New PC (Reserved)

[nathmatt]

trying to find a decent cheap pc my budget's not very good only have a part time job i was looking at this 1 trying to figure out if it's a good pc for the price  here is the PC

[ForeverZer0]

Have you looked into building one?

You can usually get a pretty decent computer for much less than equivalent store-bought model.

[nathmatt]

yes i have thought about it but im not sure ow to build 1 how to make sure all parts are compatible and what parts i should buy

edit windows programs i have looked at are about $100

[SBR*]

yes i have thought about it but im not sure ow to build 1 how to make sure all parts are compatible and what parts i should buy

edit windows programs i have looked at are about $100

Some companies can give you advice about the parts and then build it for you.

[nathmatt]

if they build it will cost about the same or more

[SBR*]

if they build it will cost about the same or more

Depends on the store. I don't think it would be any more than 100 euros, though I might be wrong. You can always go to a shop and ask for specifics there.

[nathmatt]

never mind apparently there out of them

[Blizzard]

You can still put your own configuration together. It's really not that difficult. You just have to pay attention that your motherboard works with your CPU and RAM and that's it. HDD, GPU, audio, power supply, etc., all of that can be added without paying too much attention to the rest. Of course should should aim for a GPU in the same performance/price class as the CPU so the GPU doesn't become a bottle neck.

[Subsonic_Noise]

Well all of this is assuming that you're mainly gonna use it for gaming. Maybe that's redundant to ask in this forum, but will you?
I for example do audio work on my macbook, which means the graphics card is not really that important, and I have concidered updating to 16gb of ram before, would be pointless for gaming really.

[nathmatt]

some gaming but nothing hardcore buy most games for My PS3 just trying to find something to replace this one as everything is out of date

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+,  MMX,  3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Memory: 958MB RAM
Card name: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 Series

the thing is windows 7 system builder alone is $110 the case is about $100 that is $210 and haven't even added the components

[Blizzard]

Here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
You want to check out the mid-range benchmarks, the common card benchmarks and the best value benchmarks. Remember that the value chart is not a performance chart, but a chart for performance/price. I took a quick look at it and from what I can see, Radeon HD 6850 and GeForce GTX 480 are really worth your money for a slightly higher price.

As for a CPU, a quad-core at 3+ GHz was common 3 years ago and CPUs haven't improve much since then. You have the option between Intel's iX series or a cheaper (but weaker) AMD model. Again, remember that you will need an appropriate motherboard for the CPU as well. I also suggest you get a motherboard with DDR3 RAM support and get DDR3 RAM. DDR3 is probably now cheaper than RAM with older technologies. This PC should hold out for 3-5 years without problems.

EDIT: For comparison of specific cards: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php