every piece of hardware or just the OS? And what OS would be good for a gaming rig? I'm going to stay away from vista but i dont know how well recieved windows 7 was by the gaming community.

Is there any websites i can look at where i can price up the total cost of a build? Or could anybody give me a possible build to follow or perhap share your own build if you arent for some reason protective over it. Any help would be appreciated.

Video on finding components http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIXAtNGGCw (the links to the next three parts are in the video.)

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/GuideSimple.png Has a lot of different levels for ever price range.

The major components of the build I just ordered are in my sig. Minus the PSU (Corsair HX750W) and DVD drive. My build came out at around $1400 ($1500 if you count the extra nonessential stuff) and can pretty much play anything out there on max settings.

EDIT: Buy the way nice to see you Solidor! Been a while since we bumped into each other on here.

Oh cool I'll check the links out and hope they make sense to me ( Its all just numbers and letters to me, I could go out tommorow looking for a graphics card and come home with the inide of a toaster for all i know)

And thanks, it nice to be back, not been able to get online for a while since my laptops been broken recently. Which contributes to my decision of building a computer.

That guide basically spells out the essential core components of a PC. There are a lot of people on here who can give you some really good suggestions as far as parts go. What exactly is your price range?

Read the enormous OP about it in the tech thread.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1207079-the-community-tech-thread-no-102/

Also, a budget would be nice so people can help work out a build that is within your price range. And they can tell you if you are planning on spending too much, too,

Here's a random build I just threw together. It should be able to push most games to their limits and with the mail in rebates it's just under $1000. It's pretty much the same build I have except toned down a bit. Cheaper MOBO, less RAM memory, no SSD, and a smaller PSU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072- Intel Core i5 2500k
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128500-Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3-B3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231275- G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088- Seasonic X series 650W Gold Certified.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102949- AMD Radeon HD 6950 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185 Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160- Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204 Asus DRW-24B1ST

Sub Total: $1022.92
Rebates: -$35
Grand Total: $989.72

That sounds reasonable price wise.

As for budget, I don't really have one in mind. I don't mind having this as an ongoing project where i buy it piece by piece when i can afford each component, but I guesss a cheaperish build would be better so it doesnt take quite aslong to put together. Either way I wont be buying all the parts at the same time as I dont start my new job until december and I should really try to remember that I need food every week aswell

I could probably strip that build down a bit more so it's in the $750 range if you want something a bit cheaper.

It would be best to wait until you had the money to build it completely or atleast most of the essential parts at a single time. Prices go down and new parts come out all the time.

My advice is to save up cash and buy everything altogether. While waiting, be sure to keep checking for new parts and price changes. If you want to stay in the same basic "tier" (your setup as it compares to the best parts available at the time) you should avoid choosing hardware until you actually have enough money to pay for the entire thing. The best card now won't be the best card in the future, yet they'll cost about the same when they are each released.

If you know the specific hardware you want and you really don't care if other, better things are released while you've been waiting, just keep an eye on the prices and then still buy them all together. Hardware goes down in price as newer and better parts are released, so if you buy the whole thing later rather than piece by piece sooner, you'll end up paying less in the long run.

If you're waiting for a specific game to release so you can have an amazing computer to play it on, wait until it gets close to that game's release. That's what I always tell people who are trying to make new rigs for Skyrim and such on a limited budget.

I agree. I had the luck of selling my motorcycle and some of my mom's catering stuff to get about $4400 (still have to buy a car so I was on a $1500 budget). So I could get a PC that would last me a LONG time, and even now I plan on upgrading sometime next year to the i7 CPU and the HD 6990 GPU.

Save up the money to where you can buy all of it at once and maybe you can even upgrade it if you end up getting more money than you thought.

Well i've been shoping around, i've decided to go for a simular build to aSaPp!5@ (without the performance downgrade to save on money) as I've got two new graphic design projects, and since the freelance hourly rate is averaging out at about ￡75 an hour I should be able to buy the gear I need in a month or so. Thanks alot guys, the links where all exceptionally helpful and I can actually wrap my head around the jargon now, who knew?


Although I have two remaining questions, one, could anybody suggest a good case? and two, could anybody suggest a few good websites to buy parts from, I'm looking mainly at UK retailers at the moment but I'm open to having the delivered if i can save on costs elsewhere.

I just bought the black version of http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007583%2050002120%20600006304%20600006346%204017&IsNodeId=1&name=%24100%20-%20%24200 case. And so far I'm really pleased with it.

A few more good cases to look at are the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139006, or the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811103011 is a a great case for a lower budget.

Pretty much anything right http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007583%204802%20600006304&IsNodeId=1&name=ATX%20Full%20Tower is a great case. Just read the reviews, they can point out a lot about the products that the details and overview wont.

Why would you buy that RAM over this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231310

It doesn't make sense to buy 2x2 when 1x4 is cheaper and leaves more options for upgrading.

Ahh makes sense since you can run two dual channels. I was just throwing something together real fast and didn't thing about it.

Tom's Hardware site has lots of info on ratings/reviews of components http://www.tomshardware.com/

Newegg has good prices, if you live in a city with Frys, http://www.frys.com/ the sale prices there are generally the best price you can get

$1,000 (excluding monitor) will let you build an excellent system - more $$ than that and you're in to diminishing returns

Read reviews first - case and motherboard are where it is very easy to go wrong!

Thanks for the tips

I've been looking at http://www.computerplanet.co.uk/systems/gaming/ playing around with the custom build and looking at the Pre-made builds. How good are the pre-mades? Would it be better to avoid a website like this when it comes to building my own rig?

Pre-mades look OK (except for the cheapest : 2G of RAM?? No Way! 4GB absolute minimum). If you want to actually build your own yourself, that site gives plenty of ideas and almost too many options. If you want to buy a custom pre-built system, looks like a very good site, but you'll need to check on prices compared to buying pieces and assembling yourself. I have trouble telling if prices are good (pound and VAT) for Britain - they're high for US

Main things to check : video card performance for your monitor/resolution playing the games you like; case/power supply (there are a lot of cheap junk cases out there, and just plain crappy power supplies - an active danger to you and your system). Read reviews!

Since you're a novice, I strongly recommend against overclocking

I have heard http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ is a good site. Though I have never used them personally.

You can't run 1x4 in dual channel mode, so unless you want to run single channel until you buy the other 4gb stick you have to go 2x2, which is fine unless you plan to upgrade to 16gb at some point. :shrug:

That prices on that site look good, but theres a suspicious amount of 5 star reviews with nothing bad to say.

I found this website useful when I had my computer built custom. Don't know what you think, but the more options the better, right?

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

http://www.overclock.net/networking-security/635220-overclockers-co-uk-legit.html