Mostly, I've had Nvidia and AMD recommended to me. Which would you recommend? You've been very helpful so far, so I'm willing to put a bit of stock into your judgement on this.BlackStar42 said:
PC Gaming Help for a Total Newbie
- Thread starter Jolly Co-operator
- Start date
I'm afraid I don't know as much about graphics cards. From what I know, in general you get what you pay for, but Nvidia seems to be more popular. What I'd do is find a game you can use as a benchmark, something that has roughly the sort of system requirements of the games you want to play, and see what card you'd need to run it. Sorry I can't be of more helpShax said:
Might i suggest a 650W and a swap to an AMD cpu with a AMD higher-end GPU.It will help lower the cost and have the possibility for a upgrade to a Crossfire setup later on.Talking about longevity and keeping cost low or even going high-end on the graphic sideBlackStar42 said:
yes 500-600w is all you need unless you are watercooling or doing something crazy with 2+ top end GPUsBlackStar42 said:
Rule of thumb: just shoot for about $65 80+ rated and over 500w and you found yourself a powersupply.
No apology necessary. I made this thread coming from a place of nigh total ignorance on the more technical aspects of the subject; you and everyone else have been extremely helpful. I think I'll go for Nvidia, as I usually see it recommended the most.BlackStar42 said:I'm afraid I don't know as much about graphics cards. From what I know, in general you get what you pay for, but Nvidia seems to be more popular. What I'd do is find a game you can use as a benchmark, something that has roughly the sort of system requirements of the games you want to play, and see what card you'd need to run it. Sorry I can't be of more helpShax said:
Just for the heck of it I'll post what I've got and maybe post some recommendations about what to make better.
CPU: i5 3570 (models ending with K are made for overclocking, if you're not doing that don't worry about a K model)
Ram: 8GB of DDR3.
GPU: Asus gtx 560. Definitely go for a 600 series now, perhaps a 660ti or something around there. I think AMD cards give more horsepower, but Nividia does come with accelerated Physx and other tidbits to help.
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77MX D3H, should do you good. Not the roomiest motherboard but if you only use one graphics card and a sound card, it's just fine.
Optical drive: Whatever floats your boat, there should be some blu-ray drives out there. I got a normal DVD/CD drive for $20.
Hard Drive: 1TB Seagate. Perhaps get a 2TB, depending on how much stuff you want to store. After that, just use a USB 3.0 external drive.
SSD: 120GB Intel. Some argue you only need 60GB. Other than your OS, Steam and other bits and bobs, stick everything else on the HDD.
PSU: Corsair CX500. Maybe go for a bit more power. Get a modular PSU if you can, it helps keep things tidy.
Case: Antec 900. Any roomy case will do fine.
CPU cooler: Almost anything bigger that's aftermarket.
Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster Z. If you even bother with one (which I recommend you do, even if it's much later), this'll do nicely. Asus has some good stuff, too.
Just be aware of PC maintenance. If you blow some dust out of the PC every two months you'll be just fine.
Newegg have a fantastic 3 part video series on Youtube showing you how to assemble the whole thing, including setting up software.
On a final note, the two most important parts not to skimp on are the power supply and graphics card.
Sorry for the wall of text, feel free to ask anything else.
CPU: i5 3570 (models ending with K are made for overclocking, if you're not doing that don't worry about a K model)
Ram: 8GB of DDR3.
GPU: Asus gtx 560. Definitely go for a 600 series now, perhaps a 660ti or something around there. I think AMD cards give more horsepower, but Nividia does come with accelerated Physx and other tidbits to help.
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77MX D3H, should do you good. Not the roomiest motherboard but if you only use one graphics card and a sound card, it's just fine.
Optical drive: Whatever floats your boat, there should be some blu-ray drives out there. I got a normal DVD/CD drive for $20.
Hard Drive: 1TB Seagate. Perhaps get a 2TB, depending on how much stuff you want to store. After that, just use a USB 3.0 external drive.
SSD: 120GB Intel. Some argue you only need 60GB. Other than your OS, Steam and other bits and bobs, stick everything else on the HDD.
