So this is basically my first venture with building my own PC, and its main use will be for gaming. I know I will need the following:

Case
CD and CD burner drives
USB ports
Sound Card
Video Card
RAM (like 2 GB)
Processor (like 4 GHz)
Hard Disk Space (80 or 120 GB should be sufficient)
Monitor
Speakers

Am I missing anything? Also, what specs for some of these items aside from RAM, processor speed, and hard disk space would you recommend? Any particularly good brands to look out for?

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Originally posted by Psionic So this is basically my first venture with building my own PC, and its main use will be for gaming. I know I will need the following: Case CD and CD burner drives USB ports Sound Card Video Card RAM (like 2 GB) Processor (like 4 GHz) Hard Disk Space (80 or 120 GB should be sufficient) Monitor Speakers Am I missing anything? Also, what specs for some of these items aside from RAM, processor speed, and hard disk space would you recommend? Any particularly good brands to look out for?

Your missing a Power Supply and the Memory. Depending on how much your willing to spend, I would go with the motherboards with the Nvidia chipsets that supports SLI, That way you can hook up two of the same exact graphics card to play games in the HD quality resolutions. Im in the process of building a new PC myself, But its gonna take weeks. So far I got the case, The motherboard and the Power Supply, But I did a ton of research on the parts before buying them. I plan on building a PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and the motherboard using an Nvidia chipset that supports SLI. I bought the Power Supply today after doing a whole lot of research regarding the kind of Power Supplies that support a Quad SLI configuration. If you are seriously about building a full blown gaming system like I am, You should go to this link. It will give you a listing of all the hardware you need to built yourself a gaming PC using Nvidia Graphics cards with SLI or Quad SLI.

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Last edited by TigerClaw on Oct-16-2006 at 00:21

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Originally posted by Psionic So this is basically my first venture with building my own PC, and its main use will be for gaming. I know I will need the following: Case

Remember that the case has to fit the motherboards screw holes. PC techs measure case size by ATX. I don't know what that ATX means, but I know they come in mini, mid, and full ATX cases. Make sure the
ATX size from the motherboard is the same for the case.

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CD and CD burner drives

I'd go with a DVD-RW and a DVD-ROM. Iomega makes some good burners.

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USB ports

Make sure you have at least 4. If you're big on gadgets this is a must.

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Sound Card

If you need it for playback (listening) purposes only then make sure you get a motherboard with integrated surround sound with support for THX (<---that's optional). If you're a producer then you will need a professional sound card with support for ASIO drivers. Search the producers forum.

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Video Card

Since you're big on games I wouldn't rely on the integrated graphics chipset built in to the motherboard. Listen to Tigerclaw.

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RAM (like 2 GB)

DDR, non-ecc, and low latency. DDR2 lags. The latency specs usually look like this: 2-2-2-3
The lower the numbers the better. This type of low latency memory is rare but well worth it. Again make sure is compatible with mobo, 186-pin i think.

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Processor (like 4 GHz)

The speed is more than enough and AMD is known for gamers so go with that brand of cpu. Don't know which model though. I'm an Intel loyalist!

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Hard Disk Space (80 or 120 GB should be sufficient)

Maxtor or Seagate make quality hard drives. Stay away from Western Digital. They are notorious for bad hard drives. Remember there are two types of consumer hard drives out there: IEDE and SATA. Go with the SATA type hard drives. They are faster and have different connectors without all the pin configuration stuff like in the IEDE. You just plug the power and data cable. That's it! No pins to configure like in the IEDE style drives. Make sure your mobo supports SATA drives.

If you're buying two drives as a recommendation I always connect the primary master with the smaller size GB and the secondary slave with the bigger size GB. I never put the better and larger hard drive i'm going to abuse as the primary master.

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Monitor

Go with the Viewsonic brand, hands down they make the best LCD screens. I've read lots of positive reviews. Look out for the refresh rates usually in milliseconds or ms for short. Since you're a gamer this is very important. The lower the ms the better.

