Currently I am looking to build a computer. I built my last one but it is running on it's last stretch, and since it's tax return time I have enough to build another one. This is what I have so far, any advice would be helpful, I just don't want to spend much more than the current amount.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=22149986

All good looking parts, but no solid state drive to go with the 1TB?

I like this case a little better but cases are such a personal decision

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352025

All in all a solid build at a good price point

As long as the external is half decent then that will be fine. I keep all my games on a 2TB HDD other than one or two that i regularly play which are on the SSD, i barely even notice the difference in load times no matter which drive they are on. I couldn't do without the SSD for the OS though, once you've used one it's very hard to go back to using mechanical for it.

There are a few items you could save money on but they are all quality parts that will work well.

I think the main advantage to the solid state drive is to run the OS on.

Another consideration is to drop down to 8GB memory as it is more than enough ?

That said I put 16GB in my wifes machine just because it was so darn reasonably priced.

Most of what you've selected is enthusiast grade I really like the power supply.

Originally posted by Kaniver

I think the main advantage to the solid state drive is to run the OS on.

Another consideration is to drop down to 8GB memory as it is more than enough ?

That said I put 16GB in my wifes machine just because it was so darn reasonably priced.

Most of what you've selected is enthusiast grade I really like the power supply.

A friend I have reccomended that brand of power supply, plus after reading some reviews on them I really liked what I heard. Is there a specific SSD that is reasonably priced but still has good performance you would reccomend? 

Originally posted by Kabaal

As long as the external is half decent then that will be fine. I keep all my games on a 2TB HDD other than one or two that i regularly play which are on the SSD, i barely even notice the difference in load times no matter which drive they are on. I couldn't do without the SSD for the OS though, once you've used one it's very hard to go back to using mechanical for it.

There are a few items you could save money on but they are all quality parts that will work well.

Yeah that's what I've heard about having the OS on an SSD. I may go with an SSD now that I think about it, I have had a couple games I have played off of my external in the past and they seemed to have ran okay. 

Originally posted by Panther2103
I was thinking about a solid state, but I cannot reuse my hard drive from my current pc, so for the amount of things I keep installed, an SSD would just cost too much for the amount of storage I would need. Unless it is viable to run games off of an external, because I do have a 2 tb external hdd. The case was a bit iffy for me, I just wanted a cheaper full tower case to be honest.

If you're spending $150 on a power supply, $130 on a case, $85 on memory, $145 on a motherboard, and not getting an SSD, then you're putting money on the wrong places.  A computer without an SSD is slow, period, no matter what else it has.  If it's a budget constraint, then I'd cut back on some of the other things to make room for a good SSD.

You can get a nice power supply for cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182264

Memory in a combo deal with the CPU to save money:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1174554

A cheaper 7870:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161404

A cheaper but still very nice case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129178

And then have room to add an SSD without giving up much to get it.

Originally posted by Panther2103

Originally posted by Kabaal

As long as the external is half decent then that will be fine. I keep all my games on a 2TB HDD other than one or two that i regularly play which are on the SSD, i barely even notice the difference in load times no matter which drive they are on. I couldn't do without the SSD for the OS though, once you've used one it's very hard to go back to using mechanical for it.

There are a few items you could save money on but they are all quality parts that will work well.

Yeah that's what I've heard about having the OS on an SSD. I may go with an SSD now that I think about it, I have had a couple games I have played off of my external in the past and they seemed to have ran okay. 

You want to get an SSD to put both the OS and heavily used programs on it.  Whether a game benefits from an SSD will vary wildly from one game to the next.  Programs such as browsers that do a ton of small file reads and writes benefit tremendously from a browser.

For the SSD, try this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239049

Originally posted by Panther2103

Originally posted by Kaniver

I think the main advantage to the solid state drive is to run the OS on.

Another consideration is to drop down to 8GB memory as it is more than enough ?

That said I put 16GB in my wifes machine just because it was so darn reasonably priced.

Most of what you've selected is enthusiast grade I really like the power supply.

A friend I have reccomended that brand of power supply, plus after reading some reviews on them I really liked what I heard. Is there a specific SSD that is reasonably priced but still has good performance you would reccomend? 

The Seasonic X-series is very nice.  The problem is that it's also very expensive.  Even if you do want to spend up for a very high end power supply, you'd be better off going with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121088

Or you could give up some wattage and modularity and grab this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121094

Super Flower's platinum platform really is as good as Seasonic's X-series.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Panther2103

Originally posted by Kaniver

I think the main advantage to the solid state drive is to run the OS on.

Another consideration is to drop down to 8GB memory as it is more than enough ?

That said I put 16GB in my wifes machine just because it was so darn reasonably priced.

Most of what you've selected is enthusiast grade I really like the power supply.

A friend I have reccomended that brand of power supply, plus after reading some reviews on them I really liked what I heard. Is there a specific SSD that is reasonably priced but still has good performance you would reccomend? 

The Seasonic X-series is very nice.  The problem is that it's also very expensive.  Even if you do want to spend up for a very high end power supply, you'd be better off going with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121088

Or you could give up some wattage and modularity and grab this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121094

Super Flower's platinum platform really is as good as Seasonic's X-series.

