Nick needs your help!

[NickHouston]

Hey guys.

As most of you know I had just recently made Eagle Scout before the summer.

My mom just told me she would be combining my birthday and Eagle gift and will be buying me a Desktop for my gaming.

That being said, I need your help to find a good desktop for both gaming and using programs like Photoshop and Illustrator.

My only requirements on this is it MUST be a PC. Also I'd like it to be able to run Skyrim and CoD4 and Black Ops maxed out or as close as possible to being maxed.

I will need everything, including an illuminated keyboard(sometimes I play in the dark) and a monitor for it.

Thanks for the help

EDIT: I've heard of Solid State HDs or something like that. Where there are no moving parts in the Hard Drive itself. I heard those are faster at booting up so that would be pretty cool too. Although they are more expensive.

 

[WaLLy]

What's the budget?

 

[Rival]

Do you "play" in the dark?


:fapfap:

 

[NickHouston]

Lol Rival.


And WaLLy, my mom didn't give me a budget but I want to make is as cheap as possible while still doing what I want it too

 

[JohnSmith]

Can you build one, that way you can get what you want in it, or you're buying from a big company like Dell? Building it will get you a lot more "bang for your buck".

 

[Sodalover]

Where's Joe or 360 when ya need them?

 

[517Houston]

I'll sell you mine for $600

 

[DamageINC]

I would find out the budget then we can help you pick out the parts. Building is the best way to go, imo.

 

[NickHouston]

lol dad.

I'll find out a budget as soon as my mom gets off the phone

 

[DamageINC]

List any parts or things you may not need such as monitor, operating system etc. You might be able to use your CD/DVD rom from another PC etc. Although new ones are cheap. $20, give or take.

 

[NickHouston]

My mom gave me a budget of $600 including Keyboard, monitor, mouse.

I don't have a PC to cannibalize right now.

IDK if my dad has a Win 7 disk or not

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Here's a gaming Desktop I found on Newegg for $550 not including the monitor, keyboard or mouse... It's seems really nice but I'd like your guy's input or if you found a better one for the same price or cheaper.

One problem is it's Out of Stock atm... and discontinued... lol

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227314

 

[517Houston]

http://www.productshippingcenter.co...ools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1963096&CatId=114

 

[NickHouston]

Nice dad. But I also need a monitor and keyboard and possibly a mouse. Any suggestions?

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Okay so with some help from my dad and Newegg I have picked out what I want for this PC.

Keyboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823107120

PC:
http://www.productshippingcenter.co...ools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1963096&CatId=114

Mouse:
http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-9SIA11P0920063-_-08252012_3

Monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009256

Speakers:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121014

 

[DamageINC]

OK , $600 will be tricky, especially with needing a monitor. A decent monitor will run $120 at least.(HD monitor) I'm sure someone here can help you with windows.

A pre-built is defiantly something to consider.

All good choices. Consider the monitor is NOT full HD (1920x1080) , not sure if thats an issue for you.

I have very, very similar Logitechs and they are nice. Well, the sub is nice. It makes the speakers sound good with the extra bass, which is o plenty.

Also consider the gt 520 is a very low end card. Joe would know more of what it can/can't do, but i think you might struggle to run newer games on it. (not sure what games you like) Also, always check to see how up gradable a pre-built is.

I think the biggest thing, at least IMO, is to be patient and get advice etc from people. Consider Toms hardware forum. You can say make a thread, build me a $600 gaming PC and they should give you a lot of help. I did that before i picked out my parts and it was a big help. It took me a cpl months of shopping, reviewing, getting advice etc from people who knew a lot more than i did before i bought.

 

[NickHouston]

Well I was checking around on the GT 520 and someone said they were playing Crysis 2 maxed on it. The game I am most focused on is Skyrim. Maxing CoD4 would be nice aswell but if I can get skyrim on high I can max CoD4 no prob...

With the monitor My dad's telling me to go for a 23" and my mom says a 21" would be nice for me. I tried to find the cheapest 20" LCD/LED I could find from a good brand. My dad also said Samsungs are nice. Since I am very happy with our Samsung TVs I might go for that.

21" that I'll probably get:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001542

23" I may get:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001546

My list wasn't a definate thing, I was just in a hurry to find decent things at the lowest price. My mom said she's willing to go over the budget as long as I pay her back what I went over.

As for the keyboard, I figured I'd get a cheap keyboard for now then upgrade a little later. My mom insists on a better keyboard. I chose an illuminate compact gaming keyboard. Never heard of the brand:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823436003


By the way I showed my mom the Rat 7 gaming mouse. She looked at it and said "What the hell is that?" <----exact words

 

[DamageINC]

My monitor is i think 22.5 and its plenty big.

21 should be fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009316 < boss.

 

[NickHouston]

My dad wants to get a 27". That may be his b day gift next year if I save enough from working at summer camp lol.

I'm looking at other graphics cards and someone suggests a Radeon HD 6670 1GB. That's like $90 which would be going $200 over my limit lol... I have a Radeon HD 4200 in my laptop right now so even a low-end graphics card will run more than this laptop can. lol. What's pretty sad is this desktop setup I'm getting will cost less than the laptop...

- - - Updated - - -

Okay here's one I saw at best buy when I went to look at screens. It's $700 and my mom said that if I get it she would be including as both a christmas/bday gift so I could get it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP---Pa...rive/5563052.p?id=1218661381249&skuId=5563052

- - - Updated - - -

Bump.

Would that PC be good for me? or would I need a better graphics card?

- - - Updated - - -

Okay... I've been watching tutorials on building PCs and I think I may be able to do this...

Please let me know of any problems I could have with this setup. It's just under $500 currently. Keep in mind I do not build PCs so I have no experience at all when it comes to this kind of stuff. That being said some parts may not work with others so please let me know Also feel free to suggest better parts or alternative parts.

I modified a friend's setup since he only had 4GB RAM and I wanted 8GB



AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor FD4100WMGUSBX

ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GM2A1600C9

MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone OC GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card OR SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity (100315L )

COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 Black Steel / Plastic Computer Case

COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS500-PCARD3-US 500W ATX12V v2.3 Power Supply

COOLER MASTER R4-S2S-124K-GP 120mm Case Fan 4 in 1 pack

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive




I can provide links to all parts if needed