New to building.. would love some professional help & advice

[mdow612]

Hi everyone! My name is Mike. I'm looking to build a custom gaming desktop. I'd like a custom built PC because I'm told I can supposedly get away with buying a machine that can easily play the latest and greatest games for like half the money compared to a computer bought off of alienware and such..

I'm pretty tech savvy but I've never had the opportunity to build a pc which is why I figured I'd ask for help from people who know how to start from scratch.

It's been my dream to have a PC like the one I'm hoping/trying to build but I'm not sure about the technical pieces I'll need. I would like to stuff it full of parts that won't be outdated for a while.

I was hoping to spend about 800$ which I hope is a good price range to be able to do this but I would like other opinions if that range isn't good enough.

I've replaced parts such as RAM, hard drives, power supplies, graphics cards and fans so I'm about 80% sure I'd be able to piece it together once I have all the parts although if it can be pre-assembled, that would be ok too.

I have a few specifications I'd like to see if possible and would like some options and opinions on such..
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RAM - as much as I can get.

Internal Hard Drive - as much space as I can get... Maybe a second backup internal hard drive with at least 1tb of space.

I would like a CD/DVD reader/burner that can also play Blu-Ray.

Since I'm planning on using it for heavy gaming, I would like the best graphics card I can get that will DEFINITELY play the latest and greatest on highest quality settings. HDMI support.

I would like plenty of usb ports.

I was hoping to have a wireless card or something to be able to pick up Wi-Fi.

A processor that can handle a lot of processing power.

A good sound card capable of regular and surround sound.

A basic but cool looking case to hold it all.

I like Windows 7 but I guess I'm willing to upgrade to the latest version of Windows.
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I want to thank anyone and everyone for taking the time to read this over and help me out. Sorry for this being so long and elaborate.. it's just very important to me!

 

[PP Mguire]

Your wants are pretty vague, and with what you describe you won't get what you want with your budget.

I'll start with the graphics card. "Play the latest and greatest on highest quality settings". What resolution monitor do you have? What FPS are you expecting? If you want that for at or close to 60fps @ 1080p you'll need to spend 600 of your budget on graphics alone

You're going to need to make some compromises somewhere anyways. Do you need Bluray playback? Requires extra paid for software to playback Bluray on your PC.

Basically with an 800 dollar budget you're looking at an i5 4460 rig with 8GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD, a cheap basic case, and a GTX 970. I recently built the same basic setup for a friend with an SSD for about 1100. The machine is a beast.

 

[mdow612]

Thank you for your help! Yes I was planning on playing on a 60fps @1080p monitor. Is that gtx 970 the newest card out? Is that how much they cost (600$)?
I would like it to play Blu ray yes.. I can get the software for it that's no problem.
Thank you for your recommendation!

 

[PP Mguire]

The GTX 980 is the fastest and it's 600 bucks. I had one, and recently went to two. One at 1080p can and will max most all games at or further than 60fps but still struggles on some games. When I say max, I mean anti-aliasing and all the bells and whistles certain games provide as settings 'in game'. The GTX 970 is about half that cost at around 300 bucks. It's slightly less powerful but more than capable of doing what you want but will struggle mildly here and there. Still, that's almost half your budget in graphics.

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about here's a list of parts almost 100 bucks over budget.

Intel Core i5-4460 Haswell Quad-Core 3.2GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600 BX80646I54460 - Newegg.com
ASUS H81M-D PLUS LGA 1150 Intel H81 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL - Newegg.com
MSI GTX 970 4GD5T OC GeForce GTX 970 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card - Newegg.com
SeaSonic M12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com
NZXT Source 210 S210-001 Black SECC Steel, ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com
Pioneer Model BDC-207DBK Black Internal Blu-ray Combo DVD & CD Drive - Newegg.com

839

That is also without an OS.

The CPU, RAM, PSU and GPU are all quite capable and I have a similar setup built in my room waiting for it's new owner. But, it's over budget, without an SSD, with a cheap case, and without OS.

 

[mdow612]

Thanks for your help pp I'll check those posts when I get home and go from there. Also I'd still like to hear if what anyone else thinks too! multiple opinions are welcomed!

 

[XGC Forsakend]

Also I'd still like to hear if what anyone else thinks too! multiple opinions are welcomed!

yea, but he is the 'Build Guru'. Kind of hard to out-guru him

Building custom PC's has a great advantage of having quality parts and knowing what goes in it. There also isn't a surcharge or mark-up when buying from Alienware for example, but the more flexible your budget, the better.

 

[mdow612]

Cool! Ok thank you guys! I'm gonna use your suggestions and go from there!