PSU: Corsair CX500. Maybe go for a bit more power. Get a modular PSU if you can, it helps keep things tidy.
Case: Antec 900. Any roomy case will do fine.
CPU cooler: Almost anything bigger that's aftermarket.
Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster Z. If you even bother with one (which I recommend you do, even if it's much later), this'll do nicely. Asus has some good stuff, too.
Just be aware of PC maintenance. If you blow some dust out of the PC every two months you'll be just fine.
Newegg have a fantastic 3 part video series on Youtube showing you how to assemble the whole thing, including setting up software.
On a final note, the two most important parts not to skimp on are the power supply and graphics card.
Sorry for the wall of text, feel free to ask anything else.
your best bet is find out who is running a promo or sale and with a computer costing about $1000 shoot for about $200Shax said:
as price for preformace they are about the same, so take the free stuff.
if to compare cards here is a good place http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
also this is a system builders best friend
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/
Thanks for those links. The graphics card comparison site has already been very helpful. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to check your other link, since I'll have to be going to sleep soon. I noticed you commented on the build I had previously posted, and I think you and the others were right, it is a bit overkill. Here's a more modest build from Newegg.com:direkiller said:
Intel i5-2500K Desktop Processor, GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H ATX Motherboard, LG 24X DVD Burner, Seagate 1TB 7200 Hard Drive, EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card, CORSAIR XMS 2X4GB Memory, Rosewill Gaming ATX Mid Tower Case, Rosewill RD500-2DB 50
The only problem is that I don't see a power supply included (unless I overlooked it). Where you recommend buying one?
The powersuply, if one is included, would be with the case just look under the information thereShax said:
if not Newegg has those aswell
Corsair,Rosewill,thermaltake all have a 600w for about 65-70
>80 if you want a modular
also I would see what your case/Moutherbord can take and grab a few fans(if they are not included with the case).
Interestingly that build is very similar (a little better acutally) than the current build I use for a gaming rig. Biggest difference is I have the equivelent Radeon card as opposed to the GeForce. And I would actually recommend the GeForce card anyway (I went with the Radeon because of a good package deal, and when I upgrade it will be to an Nvidia product.) But because of that deal (and a power supply that will need to be upgraded If I ever decide to upgrade to the i7) the total cost of my rig was only slightly higher than $500. Which I found to be really comparable to a console.Shax said:
But I would go with the total package type deal over what I went through to get it at that price. I live in a town where a major aircraft company wholesales out used computers and workstations. I bought one just because it had been placed in an aftermarket (good) case (after a repair job) that I bought and stripped everything out of except for the ok power supply, hdd (the one I use for backup,) network card, and dvd-rw. Bought the rest scouring and dealing with small retailers on ebay. I wouldn't recommend either solution for keeping costs down. Buying surplus resale often gets you worn out components (that's why I scrapped the ram and processor that was in the case.) The ebay scouring and dealing took months until I had everything I needed, and I got lucky that I didn't get burned on at least one of the purchases (always read customer feedback.) But I ended up with a computer that does everything I could ask for (it high-ends Skyrim pretty well) for a lot less than the launch cost of a PS3. And I had field-days with my very first Steam summer, fall, and winter sales. Now I have a huge backlog of games I have not even started yet. So much so that I can wait and play those until the summer sale before I get BS Infinite or AC3.
Try and get a single rail PSU rather than a dual rail, they're more expensive but are generally more reliable. Remember, of all the parts you don't want to fail it's the PSU; if it fails it'll likely take everything else with it. Corsair are renowned for their quality and OCZ are also popular.Shax said:
As far as your pc is concerned. get a cpu like an intel i5 3450. I cant really recommend anything better than that unless you want to get into overclocking, which i would not recommend to someone buying there first gaming pc.Shax said:
Gpu i'd say always go mid range with the intention of replacing it every 3-5 years depending how its handling games of the day. I'd recommend an nvidia 660ti mainly because i love physx e.g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWFkDrKvBRU
Now amd offer some nice mid range cards but i don't really know much about them, since last time i had an amd card was nearly 10 years ago.
Ram dont accept anything less than 8gb, the more the better.
