Looking to spend no more than $2000 for a new PC

[Ariakys]

So, my family and I are about to PCS to Arizona after being stationed in Germany for 3-4 years. The wifey is giving me the go to spend no more than $2000 (not including monitor) on a new PC. I used to build them myself doing all the research on parts and buying from the cheapest places using pricewatch, but it's been so long since I've built one that I'm kind of intimidated by all the newer features like water cooling. (might not be "new" but I've been using a Sager laptop for the past 3 years so that type of cooling is new to me lol)

I'm thinking of just being lazy and buying from a company ie: ibuypower, cyberpower, etc. Here are the specs I'm looking atm:

# *BASE_PRICE: [+1765]
# CAS: NEW!!! CoolerMaster Cosmos S Gaming Full Tower 420W Case w/ Transparent Side Panel [+50]
# CASUPGRADE: NONE
# CS_FAN: Extra 3-Color Neon Light LED Case Fan [+5] (2 x Fans [+5])
# CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 [-296]
# CD: Lite-On DH-401S 4X Blu-Ray Player
# CD2: (Special Price) LG 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
# CABLE: None
# FLASHMEDIA: None
# FREEBIE_CU1: FREE! (FarCry2) Game
# FREEBIE_CU2: FREE! CyberPower Multi-Purpose Carrying Briefcase ($19.99 Value)
# FREEBIE_CU3: FREE! Cyberpower Unleash The Power T-Shirt ($19 Value)
# FAN: Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling System (Extreme Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
# FREEBIE_RM: None
# FREEBIE_VC: FREE! (Age of Conan) Game
# FLOPPY: NONE
# FREEBIE_OS: FREE! (Halo 2) Game
# HDD: Single Hard Drive (1TB (1TBx1) SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
# HDD2: NONE
# IEEE_CARD: NONE
# KEYBOARD: Logitech Deluxe 250 USB Keyboard (Black Color)
# MOUSE: XtremeGear Optical USB 3 Buttons Gaming Mouse
# MULTIVIEW: Xtreme Performance in SLI/CrossFireX Gaming Mode Supports Single Monitor
# MONITOR: NONE
# MONITOR2: NONE
# MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard SAS Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA,Dual GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394a,&7.1Audio [+109]
# MEMORY: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module [+29] (Corsair or Major Brand)
# MODEM: NONE
# NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
# OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition)
# PRO_WIRING: Professional Wiring for All WIRINGs Inside The System Chasis with High Performance Thermal Compound on CPU [+19]
# PRINTER: None
# PRINTER_CABLE: None
# POWERSUPPLY: 800 Watts Power Supplies (CyberPowerPC XF800S Performance ATX 2.0 Power - Quad SLI Ready)
# RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
# SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
# SOUND: Creative Labs SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio 24-BIT PCI Sound Card [+64]
# SPEAKERS: NONE
# TEMP: NONE
# TVRC: None
# USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
# USBHD: NONE
# VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 X2 1.7GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+280] (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA [+5])
# VIDEO2: NONE
# VIDEO3: NONE
# VIDEOCAMERA: NONE
# WNC: NONE
# _PRICE: (+2035)

After the online rebate and shipping it comes out to $1998.25 (lol $1.75 left for a Coke and a smile while setting it up) I will be using this computer on an ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" LCD Monitor.

Any suggestions to make it cheaper? Is it worth the price of convenience or overpriced if put together by myself?

I really appreciate any replies

 

[aaronkupen]

You really need to make it yourself. Really.

 

[hikaricloud]

You could do a lot better than that price-wise. If you feel like building it yourself, of course.

You don't need to grab water cooling if you're not going to do much overclocking. Air cooling will be fine.

Quick question: do you need a blu-ray player?

Also, what kind of gaming do you do? You could probably save a good bit of money by grabbing a smaller videocard.

 

[Nukem]

Not bad for a pre-built if you don't want to bother with it yourself... but nothing really has changed since you were overseas... I was stationed in Stuttgart for 3 years myself and I kept up with it... You can build yourself and make it a little cheaper if you do the research, AND since you are moving back to the US, Newegg can be your best friend...

I'd say check out the parts first before committing to this.

 

[Ariakys]

Thanks for all the quick replies!

I have a good month or so to do more research on building my own. I've just been out of the "desktop" loop for so long, I don't know where to begin when it came to research lol. I'll just have to dive in and do the leg work.

Do I need a blu-ray player? The monitor I'm getting is 1920x1200 and I do have quite a few movies but........will I ever play a movie on it? probably not....truthfully I could do without the Blu-ray player.

I plan on playing games like WAR, Dragon Age: Origins, FPS types like Crysis, FEAR 2. I won't be doing any type of graphic design, just basically every day use plus heavy gaming.

Is 6 gigs of RAM really worth it?

Is the 2.66 i7 processor that much slower to be 200$ cheaper? From past experiences for me it seemed the best bang for the buck was usually the around the 3rd fastest processor.

Again, thanks for the replies!

 

[hikaricloud]

You want the 920, the other ones aren't worth the money.

You can always add a blu-ray player later, they're about 100 bucks.

I'm putting together a build right now for you, give me a few minutes.

EDIT: Alright, this is what I got for you.

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases
Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!
Newegg.com - OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!
Newegg.com - LG Black 22X (CAV) DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X (CAV) DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners
Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders - Operating Systems

The HAF 932 case is cheaper than the Cosmos S, and I personally like it better. you get a faster HDD with 500gb more space, a better PSU, better RAM with better timings, etc.

I stuck a GTX 285 in the build...it's a powerful card, but it's not quite as powerful as the 295...at the moment, all of the 295s are out of stock, but that could be changing soon. If they come back in stock when you order, I would grab this one:

Newegg.com - EVGA 017-P3-1291-AR GeForce GTX 295 1792MB 896 (448 x 2)-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

The build after shipping right now is $1654.90, and if you get the 295, add 150 bucks onto that.

 

[Ariakys]

Wow hikaricloud, you are awesome man!

I really appreciate you taking the time to build that. It does look like I can save at least $100-200 building my own (with better products).

What about heatsinks, thermal compound, and any other "Nickel and Dime" items that I would need to build the computer?

I've only been on these forums for less than a day and I'm extremely impressed with the help!

 

[kmote]

I would go for a WD or samsung HDD and a samsung DVD RW.

 

[Joeyboy]

Wow hikaricloud, you are awesome man!

I really appreciate you taking the time to build that. It does look like I can save at least $100-200 building my own (with better products).

What about heatsinks, thermal compound, and any other "Nickel and Dime" items that I would need to build the computer?

I've only been on these forums for less than a day and I'm extremely impressed with the help!

Don't think the above suggested build has a heatsink for the processor...sorry Hikaricloud if it does I admit I didn't click on every link.

I believe the heatsinks for the I7 processors are different then the Core 2 Quad/Duo ones so I can't help there since I only have experience with my own build.

Some heatsinks come with thermal compound, depending on the brand it will be fine although sometimes it'd better to ditch their's and buy the best. Finally apart from obviously a screwdriver for the case and inside(depending on how "tool-less" it is though) you should be ok. Most motherboards come with quite a few SATA cables for things like the hard drive, optical drive etc. Since yours is a pricey one it most certainly will.

 

[Evolv]

I think this would be a better combo:
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

The P6T Deluxe actually has less features compared to other X58 boards. It only supports DDR3 1600, the Gigabyte supports up to DDR3 2000. The Deluxe supports max of 12Gb of ram, where as the Gigabyte supports 24Gb, and a extra PCI slot. And the Deluxe only has x16/x8/x8 or x16/x16/x1 mode, which isn't great.