People are always asking about what to buy for a new rig so I thought people could post their suggestions for a rig here and some lovely mod could sticky it so that I don't go crazy posting the same build over and over. All prices were looked up at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.de and were correct at the time of posting.

Budget:

CPU: X2 7850  £47, $79, €63

Motherboard: ASUS M3A78-EM  £62, $85, €77

RAM: Corsair (TWIN2X2048-6400) 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz X2   £54, $74, €64 (doubling RAM purchase up to 4GB)

HD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATAII 16MB Cache   £50, $70, €61

PSU: OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt Gamers Power Supply Unit   £70, $77, €71

DVD: Samsung SH-S223F Internal 22x DVD Writer Drive SATA     £18, $28, €25

GPU: Sapphire 4770 512MB DDR5   £79, $170, €100

Monitor: Acer 20-inch Widescreen LCD TFT Monitor £100, $183, €121

Case: Antec Three Hundred   £50, $60, €57

OS: Windows 7 RC (until release).

Mouse&Keyboard = any bog standard ones you can find at your local PC store. £20, $30, €25

Total: £550, $856, €664

Mid range:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Triple-Core Processor - 2.80 GHz     £118, $135, €124

Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E - Motherboard   £110, $137, €124

RAM: Corsair DDR3, XMS-1333 4GB     £66, $86, €77

HD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATAII 16MB Cache    £50, $70, €61

PSU: OCZ High Power Gamers PSU - 700 Watt    £84, $120 (product name "gamexstream"), €91 (stealthxstream")

DVD: Samsung SH-S223F Internal 22x DVD Writer Drive SATA     £18, $28, €25

GPU: Sapphire HD 4870 1GB PCI-E Graphics Card    £142, $186, €145
 

Monitor: Acer 20-inch Widescreen LCD TFT Monitor  £100, $183, €121

Case: Aplus Twin Engine Black ATX Case  £107, $ not sold in NA, €96 (product name "apluscase")

            Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case    £75, $108, €100

OS: Windows 7 RC until release

Mouse: RAZER DEATHADDER    £39, $49, €44
 

Keyboard: MERC Stealth Keyboard    £60, $82, €85

Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy    £37, $35, €31

Total: £931, $1,219, €1,024

High end:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad-Core Processor - 3.20 GHz  £181, $245, €182

Motherboard: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe    £148, $188, €168

RAM: Corsair DDR3, XMS-1800 dominator 4GB     £240, $270, €83 (1600MHZ, couldn't find 1800MHZ)

HD: WD VelociRaptor - Hard drive - 300 GB X2 (Raid 0)   £356, $470, €406

PSU: OCZ High Power Gamers Power Supply Unit 850 Watt    £145, $190 (910 Watt), €202 (860 Watt)

DVD: LG GGW-H20L Internal Blu-Ray BD-RW     £138, $196, €173

GPU: Sapphire HD4890 1GB DDR5 Graphic Card X2 (crossfire)     £360, $436, €376
 

Monitor: Asus VH222H 22" LCD TFT Monitor   £145, $160 (21.5"), €134

Case: Aplus Twin Engine Black ATX Case   £107, $(not available), €96

            Antec Twelve Hundred    £144, $170, €159

OS: Windows 7 RC until release

Keyboard: Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard    £132, $170, €145
 

Mouse: RAZER DEATHADDER    £39, $49, €44
 

Soundcard: Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series    £165, $167, €120 (professional series)

Total:  £2,156, $2,711, €2,129

Also this is a must PC Tool Kit    £17, $30, €26. All prices include P&P and were correct as of 05/07/2009 (that's July the 5th). feel free to post suggestions for setups here, and yes I'm an AMD fanbois ... bite me!

Thank you! This should be very helpfully for many people like myself. Awesome reccommendations.

Very nice recommendations, this thread will definably come in use to others.

Nice builds.  bang for buck you cant beat AMD. $100-$200 more for an intel and onlyh 5-10fps more hehe

Yeah I had problems with motherboards for AMD processors, I had a Asus and a Gigabyte both die on me within a year it was crazy. Since I went with Intel processors ive never had a problem.

I just build a dual core system a year ago for gaming but now I want to build a seperate computer for my music stuff.  Thinking of of building with AMD since they have the cheapest quad cores but im still not sure because I don't need a good graphics card and can use onboard.

I wish Apple would just make it easier to install OSX on your computer. They need to stop hoarding there OS so I can use it. I just cant justify paying so much for there computers when pretty much  the only real difference is the OS.