Thank you for all the good advice. I grabbed that combo and added it instead of both seperate, and changed up the PSU, GPU and added the SSD and it brought it down to 1029 dollars with tax and shipping. Is HIS an okay brand for GPU's? I have always kind of stuck with MSI

Which parts did you change to?  You seem to be in the market for high quality parts, but I ask because occasionally someone says that they changed parts and buys some random junk that wasn't even in the discussion.

Also, I'd recommend getting a DVD burner instead of the DVD-ROM you picked:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256

Even if you're never going to use the added DVD writing capability, it's cheaper.  I think that read-only optical drives are more expensive because they're a low-volume product these days.

Also, a HIS video card will be fine.  IceQ is their relatively nicer cards, too.  It's probably not quite as good as an MSI Twin Frozr card, but it's not that much worse, and it's quite a bit cheaper.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Which parts did you change to?  You seem to be in the market for high quality parts, but I ask because occasionally someone says that they changed parts and buys some random junk that wasn't even in the discussion.

Also, I'd recommend getting a DVD burner instead of the DVD-ROM you picked:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256

Even if you're never going to use the added DVD writing capability, it's cheaper.  I think that read-only optical drives are more expensive because they're a low-volume product these days.

The only reason I wanted a dvd drive was just to play some random games that I happen to have on dvd and don't feel like creating ISO's for because it would take up a lot of space, and an OS install when I get the newer HDD. I ended up going with the combo 

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K 

withG.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL

The SSD you reccomended

Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3B/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Upgrade Bundle Kit)

The Corsair PSU 

CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power ...

and the His gpu

HIS IceQ H787Q2G2M Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

I know a little bit about parts so I usually try to look at them before hand. To be honest with this computer I just wanted to build something that was solid that could play a majority of games on max settings, originally I had a 3770k on there but a friend told me the I5 3570k was similar to that for a lot less money. I just got tired of buying a game and having to throw it on medium to low to get a decent frame rate. 

Originally posted by Panther2103

Originally posted by Quizzical

Which parts did you change to?  You seem to be in the market for high quality parts, but I ask because occasionally someone says that they changed parts and buys some random junk that wasn't even in the discussion.

Also, I'd recommend getting a DVD burner instead of the DVD-ROM you picked:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256

Even if you're never going to use the added DVD writing capability, it's cheaper.  I think that read-only optical drives are more expensive because they're a low-volume product these days.

The only reason I wanted a dvd drive was just to play some random games that I happen to have on dvd and don't feel like creating ISO's for because it would take up a lot of space, and an OS install when I get the newer HDD. I ended up going with the combo 

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K 

withG.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL

The SSD you reccomended

Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3B/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Upgrade Bundle Kit)

The Corsair PSU 

CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power ...

and the His gpu

HIS IceQ H787Q2G2M Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

I know a little bit about parts so I usually try to look at them before hand. To be honest with this computer I just wanted to build something that was solid that could play a majority of games on max settings, originally I had a 3770k on there but a friend told me the I5 3570k was similar to that for a lot less money. I just got tired of buying a game and having to throw it on medium to low to get a decent frame rate. 

 

Given the choice between a read-only optical drive for $25 and one that can both read and write for $16, I really think you should take the latter.  Even if you don't care about the write capability, you save $9 and lose nothing.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Panther2103

Originally posted by Quizzical

Which parts did you change to?  You seem to be in the market for high quality parts, but I ask because occasionally someone says that they changed parts and buys some random junk that wasn't even in the discussion.

Also, I'd recommend getting a DVD burner instead of the DVD-ROM you picked:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256

Even if you're never going to use the added DVD writing capability, it's cheaper.  I think that read-only optical drives are more expensive because they're a low-volume product these days.

The only reason I wanted a dvd drive was just to play some random games that I happen to have on dvd and don't feel like creating ISO's for because it would take up a lot of space, and an OS install when I get the newer HDD. I ended up going with the combo 

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K 

withG.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL

The SSD you reccomended

Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3B/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Upgrade Bundle Kit)

The Corsair PSU 

CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power ...

and the His gpu

HIS IceQ H787Q2G2M Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

I know a little bit about parts so I usually try to look at them before hand. To be honest with this computer I just wanted to build something that was solid that could play a majority of games on max settings, originally I had a 3770k on there but a friend told me the I5 3570k was similar to that for a lot less money. I just got tired of buying a game and having to throw it on medium to low to get a decent frame rate. 

 

Given the choice between a read-only optical drive for $25 and one that can both read and write for $16, I really think you should take the latter.  Even if you don't care about the write capability, you save $9 and lose nothing.

Yeah I did end up changing it over to that one as well. I actually didn't know the read and write ones were cheaper, I guess that kind of makes sense

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202024

7870 XT + Game = $249. This card has a good cooler and at 1080p matches the 7950 on most games. Also has high overclock potentional but like all cards isn't gauranteed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182271

Rosewill 550w Tachyon PSU, this is a shell shocker at 6pm PST 1/23/13. Keep an eye on it could be a great deal.