First time builder, £1000(ish) budget, help?

[thelostriots]

Hey, pretty new to this sort of thing, been doing some research but still not too sure about a few things. Figured a sensible thing to do would be to make a post here and see what ideas people have!

So yeah, I want a gaming rig (would like to do some image and music work too) £1000 (ish) budget...let's see some suggested builds please?

Probably won't be using a 64bit OS so 3-4gb ram

Oh and I live in the UK so if you could link the suggested hardware from Misco.co.uk or Novatech that'd be really helpful, thank you.

Almost forgot to mention, I do need a monitor. And a new keyboard + mouse would be nice if the budget allows, can just use my current ones though so not essential.

Also, not sure whether to get a sound card or not? Will I really notice much difference?

 

[Muffin Man]

welcome. with your budget, you should go with an i7 build because its the best performance you can get for your money. that said, if the budget allows, you should also go for 6gigs (3x2gb) of ram which will be plenty for for needs. due to that, i have included vista 64-bit with a free upgrade to windows 7, so you can utilize all the ram, but even if you were to get less than 4gigs, you should still get 64-bit because it is becoming more common, plus its the same price as 32-bit, so might as well upgrade now.

heres a build to get you started. atm, this build comes out to £972, but you can change some things if youd like ofcourse.

BX80601920 - Intel i7 920, D0 SLBEJ S1366, Nehalem, 2.66 GHz, QPI 4.8GT/s, 8MB Cache, 20x Ratio, 130W, Retail - Scan.co.uk

Biostar TPOWER X58A, Intel X58, S1366, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2000(OC)/1333, SATA 3Gb/s / RAID, ATX - Scan.co.uk

TR3X6G1600C9 - 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600MHz), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24 - Scan.co.uk

500 GB Western Digital WD5001AALS Caviar Black, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms - Scan.co.uk

CMPSU-750TXUK - 750W TX Corsair PSU, single 12V rail, quiet & cool 80%+ Eff - Scan.co.uk

Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±R, 12x DVD±R, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, OEM - Scan.co.uk

HD-489A-ZDFL - 1GB XFX HD 4890, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 3900MHz GDDR5, GPU 850MHz, 800 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDTV, HDCP Ready - Scan.co.uk

66I-03525 - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit English 1pk OEM + Windows 7 Offer Form - Scan.co.uk

RC-690 / CM 690 - Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator Black Midi Tower Case with Mesh Top Panel w/o PSU - Scan.co.uk

ET.DV3HE.A01 - 20" Acer V203HAb Black, Widescreen TFT Monitor 1600x900 300cd/m2 10000:1 (dynamic) 5ms - Scan.co.uk

if this is more than youd like, some things you could change to reduce the cost would be, if you really dont want 6gigs, you can go for 3gigs instead, go with a less powerful graphics card, maybe a smaller hdd.

 

[Yami]

Muffin Man's build looks good. Couldn't do much better myself without going into the Today Only deals.