I'd scrimp on the motherboard and case tbh, if your not overclocking air flow is nowhere nears as important, and the more expensive motherboards are designed for overclockers.
Get a good mouse and keyboard. Cant stress that enough.
As for upgrading and replacing parts, its piss easy. Any part only fits in the correct slot the correct way. If your having to force it in, Its the wrong slot.
I'd recommend windows 7 over 8 myself. I fear change.
As for the sales, i put £10-15 a month away in my wallet, when a sale comes round i just snap up what looks good and usually have change for the next sale.
Good luck
You are better building a PC yourself as you get a lot more value for your money.
The building part is rather straightforward and there are tutorials on youtube that can come in handy. My fisrt build took about three hours to complete, an hour of which was installing Windows and drivers and whatnot.
For the hell of it I'll post a sample build that's somewhere in the high end of your price bracket.
Processor: Intel i5 3570K: http://tinyurl.com/d3qa2fa ($220)
Main board: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H: http://tinyurl.com/ckwdlnm ($140)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz: http://tinyurl.com/cgvm9d8 ($65)
GPU: MSI Gigabyte AMD R7870 2GB GDDR5: http://tinyurl.com/cjbq92w ($250)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212: http://tinyurl.com/cv9ynt6 ($29)
Power Supply Unit: Seasonic 620W 80+ Bronze: http://tinyurl.com/csqwes3 ($90)
Solid State Drive: Crucial M4 128GB SSD: http://tinyurl.com/btqg5vp ($130)
HDD: WD Caviar Blue 500GB 7200 RPM: http://tinyurl.com/ckp23po ($60)
Optical Drive: LG DVD/RW: http://tinyurl.com/d33dktu ($20)
Case: NZXT Source 220: http://tinyurl.com/bnfduyz ($70)
Total: $1075
A copy of Windows will set you back another $80-100. Unless you have access to other means of getting a functional copy of windows.
I've gone for an overclockable CPU and Motherboard, and with the CPU cooler you would be getting about 4.3GHz quite easily.
The GPU could be switched out for a more powerful 7950 or an NVidia 660ti for a bit more money.
I'd advise getting an SSD just for the faster boot times and a more smoother OS experience overall. The Crucial M4 isn't the fastest out there, but it's reliable and that's what's most important as far as I'm concerned.
You could also double the storage of the HDD for another $20 or so. Again I have chosen the WD for reliability reasons.
I've picked a rather expensive PSU, but it is very well built, efficient and it is modular which should make cable management much easier.
As far as the case goes, a lot of it is down to personal preference. The one I chose has good fan options, tool-less hard drive bays and offers decent airflow.
As far as upgrading goes, the CPU once overclocked should be good for many years and upgrading GPUs and RAM is a simple enough process.
The building part is rather straightforward and there are tutorials on youtube that can come in handy. My fisrt build took about three hours to complete, an hour of which was installing Windows and drivers and whatnot.
For the hell of it I'll post a sample build that's somewhere in the high end of your price bracket.
Processor: Intel i5 3570K: http://tinyurl.com/d3qa2fa ($220)
Main board: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H: http://tinyurl.com/ckwdlnm ($140)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz: http://tinyurl.com/cgvm9d8 ($65)
GPU: MSI Gigabyte AMD R7870 2GB GDDR5: http://tinyurl.com/cjbq92w ($250)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212: http://tinyurl.com/cv9ynt6 ($29)
Power Supply Unit: Seasonic 620W 80+ Bronze: http://tinyurl.com/csqwes3 ($90)
Solid State Drive: Crucial M4 128GB SSD: http://tinyurl.com/btqg5vp ($130)
HDD: WD Caviar Blue 500GB 7200 RPM: http://tinyurl.com/ckp23po ($60)
Optical Drive: LG DVD/RW: http://tinyurl.com/d33dktu ($20)
Case: NZXT Source 220: http://tinyurl.com/bnfduyz ($70)
Total: $1075
A copy of Windows will set you back another $80-100. Unless you have access to other means of getting a functional copy of windows.
I've gone for an overclockable CPU and Motherboard, and with the CPU cooler you would be getting about 4.3GHz quite easily.
