Can Someone help me build a computer?

[Mr.Caketown]

Ive recently got the bug to build a computer since my needs cant be met by most store bought computers. I would like to build a PC that can be hooked up to dual monitors since I would like to be able to work on Photoshop and watch a movie at the same time , game will be moderate such as Starcraft or Supreme commander and games of the like. My budget will be $1500 and it doesnt have to have to have top of the line graphics.

All I got so far

Case :

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-CC600TWM-WHT-Special-Graphite-Computer/dp/B004O0PAKW/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1345373276&sr=1-3&keywords=corsair+case

OR
Something in the NXZT phantom series

Cooling : I would like liquiid cooling and am looking at the Corsair H100 setup

Ram : Corsair Vengeance

and I would like an NZXT Sentry Fan controller

Other than that I am open to any suggestions or recommendations you might have . I dont have a real preference for Intel or AMD as long as they get the job done

Thanks

p.s USB 3.0 and headset/mic inputs are somethiing I would wannt

[Merc1138]

Unless you plan on overclocking, don't get the H100. The extra bulk from the 2x120 radiator is just going to be in the way for no reason. The H80 would be as far as I'd go.

Supreme Commander actually gets fairly CPU intensive, not that anything current from Intel or AMD(ignoring the bottom tier products from both) couldn't handle. The Intel Z77 chipset boards have decent USB 3.0 support, not sure what AMD chipsets are using these days but I do know that driver support for the NEC USB 3.0 chipsets was terrible for quite a long time.

Fan controllers are a bit overkill. Again, the current boards tend to have more than enough fan headers that are controllable via software. Unless you're adding more fans than the board supports, it's pointless.

Almost every board for the past few years has a header for ac '97 or HD audio front panel inputs. As long as the case has it, you should be fine.

Almost any Nvidia geforce or AMD radeon card will let you use 2 monitors just fine. They've almost all had dual output capability for the past 10 years(about the only ones that don't are the low profile 1u height cards, and even some of them still support it via a second connector leading to a cable with a port on an extra expansion slot cover).

[oldsmoboat]

Which CPU?
How much RAM?
Which OS?

[Blitz]

1500 will take you a long way just don't spend it all on useless overpriced crap.

[blazeaglory]

1500 will take you a long way just don't spend it all on useless overpriced crap.

SERIOUS! $1500 bucks can get you almost whatever you want within reason.

If you get a Pentium, I would not get anything more than the quad i5 2400. Anything else and its just wasted. I mean, most games dont even use quad core anyways. This will get the job done and most people I know who have bought i7's have returned them for the i5 2400. Its only less than $200

Start from a good motherboard and work your way up. With $1500 and the quad core i5 pentium you can get a very good graphics card and other components. I just spent $450 and got a system that is very fast and very decent but with $1500 man the sky is pretty much the limit. And I dont want to hear from the pros throwing out products that are super top of the line just to prove you can go over $1500.

[oldsmoboat]

SERIOUS! $1500 bucks can get you almost whatever you want within reason.

If you get a Pentium, I would not get anything more than the quad i5 2400. Anything else and its just wasted. I mean, most games dont even use quad core anyways. This will get the job done and most people I know who have bought i7's have returned them for the i5 2400. Its only less than $200

Start from a good motherboard and work your way up. With $1500 and the quad core i5 pentium you can get a very good graphics card and other components. I just spent $450 and got a system that is very fast and very decent but with $1500 man the sky is pretty much the limit. And I dont want to hear from the pros throwing out products that are super top of the line just to prove you can go over $1500.

Specs for $450?

[bigbearbear]

Part of the fun in building a PC of your own is the hunt and selection of parts that will go into your PC. The first thing you'll want to do is to get the expensive stuffs settled first.

In your case, do you already have the 2 monitors? If not, these could turn into your most expensive purchase.

There are many good cheap monitors to choose from, if you're going to buy the 2 monitors, I recommend browsing Dell web site. They frequently have deals which you can take advantage of. Their IPS panel monitors are really nice, I have their 24" IPS monitor and I can tell you games will look very different when displayed by a good monitor. Don't go cheap on monitor.

Storage. SSDs (Solid State Drives) are popular these days and their prices are coming down. But they are still very expensive compared to regular spinning disk drives. Consider using a couple of high speed, reliable drives, like Western Digital Velociraptor, configures in RAID 0, if speed and large storage is important to you.

Backup. Modern Windows OS comes with very nice backup feature. All you have to do is to attach an external USB drive to your computer and configure a daily backup. Budget in a large external USB external drive as part of your build.

OS. Don't forget that Windows isn't free. There are cheaper OEM versions you can purchase online. These are cheaper but you won't be able to transfer the license of the Windows to another PC. This can be problematic if you selected a motherboard, installed Windows and activated, then find that it won't work correctly and want to change to a new one. The OS might not reactivate for you and Microsoft might not allow you to activate again with a new motherboard. You might wish to spend a little more and go with a retail version of Windows.

