$1,000 is a really tight budget for building a "great" gaming computer. You
may have to compromise some or plan on future upgrades to eventually meet
your goal. Also, although Newegg is a great retailer, you should shop around
at various respected retailers for the best prices.
Unless you are into looks, case selection should be based on quality and
capacity to handle the internal and external components and not on pretty or
weird. If a power supply is included, it should be at least a 400W quality
PS with at least two fans. Figure $100.
The motherboard should be from a known quality manufacturer with most of the
latest high performance enhancements. The eventual selection will probably
be restricted by your budget. You should look at MB's that can handle the
highest speed 32 bit AMD or Intel CPU with ability to go higher. If you want
to spend more money, there are dual processor MB's and the latest 64 bit AMD
CPU MB's. Figure $200.
The CPU should be close to the highest speed Intel or AMD CPU. The
cost/benefit ratio of getting the highest speed is not good enough based on
your budget. Get a good quality high performance heat sink & fan combination
to go with the CPU. Figure $300.
The RAM should be from a known quality manufacturer and should be a matched
set of at least 512MB each so you can set the MB up to handle the RAM as
dual memory. Figure $200.
The video card should be close to the best offered (your budget can not
afford the best) by NAVIDA (spelling ?) or ATI (get an actual manufacturer
card and not a sponsored card made by others). Figure $300.
The hard drive should be SATA with at least 7200RPM and at least an 8MB
cache. The size will depend on your proposed use in addition to gaming. 100
to 200GB should suffice. There are higher performance drives available but
not within your budget. Figure $100.
The CD-ROM should be RW and high speed. Add in a DVD player (RW depending on
your plans) to watch movies when you get bored of playing games or get a
combo drive. The latest are dual layer for an additional hit on your budget
that is probably not needed. Figure $100.
The monitor should be at least a good quality 19" CRT although "flat" LCD
monitors are improving to the point of possibly being acceptable for gaming.
Figure $200 (CRT).
The operating system should be Windows XP (opinions will differ on that).
Figure $100.
A high performance sound card and good surround sound speakers are a must
for a gaming computer. Figure $200.
Extra case fans, hard drive fan, slot fan blowing on the video card, multi
media keyboard, input device (joy stick/steering wheel/foot pedals/optical
mouse/roller ball/whatever). Figure $100 (to start).
Work station to put all this stuff onto and/or into. Figure $200.
All the miscellaneous stuff I did not list such as memory card reader,
floppy drive, flash memory, media supplies, modem, etc. Figure $100+.
Games to play. Figure $ ??? .
Sensory chair to really get into the feel of the games. Figure $3,000.
The last is there in case you had not yet gotten the idea of the almost
unlimited expense of a "great" gaming system.
A "good" gaming system is in the $2,000 range. For $1,000 you can probably
put together a system that will play some high performance games
satisfactorily.
Not what you wanted to hear but that's life. You will probably get a few
other responses. It will be interesting to read their input.
Tom Mayer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe K" <[log in to unmask]>
hi
im trying to build a computer off of hardware
components i can purchase off of newegg.com. i am a
novice and was wondering if you could tell me exactly
what i need to buy to build a great GAMING pc for less
than 1000 dollars. i would appreciate the response. my
email is [log in to unmask]
thank you
Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
http://freepctech.com
|