The GPU could be switched out for a more powerful 7950 or an NVidia 660ti for a bit more money.
I'd advise getting an SSD just for the faster boot times and a more smoother OS experience overall. The Crucial M4 isn't the fastest out there, but it's reliable and that's what's most important as far as I'm concerned.
You could also double the storage of the HDD for another $20 or so. Again I have chosen the WD for reliability reasons.
I've picked a rather expensive PSU, but it is very well built, efficient and it is modular which should make cable management much easier.
As far as the case goes, a lot of it is down to personal preference. The one I chose has good fan options, tool-less hard drive bays and offers decent airflow.
As far as upgrading goes, the CPU once overclocked should be good for many years and upgrading GPUs and RAM is a simple enough process.
That's good to know, thanks. I'm feeling pretty confident with this build, but I'll keep looking, just to be sure.Kyrian007 said:
Honestly, build it yourself if you're able, or find a local tech store that will build it for you if you tell them the parts. Should end up a lot cheaper than otherwise if you do so.Shax said:
If you must buy from somewhere, I'll leave recommendations to someone else as I don't like in the US. For buying parts I believe Newegg is good.
As for brands... Stay clear of Alienware. They work, they are extremely overpriced. Other than that I haven't touched a brand-name system in my life, and the Alienware was a friends.
Parts depends on what you want, and who's doing well at that point. I've always been one for the Intel/Nvidia combo for CPU and Graphics, though they are generally the more expensive brands. Motherboards ASUS are normally good for, RAM... IDK, there's some supposedly great RAM makers I hear of, but guys like Kingston work too. So long as you get something from someone reputable [Since you won't know who is and who isn't, just ask] it'll work. Power supplies are similar. You can get some great ones, but get one from someone reputable and it'll just work. Cases are mostly on how much you like the look of them, are IMO best just recycled from your previous PC, unless you're going into Power-PC building with multiple graphics cards, overclocking, lots of Hard Drives and SSDs and going for extreme specs, in which case you'll want one with a lot of fans and Drive bays. Most of the other parts shouldn't matter too much - a harddrive is a harddrive in my experience, though I'd still stick to reputable brands to be safe, KB+M are KB+M [Unless you go mechanical and gaming, but they're expensive], screens are screens [Unless you go for 2560*1440 monitors or something in which case they're expensive], CD/DVD drives are CD/DVD drives, and really it doesn't matter what you get in the way of those things, though its still better to buy from reputable brands.
Most of the specs stated are generally utter nonsense for building a PC to do with OS and such, dependent on which tool you use.
The 3 main things you need to worry about though are your CPU, your GPU, and your RAM. The rest is important, but doesn't directly impact performance so much.
GPU is the most important if you're wanting graphics. It processes your graphics, and renders them to the screen. The better the GPU, the more advanced shading it can render, the higher resolution the textures it can render, the more monitors it can render too, the higher the resolution it can render at and the higher the framerate. In laymans terms, the better the GPU the better your games will be able to look at a playable framerate. Does get to the realm of diminishing returns though.
The CPU is the most important if you're not too fussed about graphics, but are interested in games like Dwarf Fortress. Figuring out what goes on in the game, and what to do based off that is the CPUs work. It runs things. The GPU displays things and calculates what it should display, but its the CPU that's really running the game. In general any information in the game outside of graphics will need to go through the CPU. The better your CPU, the faster it can run calculations and have stuff happen. There are few games that are actually demanding on the CPU, however, so a brilliant one isn't required at this point.
The RAM remembers stuff. Your graphics card comes with RAM in it, but that's dedicated to graphics. Any information a game has loaded - a level, a character, a weapon; anything - is stored in the RAM. Graphics stuff like textures is stored on your GPUs RAM generally, and gameplay stuff is stored on your system RAM. The more RAM you have the more windows you can have open at once, the better your game will do in large levels, levels with lots of enemies, or anything where there's a lot of stuff it has to load at one point. It also benefits multitasking like having a game running, Skype in the background, Microsoft Office open, several Internet tabs and everything else. It has the least performance on gaming, as generally running out of RAM your system will start paging to the Harddrive instead, which simplified means it'll be kinda using it as substitute RAM. Harddrives are, however, incredibly slow, so you'll really want your RAM to take that load instead.