On the topic of OS, remember that Windows 8 is just around the corner. Windows 7 works just fine but if you want the latest OS, waiting a little might be good. If you have, or has a buddy who has Microsoft MSDN or TechNet subscription, you can get Windows 8 today.

Power supply. Worth investing a little more here. Clean power to a PC is like clean water to humans. Corsair or Seasonic (who also makes PSUs for Corsair) are good choice, but don't go crazy. Anything over 700W is generally overkill, unless you want to link multiple high-end graphics card in SLI/Crossfire and having a large RAID array with multiple drives, you get usually get away with something between 430W to 600W.

Case. I tend to prefer Antec cases and I carry over PC cases to my new build. The 1st Antec case I bought from 10 years ago is still with me and in case today running my server. I don't have experience with the case you've selected, but consider also Antec P180. It is a popular choice and I have this one too, it is very solid and quiet.

[Merc1138]

Storage. SSDs (Solid State Drives) are popular these days and their prices are coming down. But they are still very expensive compared to regular spinning disk drives. Consider using a couple of high speed, reliable drives, like Western Digital Velociraptor, configures in RAID 0, if speed and large storage is important to you.

Honestly, velociraptors are overpriced considering their limited storage capacity. SSDs are finally under $1/GB. You can pick up a 128GB SSD to install the OS for around $100, then toss any 2TB disk in there for bulk storage if you need it. You'll have better response times for the OS and applications that velociraptors in RAID 0 and more storage than velociraptors will provide.

[impossibru]

32bit vs 64bit

Photoshop and TV watching and gaming?

Highly highly recommend you go with a 64-bit operating system. Just wait for Win8 OEM (Pro or Ultimate), you can address up to 32GB of RAM. Otherwise any 32-bit OS and you're stuck at 4GB.

I don't know what's hot now, recommend you do your research on the latest chipset/processor combo and then hit up Newegg for said chipset/processor and look for the ones with the most reviews (the implication being that others have already done the research for the best price/performance).

Graphics card, can't go wrong with nVidia within one or two generations. If you actually want to watch and record TV you'll need a TV tuner, anything from Hauppage should suffice.

HDD is you next bottleneck, go with the recommended SSD for OS and regular disk for storage. There's some quirk about SSDs that I don't know if they fixed, but some styles (I believe MLC) actually degrade in performance as they get filled. So be prepared to keep the boot drive very lean.

PSU, next critical component, DON'T GO CHEAP on this. Don't buy some dinky 600w PSU from China for $30 bucks. I mean, a $200 dollar isn't always necessarily good, again search retailers like Newegg for the best reviews. You'll probably want atleast 800w, depending on how many cards and peripherals you put in.

As far as putting it together, youtube has many howtos. Recommend you get a good grounding wrist strap, or atleast not work on carpet (I've worked on carpet but you always need to be careful of static electricity).

[Merc1138]

Photoshop and TV watching and gaming?

Highly highly recommend you go with a 64-bit operating system. Just wait for Win8 OEM (Pro or Ultimate), you can address up to 32GB of RAM. Otherwise any 32-bit OS and you're stuck at 4GB.

I don't know what's hot now, recommend you do your research on the latest chipset/processor combo and then hit up Newegg for said chipset/processor and look for the ones with the most reviews (the implication being that others have already done the research for the best price/performance).

Graphics card, can't go wrong with nVidia within one or two generations. If you actually want to watch and record TV you'll need a TV tuner, anything from Hauppage should suffice.

HDD is you next bottleneck, go with the recommended SSD for OS and regular disk for storage. There's some quirk about SSDs that I don't know if they fixed, but some styles (I believe MLC) actually degrade in performance as they get filled. So be prepared to keep the boot drive very lean.

PSU, next critical component, DON'T GO CHEAP on this. Don't buy some dinky 600w PSU from China for $30 bucks. I mean, a $200 dollar isn't always necessarily good, again search retailers like Newegg for the best reviews. You'll probably want atleast 800w, depending on how many cards and peripherals you put in.

As far as putting it together, youtube has many howtos. Recommend you get a good grounding wrist strap, or atleast not work on carpet (I've worked on carpet but you always need to be careful of static electricity).

SSD performance does drop as the drives get filled, however it's easy enough to just not use the last 10% of the drive capacity.

[Brianguy]

[yellowsulphur]

Honestly, velociraptors are overpriced considering their limited storage capacity. SSDs are finally under $1/GB. You can pick up a 128GB SSD to install the OS for around $100, then toss any 2TB disk in there for bulk storage if you need it. You'll have better response times for the OS and applications that velociraptors in RAID 0 and more storage than velociraptors will provide.

I totally agree with this.