I'm an avid Asus/AMD buyer. That's what I just put in my new rig.

AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition. Got it going with my Asus M4A79T-Deluxe.

HOWEVER! I will never....ever...ever buy ATI again. I've got the Radeon 4870 X2 in and it's horrible. Not the card, but the drivers. I get crashes constantly. I spent 2 weeks myself working on it, and then asked fellow PC lovers their opinions and worked another 3rd week. Finally resorted to outside help and took it to a shop to be worked on. Basically 1 1/2 months of work after the shops time is added in and guess what? Still constant driver crashes. Constant restarts.

ATI will never go in another machine I build/buy.

Originally posted by ZivaDomini

I'm an avid Asus/AMD buyer. That's what I just put in my new rig.

AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition. Got it going with my Asus M4A79T-Deluxe.

 

HOWEVER! I will never....ever...ever buy ATI again. I've got the Radeon 4870 X2 in and it's horrible. Not the card, but the drivers. I get crashes constantly. I spent 2 weeks myself working on it, and then asked fellow PC lovers their opinions and worked another 3rd week. Finally resorted to outside help and took it to a shop to be worked on. Basically 1 1/2 months of work after the shops time is added in and guess what? Still constant driver crashes. Constant restarts.

ATI will never go in another machine I build/buy.

Thats crazy I have a 4850 and the drivers work fine for me.  Its been a year and going strong still, very rarely do I get crashes.  I like ATI cards a lot and never had problems with any of the ones I've had either.   Nor have I had any problems with Nvidia as well but ive only owned 2 Nvidia but Ive had 4 ATI cards.

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Originally posted by ZivaDomini
I'm an avid Asus/AMD buyer. That's what I just put in my new rig.
AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition. Got it going with my Asus M4A79T-Deluxe.
 
HOWEVER! I will never....ever...ever buy ATI again. I've got the Radeon 4870 X2 in and it's horrible. Not the card, but the drivers. I get crashes constantly. I spent 2 weeks myself working on it, and then asked fellow PC lovers their opinions and worked another 3rd week. Finally resorted to outside help and took it to a shop to be worked on. Basically 1 1/2 months of work after the shops time is added in and guess what? Still constant driver crashes. Constant restarts.
ATI will never go in another machine I build/buy.

---

Don't want to hijack the thread too much, but did they test your components at the shop? It could easily be a faulty PSU or bad ram among other things.

I have "built" my own gaming machines since the early 90's and I gotta say, I cant do it anymore. The list of components is impressive, but IMO, the best bang for you buck comes from going to a custom pre-built gaming rig. I have 3 Digital Storm machines and I will never, ever build my own again.

Only problem with your list is it will be obsolete within a month...

Yes, noquarter. Each component in the system was switched out into other rigs to ensure it wasn't a hardware issue. Multiple of just about everything was tried. PSUs, mobos/chips (compatible of course), HDDs, OS's ect ect. It's definately ATI's drivers that's causing the issue.

For whatever reason ATI, even though each component is compatible, isn't working well with the setup.

I highly recommend Asus MOBOS, AMD chips, Western Digital HDDs, I will never recommend ATI to anyone.

Originally posted by Ghosttamer

gave up from upgrading pc lol, every month something new... :D, so just play those broswer based games that dont need some good pc's

Just because something new comes out does not mean that you have to buy it.

Originally posted by ZivaDomini

I'm an avid Asus/AMD buyer. That's what I just put in my new rig.

AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition. Got it going with my Asus M4A79T-Deluxe.

 

HOWEVER! I will never....ever...ever buy ATI again. I've got the Radeon 4870 X2 in and it's horrible. Not the card, but the drivers. I get crashes constantly. I spent 2 weeks myself working on it, and then asked fellow PC lovers their opinions and worked another 3rd week. Finally resorted to outside help and took it to a shop to be worked on. Basically 1 1/2 months of work after the shops time is added in and guess what? Still constant driver crashes. Constant restarts.

ATI will never go in another machine I build/buy.

i am actually going w/ the same proc and mobo combo w/ a Sapphire Vapor-X 4870 x2.  mainly went w/ this build b/c of cost compared to an Intel / nVidia build.  im hoping to not have any problems w/ the ATI GPU.  my current rig has a nVidia GPU which is the second one b/c of a problem w/ the original during the build.  also have a AMD / MSI mobo, only issues were w/ the GPU and the ether port on the mobo went out and have to hook to the net via USB.  rig is 1 1/2 years old and was a low end build at the time cost me roughly $800 for entire build.