Depends on what you want to do.
Do you want to max out all games currently without any future proofing?
Do you want to just run games now, albeit not at max settings?
Do you want to run all games out now on max, and all games for the next 5 years too?
What you want dictates what specs you'll need.
Going by your 600-1200 price range you'll want an Intel i5 2500 or 3570, a 660Ti-670 Nvidia card, and probably 8-12Gb of RAM for your core specs. A 500W power supply should probably run that, though admittedly I haven't checked the 660Ti's power draw so... Yeah.
Also, there are letters and numbers you should pay attention to for CPUs by Intel and Graphics by Nvidia;
The letter K on the end of a CPU denotes that it is unlocked and overclockable. This is usually more expensive, and if you don't plan on overclocking undesirable. Try for the basic model without the K if you can find it, and if not then it won't really make a difference beyond $50 or so extra out of pocket.
The letter Ti is generally only given to the x50 and x60 card in any given Nvidia series from memory. It basically denotes a more powerful model of that card. Generally a cheap upgrade, and a small power boost. Up to you whether you want that or not.
Depends on how much you spend on your PC, and how many games you're going to buy.
No amount of games will subsidise a $6000 machine, but a $600 machine will be subsidised by 30 games that aren't sold by Steam or GoG, seeing as PC games are generally $10 cheaper than a console's [And I'm using average console price as $300, though that really does depend where you buy and how lucky you are], but with Steam those $60 games could get 70% off in Winter/Summer/Spring in some sale, or you could decide against purchasing a big blockbuster title and get a nice, fun, Indie title off one of them for less than $5. Its all relative to you how much you'll benefit from it.
Again, depends on a lot of things.
For one, what is your original rig?
What is likely to need upgrading out of that?
Pleasure upgrading where you go from something that works well and does what you need to something excessive 'cause you can, or just practical upgrading needed to simply run a game?
What are upcoming games looking like?
All people can do is give anecdotal stuff for this, so I'll give mine.
Back in 08 or whenever the 9800GTX came out, I bought that and shoved it in my PC. It maxed out all games [albeit at 720p, which is the same as all consoles though {Better in some cases =P}] up until BF3 and TW2 came out. That was the only thing I upgraded in my PC at that point, which was 3 years old and without a dedicated graphics card, and everything else in that machine lasted just as long. If I didn't want to max, it would have lasted longer. My most recent upgrade replaced everything except 2 harddrives in my PC 'cause I wanted to go overboard. i7 2600K, 256Gb SSD, 2 560Ti graphics cards in SLI, 16Gb RAM - the works. To this day it is running current releases on maximum settings at 60FPS or more at 2560*1440 resolution [4X that which is put out by a console], whilst rendering skype and the Internet to a second monitor I have set up for utilities. I expect it will do so until Star Citizen comes out, at which point I'll probably upgrade to a 700, 800 or 900 series graphics card dependent on how much money I have and which generation of graphics cards are out at that point. That is all I will upgrade as everything else will still be excessive for what I want to do with it. I expect that upgrade to cost between $150-$500, dependent on how much I'm willing to spend at the time.
Getting the 9800GTX cost me $250.
How much it'll cost you, and how often you'll need to, is entirely dependent on what you want and what you have.
As to how easy it is... Ridiculously, but you need to be careful. Ensure you are electrically grounded at all times whilst upgrading, else you might send a couple of thousands of dollars in equipment down the drain. For how to upgrade a part in a PC;
You will need:
A screwdriver.
A PC.
Method:
Flick the power switch on the power supply of your PC [Not the power button, the switch at the back of the PC that's like a light switch] to the off position. Unplug the PC from everything. Unscrew the door on your case and take it off. If the part you wish to replace is screwed in, unscrew it. If it is not, push the tabs keeping it in place and pull it out, unlugging any cables it may have plugged into it..
Put the new part where the old part was, and plug the cables that plugged into the old part into the new part. Screw the new part in if the old part was screwed in, else just make sure it clicks into place.
