I'm looking for a computer to play the newest games on, at max settings. Never built a computer before, but there are plenty of those nerdy kids at school who could help me. What components would be best?

Hey, I'm an ex geek nerd from a LONG time ago... like 386 SX 16, Duke Nuke-en and Castle Wolfenstien. the problem you will find is that if you want to build the best gaming computer It could cost $10K (Box, Projector, Audio) and the box will not be the best within 3-4 months. Ater a year upgrades are even difficult. You're going to find that it's a lot (A LOT) like building a rifle. So I bought a Savage F Class and plopped a scope on it. I also bought a big Dell XPS. Simpler and I know it's going to work.

If you want to build a computer (and I've put a couple together from parts) read the reviews in PC Mag and Computer Shopper and find the parts on www.pricewatch.com. The "Best" changes daily and my XPS works fine for the flight sims I'm playing. Make sure everything is compatible with your motherboard and screw it together... don't use Vista, best of luck!!!

Go to newegg.com, excellent selection of parts and decent prices. Just make sure the motherboard matches the processor, and the ram matches the motherboard.

Other than that, if it's a sata motherboard, use sata drives, at least 2G of ram and the best video card you can afford. (Potential gotcha, most new motherboards use PCI-X for their gfx cards, so don't get an AGP card!)

For gaming, you want a really kick-ass video card, something like a GeForce 8800 or higher. For CPU, I'd look at an AMD Socket AM2+ CPU, quad-core preferred, and stuff the mainboard with at least 2 - 4 GB of RAM.

Gaming is pretty demanding. You need all the power you can get!

We build all our desktop computers ourselves, as we cannot find any commercially available with the specs we want.

Generally we prefer Intel processors, and ASUS or Intel motherboards for single CPU desktops. Intel or Tyan motherboards for dual processors.

To avoid any hickups, I suggested you start ith the CPU you wish to use, then pick the motherboard that supports it, add memory - as much as you can - with XP set ups we usually use 4GBs.

Almost all recent motherboards support SATA hard drives, in addition to at least two IDE drives.

We usualy use the IDE connector for the optical drive, and use only SATA hard drives.

Another thing to bear in mind is the size of the motherboard.

This depends to what you wish to install in your system.

We have some systems that have 12 hard drives, 2 CPUs and require a 1500 Watt power supply.

Others are with just 2 hard drives, and these we use a 600 watt power supply in.

My suggestion is to stick with Windos XP too.

Is this absolutely everything I would need? Cables and all? And would it be right for gaming for a while?


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AMC 6 ft. VGA Male to Male External Monitor Cable Model CVG-6MM

AMC 6 ft. VGA Male to Male External Monitor Cable Model CVG-6MM - OEM
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$4.99




Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK

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$26.99




RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply

RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply - Retail
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$99.99
$94.99




Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Item #: N82E16822148262
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$64.99




Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support

Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support - Retail
Item #: N82E16824009094
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-$30.00 Instant


$249.99
$219.99




BIOSTAR V9603GT52 GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

BIOSTAR V9603GT52 GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16814141073
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$30.00 Mail-in Rebate

$317.98
($158.99 each)




Creative 53SB000003000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Elite Pro Sound Card and HS-900 Headphone Bundle

Creative 53SB000003000 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Elite Pro Sound Card and HS-900 Headphone Bundle - Retail
Item #: N82E16829102018
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$239.99
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Logitech X-230 32 watts RMS 2.1 Black Speaker System

Logitech X-230 32 watts RMS 2.1 Black Speaker System - OEM
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$38.99




Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
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G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail
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$79.99




GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - Retail
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$89.99



Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600
Rosewill RCX-Z5-Ultra 92mm x 2 Two Ball + Long Life Sleeve CPU Cooler

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Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115017
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Rosewill RCX-Z5-Ultra 92mm x 2 Two Ball + Long Life Sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail
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Subtotal: $1,324.85

Your system looks good. I'm quite certain the monitor you've chosen comes with both VGA and DVI cables so there should be no need to order one.

Also, with your sound card selection I'd recommend either stepping up to a multichannel speaker system (5.1) instead of a 2.1, or if you just wanted 2.1 audio, I wouldn't bother with the soundcard and simply use the integrated audio on the motherboard.