I recently put this together for less than your target price:

Antec One Computer Case;
Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit;
Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155;
Intel Desktop Motherboard LGA1155- BOXDZ77BH55K;
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler;
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 OC;

I have one ssd for Linux and another for Win 7 which eject like an old floppy disk. The hard drives are hot swappable and are removed similar to a usb flash drive.

For $1500 you can build something really nice.

[blazeaglory]

Specs for $450?

Do a search in this section on my screen name...aww heck.

Thermal master tower w upgraded cooler master 600w PS

i3 Pentium 2120 3.3 Ghz

Windows 7 Home premium OEM 64 Bit

ASUS P8Z 68-V LX Motherboard

4 GB DDR3 1333 Micro Center RAM

barracuda 7200 3gb/s 500 GB HD

Additional 1900RPM KAMA FLOW 120mm Cooling Fan

LG 22X DVD Burner

I got all of this from Micro Center in Tustin and built it myself. Most of it was on sale or clearance but all brand new and unopened plus with some mail in rebates the total was in the $450. I already had a flat screen monitor so I saved there too. Plus I didnt need a video card as the Pentium and motherboard do a good job on their own(I actually purchased a video card but it made the system WORSE so I returned it). I also had the wireless mouse and keyboard so I did not need to purchase them. Considering I upgraded from a P3 That I bought in 1998, this computer kicks butt! But knowing that the Windows Home only allows for 16 MB of ram I would have splurged a little.

[stilly]

I totally agree with this.

I recently put this together for less than your target price:

Antec One Computer Case;
Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit;
Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155;
Intel Desktop Motherboard LGA1155- BOXDZ77BH55K;
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler;
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 OC;

I have one ssd for Linux and another for Win 7 which eject like an old floppy disk. The hard drives are hot swappable and are removed similar to a usb flash drive.

For $1500 you can build something really nice.

THIS is very interesting. I HAD not thought of that before. How do you eject the drives, what is the 2.5" drive holder called? Is it some sort of Hot-swappable 2.5" drive bay?

This is nice. I would prefer to keep my existing OS intact though and add a dual boot with Windows 7. Anyone know if it plays nice with XP yet?

Rather then waste a full SSD on a c: I think it would be cool to get a single 100MB ssd and partition it into 2 drives, then place my existing OS on one and then install Win 7 on the other one. That could be nice for gaming. Finally I can see what Crysis and Farcry 2 will look like along with Skyrim... :\

Good info here.

[stilly]

Photoshop and TV watching and gaming?

Highly highly recommend you go with a 64-bit operating system. Just wait for Win8 OEM (Pro or Ultimate), you can address up to 32GB of RAM. Otherwise any 32-bit OS and you're stuck at 4GB.

I don't know what's hot now, recommend you do your research on the latest chipset/processor combo and then hit up Newegg for said chipset/processor and look for the ones with the most reviews (the implication being that others have already done the research for the best price/performance).

Graphics card, can't go wrong with nVidia within one or two generations. If you actually want to watch and record TV you'll need a TV tuner, anything from Hauppage should suffice.

HDD is you next bottleneck, go with the recommended SSD for OS and regular disk for storage. There's some quirk about SSDs that I don't know if they fixed, but some styles (I believe MLC) actually degrade in performance as they get filled. So be prepared to keep the boot drive very lean.

PSU, next critical component, DON'T GO CHEAP on this. Don't buy some dinky 600w PSU from China for $30 bucks. I mean, a $200 dollar isn't always necessarily good, again search retailers like Newegg for the best reviews. You'll probably want atleast 800w, depending on how many cards and peripherals you put in.

As far as putting it together, youtube has many howtos. Recommend you get a good grounding wrist strap, or atleast not work on carpet (I've worked on carpet but you always need to be careful of static electricity).

DO NOT install ANY OEM OS if you can avoid it. Retail or VL only. OEM will make it a ***** to fix if your mobo dies and it has to be replaced... I learned that with XP pro OEM on a machine...

As for 800W PSU, well, hmmm. Yeah I dunno about that. That is a bit overkill. I think you can cut costs a bit by dropping that down to about a 600w DECENT brand for around $110-$150. As for RAM, No need to go past 4GB since MOST computers only use about 3 GB max anyways. Now if you are gonna make a RAM disk out of the extra 8-12GB then go for it, that would be GREAT then but otherwise I think if you read decent webpages out there that are not edited and created by 24yr old young dumb and full of cum morons that think bigger and more is always better, then you will find that most folks never really use more than 3GB of RAM. I only have 4 GB + graphics in my game system and I rarely see more than 2 being used. Funny though how I have at least 768MB of DDR3 on my graphics card and Quake 4 at ULTRA res (must have a card with 500MB of ram!) had some missing textures...


Anyways, that is my 2 centavos worth... Did I make the blue list yet?