There has been some debate about a game's frames per second speed on a flat screen versus a bulky monitor. I'm not sure.

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Speakers

Not my department.

Last edited by stevieboy32808 on Oct-16-2006 at 14:57

Haha wow thanks for the advice. However if I'm building this computer for gaming purposes, would I still want AMD even if the new Intel duo cores are supposedly really good? I wish there was a gamer here who has tried both who could comment, hehe.

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Originally posted by Psionic Haha wow thanks for the advice. However if I'm building this computer for gaming purposes, would I still want AMD even if the new Intel duo cores are supposedly really good? I wish there was a gamer here who has tried both who could comment, hehe.

the intel chips are the way to go. dont rely on what gamers tell you, 99% of them wouldnt know shit. check sites like anandtech.com. if theyre saying theres little point in purchasing an AMD at the moment (they are) then id go with the new intels.

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Originally posted by Psionic Haha wow thanks for the advice. However if I'm building this computer for gaming purposes, would I still want AMD even if the new Intel duo cores are supposedly really good? I wish there was a gamer here who has tried both who could comment, hehe.

I know fr0st has a conroe(intel) and has ran an X2, he recommends going the intel route and as the market looks right now, intel is dominating. Although AMD is dropping, it recently acquired ATI so you might want to look deep into AMD's future. Seems like they are tackling the gamers mind.

outside of your devices you listed, the core components which should be par or higher should be your MOBO(PCI-Express), Ram low latency cas a GB or more, HDs space I recommend (if money isn't an issue) 2xSATA for OS and applications, and a really large IDE one for data. Next would be a good PSU (thermaltake should suffice). Then the video card mania, some stay loyal to ATI others to Nvidia geforces...I have both, I'd say go with a Geforce. Audio you can go with M-Audio or Sound Blaster's anything above an audigy.

next - cooling cooling cooling....make sure everything is cooled properly. you can have thousands worth of high-end equipment, but if you don't have a good case and cooling properly, you lose optimization. Stick to Zalman for CPU and Video Card cooling.

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I also highly recommend an external Hard Drive, Be sure to get the one with USB 2.0 if your current system supports it. Its backwards compatible with 1.0, But it would just take longer to transfer huge files with 1.0 when its faster with 2.0. USB 1.0 is 12Mbps and USB 2.0 is 480Mbps.

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Whats the go with these new gizmos they call 'Physics cards', are they some kind of secondary graphics processor which works with the video card processor or the CPU(s)?

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Originally posted by Lilith Whats the go with these new gizmos they call 'Physics cards', are they some kind of secondary graphics processor which works with the video card processor or the CPU(s)?

The Physic card is an add-on card that connects to a PCI slot. It basically handles all the Physics so that the graphics card doesnt have to do all the work. Using this card will benefit on many of games that support it cause it will handle a lot more physics then what the graphics card could handle, For a list of current and upcomming games that support the Physics card, Click right here. On the page you will be able to watch some videos that shows you how good these physics card are.

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altec lansing or logitech speakers.

I prefer altec 5.1 there so rock solid I have dj with them. The bass is so crazy and the sound quality is insane. There like having a $300 studio monitor. That and I have been using them for 2 years cranked and no problems.

Razer mouse FTW.

They also make a killer instinct network card or some bs it is suppose to reduce ping on cable and fps is suppose to increse.

Are games finally working on duo core? I thought they wern't optimized yet.

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Originally posted by Ozoned12 altec lansing or logitech speakers. I prefer altec 5.1 there so rock solid I have dj with them. The bass is so crazy and the sound quality is insane. There like having a $300 studio monitor. That and I have been using them for 2 years cranked and no problems. Razer mouse FTW. They also make a killer instinct network card or some bs it is suppose to reduce ping on cable and fps is suppose to increse. Are games finally working on duo core? I thought they wern't optimized yet.

All of the current motherboards out there have built in ethernet ports. There's no need to buy a network card unless you want to connect your PC to a wireless network, Then you need to buy a wireless ethernet adaptor.

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