Rescrew on the door to your case. Plug everything back in, switch the power switch to on, and turn on your PC.
Finished.
Heh, if you want really knowledgeable forums about PCs, go to places like Overclock.net. The Escapist has some people that know what they're talking about, some that don't, and some that do but don't care at all what you want, its only what they see as necessary that matters [I.E; a 10 year old machine that barely runs games these days is good enough because its cheap and it runs games and that's all you should want]. I'd not take anything that anyone says on any forum straight, not even what I say, unless its peer-reviewed by everyone else and found to be good. Sites like Overclock.net are dedicated to building, maintaining, using and basically anything to do with PCs, and a lot of the people there are very knowledgable about that sort of thing. Only thing is I'm not sure if they'll let you get a pre-built PC if you want one. The Escapist can be harsh on that at times, insisting that you build your own 'cause its cheaper and better, and Overclock is likely to be the same - though as with here it really depends on who you get responding.
His comment made me lol pretty hard XDDazZ. said:
10 years ago we only just saw the first PC graphics cards ever (DX9!) become freely available to the consumer market, namely the nVidia NV20 and Radeon 9700...and these cards were more like accelerators to assist the CPU than do any actual rendering on their own, helping to shade pixels and what-not. So a definite "no" to Planetside
To be fair that also highlights the inaccuracy of comparing whether a computer build 10 years ago could run todays games, and whether a computer built today could run games in 10 years time. Get 3 690s in SLI and who's to say that'll be inadequate to run games in 10 years?Yuuki said:His comment made me lol pretty hard XDDazZ. said:
10 years ago we only just saw the first PC graphics cards ever (DX9!) become freely available to the consumer market, namely the nVidia NV20 and Radeon 9700...and these cards were more like accelerators to assist the CPU than do any actual rendering on their own, helping to shade pixels and what-not. So a definite "no" to Planetside
Granted it'll definitely be starting to push it, seeing as DX13 or something will be out by then and we'll [hopefully] be lucky to have DX11 support in games, but we really can't tell how long something's going to last at this point. 5 years for a single high end card is probably a safe bet, and I'd push it to 6 or 7 if you're lucky. Whether it'll get to 10... Who knows.
Oh I realized I haven't answered OP yet, so here we go...always glad to have new people joining the PC Master Race.
Build one and get your parts from Newegg (US), Microcenter (US) or Amazon. A decent build or two has already been suggested, here's some recommendations:
CPU: i5 3570 / 3570K if you want to get into overclocking further down the road
Cooler: stock / Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO / Noctua depending on whether you're overclocking
Mobo: ASRock Z77 Pro3/Extreme4 or Asus P8Z77-V LE/LX are my recommendations
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600mhz 1.5v, any good brand like Corsair, GSkill or Mushkin. RAM is RAM lol.
GPU: GTX 660 Ti / GTX670, get an aftermarket one from Asus (DirectCU) or Gigabyte (Windforce)
SSD: 120GB-256GB depending on how many games you're planning to have installed at once, good models include Samsung 830/840 series, Crucial M4/M500 and Intel 330/520 series. The real-world performance difference between all these SSD's is negligible, they are all great.
HDD: 750GB-2TB depending on your needs - my go-to choice for HDD's is Western Digital, the 2TB Caviar Green is my favorite because it has deceptively good performance and huge capacity - you don't need a super-fast HDD since you have an SSD. Not really a fan of Seagate and sadly Samsung HDD department got taken over by Seagate (my Spinpoint F3 is still going).
PSU: 550-650w PSU, a known QUALITY brand like Corsair, Seasonic, XFX or Antec. It's all about brand with PSU's, wattage is not that important.
Case: This one boils down to personal choice, but still the last thing you need is some shitty plastic case with jack-all airflow. I won't put it further than Cooler Master, Corsair or NZXT cases. These 3 have risen to become true giants when it comes to all-purpose gaming mid/full towers, they know what they're doing.
OS: Win 7 64bit. No-brainer here.
