Help building a really good gaming box

[beanknotty]

My son wants a good gaming machine for his b-day. What are recommendations for case, motherboard, processor, graphics, sound and any other little details I may miss. THANKS!

 

[JMMD]

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/building_budget_gaming_pc_2005/
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2659

It helps to know your budget.

 

[beanknotty]

He said they were @ $800-$1000. So I would like to keep it at or under 1K. (He works PT at my office and has saved $400 towards it so I would like to cover the rest and put something together for him). Thanks !

 

[SNeaKY_BuGGeR]

Well I would suggest.....

Gigabyte GA-K8Triton Pro-SLI MoBo nforce4
get a nice size processor 939 AMD 3800+

The Graphics card is the most important choice that you have to make gaming comps will be more expensive than a standard comp!

IMHO only one choice for gaming at te moment and that is ATI X1900 series graphics card PCI-E, Why this card? Well because in every benchmark test that I have seen these cards OWN all...

Decent Monitor 19" best settings for gaming at the mo are a resolution of 1280x1024 if you go for an LCD (Which are far better on the eyes) Make sure that the response time is below 8ms.. Otherwise the picture will blur when playing. I would suggest a 19" Samsung Sync Master 940 BF.. (2ms response time AWESOME Display)

you will need 1 GiG of ram

MoBo $120
Video card $450
CPU chip $200
display $120
Ram 2x512mb sticks @ $100 $180

Total $1070

Pick any case that can house it they are very cheap and there are many good looking cases out there

Prices are an approximate guide but to be honest if you assemble this rig with this spec your son will absolutely go wild and love you forever!

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Processor
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6300 - Retail
Motherboard
ABIT SG-95 Socket T (LGA 775) SiS 662 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
RAM
GeIL Ultra Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GX21GB5300SDC - Retail

Video Card
GIGABYTE GV-NX795T512H-RH GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Hard Disk Drive
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Monitor
Hanns·G HW-191DPB Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor Built in Speakers - Retail
Case w/Power Supply
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Computer - Retail
DVD Burner
LG 18X DVD±R Super-Multi DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write Black IDE Model GSAH22N-BK - OEM
Sound Card
DIAMOND XtremeSound XS71DDL 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail

Total = $1026
It would make for a killer PC that would play any game out there with all settings maxed out.

 

[TimeParadoX]

Hmm... I might build another computer with the stuff Rage linked =P

Also if it's your 1st time building a computer you should ask someone who knows how to tell you what to do or you can get Bestbuy or one of those computer places to assemble it for you

 

[sllewe]

Sadly the original question was posed quite sometime ago, I am sure his sons birthday has passed since feb.

 

[satchmo]

But that doesn't stop us computer enthusiasts to recommend hardware.

Other people (like me) might benefit from this thread as well.

 

[rmdl51]

Yeah! I agree, besides I kinda get excited about the stuff Rage_3k posted, that's an amazing gaming computer! even tough my PC is not too old, i get itchy to jump over the Core 2 Duo and PCI-Express Graphics!!!

 

[wolfram]

Just take a look at Rage's PC. It's incredibly amazing