$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

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