long term build, what do i start with?

[drewjustforyou]

I'm planning on slow building a computer, putting about 200$ into it a month, or less maybe. designing it from the ground up by myself, and with the help of everyone here.

It's going to be a gaming rig, nice for todays games, maybe a little bit of tomorrows, but I don't have time/money to dump a bunch of resources into it at once.

Which component of the computer do you think you need to upgrade the least, to keep it up with the current trends.

I'm thinking I will start with buying a decent monitor, then get a computer case, fan/cooling unit, then move into the workings of the computer. (for the most part, aren't all these parts universal?)

where should I head from there? keeping in mind so far this will take me about 2 months to gather (planning on using neweggs)

Im planning on wireless internet, decent graphics card, 100+ gig harddrive, nice motherboard, and probably 2 gigs of ram, oh and a power supply to run it all.

not counting prehiprials (spelling) are there any major parts im missing?

thank you guys so much! tech forum ftw

 

[veg1992]

https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersio...tNumber=6298287&WishListTitle=$800-900+budget here u go my good fellow, its total is about 800$ but u need to assemble it urself (only 4 months to build)

 

[mrfluffles]

You can't really start with $200.. And there is no point in buying parts over time without actually using them right when you get them because with technology, two months later and it's already half the price. So just save up at least 600 (add about 150 if you need a monitor) or so for a solid foundation. You should start with a good motherboard, power supply, RAM and case which don't need to be upgraded too much. Something similar to vernong's build is good. The motherboard will last a while (although note that new sockets periodically come out so if you want the latest processor in a half year or so, you'll need a new motherboard), the graphics is very good for the price (price will go down even further in a couple weeks once 8600's are released), and the CPU is definetly the one to get.

However, his RAM is overkill for your purposes. Get the green NR (for overlocking) or red NQ G.Skills (not overclocking). Switch the Zalman 9700 with an AC Freezer 64 Pro as the Zalman has no place in a budget minded build (it won't give much better performance, just looks cool.) Get a hard drive with less storage but still a Seagate 7200.10 and switch the FSP 400W with the 450W version. Also, you don't need the retail version of the 3600+ since you would be getting a HSF anyway. Save $25 and get the OEM and free game (Rainbow 6 Vegas ) That'll come out to about $660 or so.

Ah.. and the case.. A good budget one is the Coolermaster 5 or 534. Both of which are $50.

 

[Sora]

The only parts that would be worth buying to hold you over would be a monitor and maybe PSU.

However I agree and save up at least 600.

 

[darksideleader]

mabye you could. Start off with a barebone system mobo and case together with intergrated graphics, depending on the barebone, a sempron or celeron and 512mb of ram. Later start adding on, another 512mb of ram, then a decent videocard (I will get bottleneck by the crappy CPU) then lastly more CPU power. By then though, quad cores or at least the high end dual cores of today will be cheap (hopefully).

 

[drewjustforyou]

darn, allrighty! looks like savings for me

money burns holes in my pocket, and i doubt i could trade in computer parts (unless i were at a videogame store) so i was just hoping i could keep money out and parts flowing in.

anyone want to hold onto 200 dollars a month for me?

 

[drewjustforyou]

also, best suggestion of a case? going over all this i realize i've fallen quite behind on the times, i hope i can do this.

 

[Sora]

One of these maybe?

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black Aluminum & Mesh bezel / SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

Not the coolest looking but certainly excellent cases for the price.