Help building a computer.

[Warrior Irme]

Good evening my fellow Escapists. I have encountered the time when I am through buying from Dell and HP for my computer needs and instead want to build a better computer for my budget. I have someone that is willing to put everything together as long as I get all the parts. The problem is that I don't know what all I need. Every online guide I have found acts like the reader already knows all the stuff that the reader goes looking for. I have about a $650 dollar budget for building the computer itself. Monitor, keyboard, mouse will all be outside of that amount.
I am not looking for anything top of the line for that amount, but I would like to be able to run things like L4D2, DoW2, DA:O on a medium level of graphics without choppy frame rate or massive overheating. Right now I do all my PC gaming on an HP laptop I bought about 2 years ago and it overheats when I watch videos on hulu so gaming is a huge strain on it. Any suggestions from the community would be helpful for how to budget costs for individual parts, what parts to get, and the like.

 

[Estocavio]

Thats a tough budget to be going by... You need to figure out what kind of Motherboard you'll have, since i cant really recommend anything as it could prove incompatible. Generally though, 512 MB Graphics card, probably go for an NVIDIA (Again, compatibility); Processor: 2.5-3.0ghz (compatibility limits specifications); 2.5GB's of RAM, Hard Disk Drive, Motherboard. Thats the best i can do for now. Also, home made computers dont have Warranties. Purchased ones do.

 

[Dragon_of_red]

Dont take my advice. If you do, you will somehyow create something that will either:

a) Explode
b) Not work
c) Kill you
d) Kill everyone else
e) Become Skynet

So sorry...

 

[Horticulture]

Take a peek here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.105715-PC-Hardware-Thread-Now-With-100-More-Folding]. The budget build fits your price with room for an OS (64-bit WIndows 7 is a good call) and will do fine with all of those games.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

There's single chips that can cost upwards of $650. If you want to play those games, you might wanna trim some fat off the monitor/mouse/keyboard to beef up your hardware a bit.

 

[Warrior Irme]

There's single chips that can cost upwards of $650. If you want to play those games, you might wanna trim some fat off the monitor/mouse/keyboard to beef up your hardware a bit.

I am going for what I consider to be a mid range PC. And the $650 is for just the desktop itself and not including monitor/mouse/keyboard.

 

[Poomanchu745]

There's single chips that can cost upwards of $650. If you want to play those games, you might wanna trim some fat off the monitor/mouse/keyboard to beef up your hardware a bit.

You could definitely build a decent computer that can run those games for 650. Obviously you wont be able to run crysis but that game sucks anyways.

EDIT: you "might" be able to play crysis. who knows

100 $ Quad Core CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706
80 $ MoBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394
130 $ Vid card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150351
50 $ RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066
70 $ HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320
55 $ Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
70 $ PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
100 $ OS(win 7):http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
(I would suggest teh 64 bit in case you want to go above 4 gigs of ram)

= $655

that took about 10 min to find all the parts and you have a pretty decent computer. I would say amd/Radeon is your best bet for dollars to performance ratio.