Need Advice on Buying a Custom Built Gaming PC

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BarelyBen

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hey guys im new to this forum just looking for some suggestions for a gaming PC where to buy from and what to put in it

Ive been looking at

iBuypower
Alienware
Digital Storm
AVA Direct

Please rate from best to worst what company's to buy from and why

Im looking to Spend $2500-$3000

here is one I built on AVA how does this one look, anything i should get differently?

QTY UNIT PRICE TOTAL
+ CUSTOM GAMING PC, Core™ i7 SLI® / CrossFireX™ Gaming PC 1 $3104.08 $3104.08
# INTEL, Coreâ„¢ i7-920 Quad-Core 2.66GHz, LGA1366, 4.8 GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, 45nm, 130W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail

# VIGOR, Monsoonâ„¢ III LT CPU Cooling System, Socket 1366/775/771/939/754/AM2, Retail

# COOLER MASTER, ThermalFusion 400 Thermal Compound, Electrically Non-Conductive

# SERVICE, Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase

# GIGABYTE, GA-EX58-UD5, LGA1366, Intel® X58, 6400 MT/s QPI, DDR3-2000 24GB /6, PCIe x16 SLI CF /3, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 5 /10, HDA, GbLAN /2, FW /3, ATX, Retail

# CORSAIR, 6GB (3 x 2GB) Dominator XMP PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL9 (8-8-8-24) 1.65V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC

# EVGA, GeForce® GTX 295 CO-OP Superclocked 602MHz, 1792MB GDDR3 2052MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, Retail

# CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional, 7.1 channels, 24-bit 192KHz, PCIe x1

# CRUCIAL, 64GB M225 SSD, MLC, 250/150 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail

# WESTERN DIGITAL, 500GB WD Caviar® Black™ (WD5001AALS), SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache

# RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives

# SABRENT, CRW-UINB Black 65-in-1 Card Reader/Writer Drive, 3.5" Bay, Internal USB

# SONY, AD-7241S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ Lightscribe, SATA, OEM

# EVGA, Killer Xenoâ„¢ Pro Network Card, 400MHz NPU, 10/100/1000 Mbps, 128MB DDR2, PCIe x1, Retail

# COOLER MASTER, HAF 932 (RC-932-KKN1-GP) Black Tower Case, EATX, No PSU, Steel

# ACCESSORY, Universal Acoustic Foam

# CASE FAN, LED Fans Maximum Package, Red

# CUSTOM WIRING, Spiral Wrap Wire Management with Round Cables, Red

# LOGISYS, 12" Single Cold Cathode Case Light Kit, Red

# COOLER MASTER, Real Power Pro, 80 PLUS®, 1250W Power Supply, 24-pin ATX EPS12V, Triple SLI Ready

# MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition SP1, w/ Free Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon, OEM

# SERVICE, OEM System Recovery (secure HDD partition only)

# SERVICE, System Binder

# LOGITECH, FREE Deluxe 250, Black, USB, OEM

# CUSTOM GAMING PC, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)

# SERVICE, Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)
 
I'm sure the rest of the forum will back me up on this. Especially for high end builds, there is almost no reason why you shouldn't buy the parts separately and build this thing yourself.
 
Great build and way better than the one originally posted.

You could also save some cash by going with the corsiar 850tx if you do not need a modular psu.

I would recommend going with a ssd drive for OS and programs versus the velociraptor or dropping the velociraptor and running the os and programs on a WD 640 black until prices come down. IMO the velociraptor is not worth the cost.

You could also leave out the card reader if you do not need one and you could use onboard sound if sound quality is not absolutely critical to you.
 
Agreed.

Are you saying the Velociraptors not being worth it because of SSDs coming down in price? Or maybe he could just RAID 0 two WD Blacks.

I included the card reader and sound card to match what he picked up in his list. But yes, he would save some money by dropping those if unnecessary. Well the sound card especially, because most motherboards' built-in sound chipsets are pretty darn good.
 
Ah ok.

So I updated the list with a Corsair Extreme 64GB SSD. I was going to put up two WD 500GB Blacks, but the SSD was only $60+ more, and he has the budget for it.
 
hey thanks guys, im really looking for sound quality, I have a Sound Blaster Extreme Gamer PCI in my rig right now and i really like it, Do you think that the XENO Network card is really worth it? Im really looking to build a rig with no lag at all, future proffed. Is the 295 GTX worth the investment or should i go with 2 cards in SLI? with the 295 I can always add another when prices come down. Far as a custom build goes, i have thought about it alot, even checked prices but I really dont have much time to put it all together, and I dont know much about optimizing all the settings and such.

Thanks
-Benny
 
1 day of research and building can save, in your case, about 1 grand. Seems like a good trade off to me... And no network card is worth it except the integrated on a high end mobo, mostly because they don't do anything more than what the connection can handle anyways.
 
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