Monitor: Any 22-24" 1920x1080p monitor from Asus, Samsung or Acer (in order of preference). They all generally do the same thing (TN panels, LED backlighting), all 3 are great brands. Monitors only get more interesting as you increase your price bracket to IPS/PLS panels (e.g. Dell Ultrasharps) which give better colors and viewing angles, or 120hz/3D monitors which happen to be my FAVORITE monitors for gaming!
Keyboard: Lots of people make do with trashy keyboards since they tend to bang them around a lot, but if you want a more quality experience then I would recommend a low-end mechanical keyboard e.g. CM Quickfire series. Once you go mechanical you never go back. But it's up to you.
Mouse: A quality/durable optical mouse is a must-have if you are to join the PC Master Race, especially if you're into first person shooters. This is where Logitech is basically king, their legendary G series (G400, G500, G9x) mice are undefeated in terms of sheer durability and comfort. Other brands include Corsair (still new to the mouse market), Cyborg (their RAT series are...interesting) and Razer (not a Razer fan personally :S).
Aaaand, that's about it. Soz if I unloaded a boatload of info on you, but building a PC these days is really incredibly easy (like Lego) and you have a fair bit of flexibility with parts. My recommendations above will easily fit within your budget.
It's great fun putting it all together and neatly managing the cables, and then watching it come to life
Build one and get your parts from Newegg (US), Microcenter (US) or Amazon. A decent build or two has already been suggested, here's some recommendations:
CPU: i5 3570 / 3570K if you want to get into overclocking further down the road
Cooler: stock / Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO / Noctua depending on whether you're overclocking
Mobo: ASRock Z77 Pro3/Extreme4 or Asus P8Z77-V LE/LX are my recommendations
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600mhz 1.5v, any good brand like Corsair, GSkill or Mushkin. RAM is RAM lol.
GPU: GTX 660 Ti / GTX670, get an aftermarket one from Asus (DirectCU) or Gigabyte (Windforce)
SSD: 120GB-256GB depending on how many games you're planning to have installed at once, good models include Samsung 830/840 series, Crucial M4/M500 and Intel 330/520 series. The real-world performance difference between all these SSD's is negligible, they are all great.
HDD: 750GB-2TB depending on your needs - my go-to choice for HDD's is Western Digital, the 2TB Caviar Green is my favorite because it has deceptively good performance and huge capacity - you don't need a super-fast HDD since you have an SSD. Not really a fan of Seagate and sadly Samsung HDD department got taken over by Seagate (my Spinpoint F3 is still going).
PSU: 550-650w PSU, a known QUALITY brand like Corsair, Seasonic, XFX or Antec. It's all about brand with PSU's, wattage is not that important.
Case: This one boils down to personal choice, but still the last thing you need is some shitty plastic case with jack-all airflow. I won't put it further than Cooler Master, Corsair or NZXT cases. These 3 have risen to become true giants when it comes to all-purpose gaming mid/full towers, they know what they're doing.
OS: Win 7 64bit. No-brainer here.
Monitor: Any 22-24" 1920x1080p monitor from Asus, Samsung or Acer (in order of preference). They all generally do the same thing (TN panels, LED backlighting), all 3 are great brands. Monitors only get more interesting as you increase your price bracket to IPS/PLS panels (e.g. Dell Ultrasharps) which give better colors and viewing angles, or 120hz/3D monitors which happen to be my FAVORITE monitors for gaming!
Keyboard: Lots of people make do with trashy keyboards since they tend to bang them around a lot, but if you want a more quality experience then I would recommend a low-end mechanical keyboard e.g. CM Quickfire series. Once you go mechanical you never go back. But it's up to you.
Mouse: A quality/durable optical mouse is a must-have if you are to join the PC Master Race, especially if you're into first person shooters. This is where Logitech is basically king, their legendary G series (G400, G500, G9x) mice are undefeated in terms of sheer durability and comfort. Other brands include Corsair (still new to the mouse market), Cyborg (their RAT series are...interesting) and Razer (not a Razer fan personally :S).
Aaaand, that's about it. Soz if I unloaded a boatload of info on you, but building a PC these days is really incredibly easy (like Lego) and you have a fair bit of flexibility with parts. My recommendations above will easily fit within your budget.
It's great fun putting it all together and neatly managing the cables, and then watching it come to life