When you get into multichannel (5.1) audio processing, an add-in soundcard can give you a bit of a performance increase, but if you're just using stereo audio it simply isn't taxing enough on the system to make it worth the money for an add-on sound card - personally I'd spend the extra cash on a bigger hard drive. 500GB is cheap nowadays.

I run the same CPU, the same amount of RAM, same video card, and the same motherboard and it's a top performer. Mine is overclocked from 2.4Ghz to 3.0Ghz however and I have a pair of 500GB drives in a RAID-0 configuration for extra speed. I don't think you'll be disappointed with your choices.

I have seen lots of "overclocking" processors to get a big increase. 2.4 to 3.0 would make a quad core extremely fast, no? How do I overclock a processor without blowing something up? I know how to mess around with a video card, but it is basically download a program and guess and check.

Overclocking processors can be tricky. There are two things which determine the sped of the CPU - frontside bus speed and clock multiplier. The frontside bus speed is how fast the the CPU talks to the rest of the PC, more or less. The clock multiplier takes that speed and multiplies it to get the CPU speed.

Example: let's say you have a computer with a 200mhz frontside bus and a 5x multiplier. That gives you a CPU speed of 1000mhz (200 x 5), or 1ghz.

Tweaking either the frontside bus speed or multiplier will push the CPU to run at higher speeds. If you take the 200mhz frontside bus and run it at 233mhz, the clock multiplier stays at 5x. This will give you 1167mhz, or 1.16ghz (233 x 5).

The settings themselves are configured in the motherboards' BIOS, the program which stores all the basic settings. If you download the manual for the board you are thinking of buying, you should see options to change those settings.

My Q6600 is running at 3.0ghz from 2.4ghz, which is quite a boost when you consider that's a 600mhz increase on each of the four cores. Big performance for programs which can use the full power.

My friend has the same CPU running at 3.4ghz. That's a 1ghz increase! And that's using a regular heatsink/fan, no fancy watercooling or anything. To go faster than that, you'd need to start playing with the CPU voltages which can shorten it's life expectancy.

What will the PC do faster if you overclock the processor? As in, what will you actually be able to notice? Will game performance increase, or just opening files? I notice firefox takes 10+ seconds to load on all computers I use it on, while IE is almost instant. Nothing big, but it drives me nuts, especially if I open MSN, Windows Media Player, and Firefox at the same time, it can take 30+ seconds.

Tyler, you need to get it built before even concerning yourself with overclocking. Get it up and running - stable and cool - then look into overclocking if you think you need it. Don't get ahead of yourself, just follow the basics of building and triple check everything as you go.

Your motherboard choice is excellent. You might consider an E8400 as opposed to the quad.

I didn't see an operating system.

quote:

Anyone know how to build a computer?

I do. I built 2 using parts from Newegg.com.

Was it hard onefunzr, and had you something like this before. Looking online it seems pretty easy.

I can get the OS Cd's from the school if I want Vista, or I have the XP one's from this crappy dell Dimension 4600. 5 years ago I configured it for my parents with 1 GB ram and thought it would be amazing. It was (to me) for a year or so, then they started offering dual core processors, sweet video cards, more RAM, faster RAM, faster HD's, LCD monitors that were affordable...

You should see this thing try to run Call of Duty 4.



Underclocked, sending you a pm.

Build #2, I always come up with different stuff, somehow it's a fair bit cheaper:
Would a 1gb graphics card be $100 better than 2 512s?

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Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK

Pioneer 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model DVR-115DBK - OEM
Item #: N82E16827129018
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$59.98
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RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply

RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply - Retail
Item #: N82E16811156062
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$94.99




Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
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$89.99




Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support

Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support - Retail
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$249.99
$229.99




BIOSTAR V9603GT52 GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

BIOSTAR V9603GT52 GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
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$30.00 Mail-in Rebate

$317.98
($158.99 each)




Logitech G11 Silver & Black USB Standard Gaming Keyboard

Logitech G11 Silver & Black USB Standard Gaming Keyboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16823126009
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$58.99




Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse

Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse - Retail
Item #: N82E16826104178
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$10.00 Mail-in Rebate

$39.99




G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail
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XTRAC RIPPER XL Optical Mouse pad

XTRAC RIPPER XL Optical Mouse pad - Retail
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$16.99




GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813128059
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$89.99




Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115017
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$219.99

Subtotal: $1,303.87

When you get your list finalized, check total pricing with shipping at NewEgg against

http://www.moogr.com/

You need to make yourself a little checklist so you know you have the bases covered.

1. Motherboard
2. CPU with or without cooler
3. additional cooler if desired
4. Compatible memory, no more than 3GB for 32bit OS, more for 64 bit as desired.(in pairs for best performance)

5. Hard drive(s) - most likely SATA 300 these days
6. Optical drive(s) - dvd burner(s) etc
7. Other drive (floppy for example, and yes they are still useful on occasion) and/or card reader
8. Sound card if needed/wanted
9. Video card if needed/wanted
10. Case to put it all in and hopefully one that provides good ventilation and
11. A quality power supply - don't skimp here.
12. Cables that might not be included with the various drives or motherboard (take note, you may not need much other than what is provided with the retail motherboard).
13. Monitor - another place not to skimp
14. Speakers
15. Mouse or other pointing device
16. Keyboard

12. Software - including operating system.

A clean place to work and familiarity with safe handling precautions for electronic equipment. Most likely some cable ties, a pair of cutters, screwdrivers, long tweezers, a magnifying glass, a flashlight, (can you tell I'm half blind?) may all come in handy.

Think NOISE as well when you pick your components. Let's see... whut elz?

Can I run 3 "GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card" together? I don't know how to tell. I saw a picture online that looked exactly like this card, but three! Surely this would beat all but the most expensive cards?

Your question is of the open-ended variety. I, too, wanted a powerful computer. I did my research, pored through the reviews and with the help of a local builder, put together what I think is a good system. Mine has an AMD Phenom 9500+ cpu, 4 Gb of G.Skill PC6400 RAM at 800MHz and two eVGA eGeForce 8800GTS videocards in SLi, to mention just the parts that make a computer what it is. I put in a Thermaltake Toughpower 850-watt modular power supply to make sure I had the power to run the two DVD drives and all the fans. I think my motherboard is an Asus MN32 or something like that. I am using Windows XP Home with SP3 installed.

The most difficult part about "building a computer" is getting all the parts to work in harmony. Before this machine came to its present configuration, we had a 9600+ chip, Dominator RAM, a CoolerMaster power supply and another Asus board with just one PCIe slot. The thing would not boot reliably; it took four or five attempts to get it to boot. We tried swapping out chips, RAM and power supplies until we finally scrapped it all and went with a new board having two PCIe video slots, 5000+ chip and the G.Skill RAM. It worked fabulously. I had it that way for about a week or two, then upgraded to the Phenom. It works pretty well. I get a lot of "Program not responding" error messages. I think these are because of SP3; I don't think it's quite ready for prime time...

I have seen lately that machines are coming out with three video cards. Talk about generating a lot of heat. The air coming out the top vents of my machine is about 85 degrees Farenheit. I have a CoolerMaster CM690 case; it has seven 120mm fans in it. Four blow in, three blow out. I have a Zalman 9700 "sunflower" cpu fan installed. It works very well. CPU temps remain very low with this fan and that's always good. The Zalmans do not require a bulky heatsink; they use heatpipe technology. However, they are quite bulky and can stress the motherboard if you move the machine around too much.

I would advise you take your time in the building of your machine. Read as much as you can before you buy anything. Study each component before you choose which one to buy. There are a myriad number of chips, videocards, motherboards, RAM modules and power supplies out there from which to choose. It's heartbreak to drop a small fortune on a big box of parts, put it together, fire it up and then have it stare back at you with a blue or black screen.

To reinforce what a previous poster wrote: Make sure you buy a videocard and board that are both PCIe X16. An AGP card WILL NOT fit a PCIe board. Also, make sure you buy an AM2 chip and AM2 board, or its opposite in the intel line. AMD up to 4000+ uses 939 pins and is referred to as a Socket 939; Socket AM2 uses 940 pins; intel uses 775. Note there are differences in RAM, as well. DDR and DDR2 are not the same; they have a different number of pins and operate at a different frequency. All I can say is choose wisely...

Tyler, as to your last question.. I'll once again advise you to join up at some sites devoted to computers and their hardware. LOTS of great info and guys on both forums to help you along.

Many of them are hard core gamers, not an old man like me that only rarely even plays solitaire.

http://www.anandtech.com/

http://www.tomshardware.com/us/

http://www.hardforum.com/index.php

Joined computerforum.com, already 30+ responses.