[quote name='SarBear']Hey,
In about two weeks or so I'll be purchasing the majority of the components for a new PC. I don't buy them very often (the last one I bought was in 2001), but I need to future proof this thing as much as possible. I really haven't the slightest clue about what motherboard matches with what processor and the whole nine yards, but a friend of mine (masters in computer science) will be putting it together once I get it all. He just doesn't have the time to sit down and guide my purchases like you fine people.
I definitely want to keep everything between 900 and 1100 dollars. Monitor's not necessary (I have a 30inch lcd for my pc already) and neither is a keyboard/mouse. What's the deal on the quad cores? Would that be my best bet?
I'll mainly be using it for internet browsing, light gaming, and heavy accounting programs. Hard drive needs to be at least 400GB, 3GBs of RAM, and (obviously) be a 64 bit processor....'cause I probably won't be doing this again for a while. Well, at least 2.5 years.
Any insight? Many thanks and much appreciation for even reading.[/quote]
First: This is a long post, but entirely helpful to you. Read it all, trust me.
Pick a goal and try to base any decisions you make on that goal. If you do light gaming, there's no reason to have a $400 video-card. High end isn't the only end.
Quad-core = Honestly not worth it. There's maybe 5% of programs you'll use in the lifetime of this PC that will take advantage of it. Photoshop CS 9.0 I believe takes advantage of it and rendering programs like 3d Studio Max. For your basic day to day errands, a regular Dual-core processor is more dollar efficient, runs cooler and you can get better performance for the dollar.
Newegg = Not the only shop out there.
http://www.resellerratings.com/ < Your best friend, shake his hand and know him well. The trick is:
http://froogle.google.com/
Find a part you want on Newegg, copy and paste the model on Froogle and find the best price. When you find a good price from a non store-front site, you check the seller's reputation on "Reseller Ratings". If they have a 7.0 lifetime/6 Month and recent ratings, they're good.
Motherboard - Don't skimp on this.
Power Supply - Don't skimp on this either.
Do you plan on using Vista/Direct X 10 games?
Games like Halo 2 and Gears of War on PC are usually Vista only, and Gears of War might benefit from DX10 hadware, but if you're only going to lightgame, having a Direct X10 high end card isn't necessary. If you plan on using Vista, make sure your hardware is Vista compliant and make sure it's a little more powerful.
Do you plan on over-clocking?
If not, and since you're a casual user, I don't think you need "over-clocking" components. Things like enthusiast boards and performance heatsinks aren't as beneficial to you as getting simply more reliable components or components with longer warranties.
Here's a list of components I think you should consider, and their models and general price ranges:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098
G.Skill NQ 2x1gb DDR2 - 800 Kit $74.99 + Free Shipping
-Get two of these totaling 4gb. The reason I recommend 4x1gb instead of 2x2gb is because, unless you over-clock or rely on timings, you won't notice a performance difference. And in the EXTREMELY rare circumstance that a stick fails, you'll only be out 1 gb while you wait for replacement, where-as with a 2gb stick you'd be losing 2gb while you wait. 3GB isn't a good configuration because for dual channel it would require 6x512 or 2x1gb + 1 extra GB stick. YOu want to use dual channel for your memory.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136076
Western Digital 400gb SATA 16mb cache $94.99 + Free Shipping
-Performance enthusiasts use Seagate, but I 100% use Western Digital drives for my customers' rigs. The reason for that is because I have never had a WD drive fail on me, ever. In 10 years of directly working with PC's, I've not seen one WD drive fail. They're also fast and quiet. Perpendicular recording drives aren't fully implemented so I tend to stay away from Barracuda.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115030
Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHZ 4mb L2 Cache + Free Shipping $175.99
-Best price for performance ratio. The price of an E6400/6300 but has the 4mb L2 Cache along with the clock speed of 2.33GHZ. Almost as fast as the E6600 but nearly $60 cheaper with free shipping. If you don't plan on over-clocking, this will last the longest for you, time-wise. Easily last you 3 years or longer.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
Gigabyte P35 DS3L $99.99 + $5.84 Shipping
-Very solid motherboard, uses a new northbridge chip, has 4x ddr2 slots, the PCI-E slot for video-cards, great company. Very reliable board and easy to set up for a new builder.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189005
Xclio Goodpower 500 $49.99 + $7.84 Shipping
-For $50, you will NOT find a better power supply and for someone who isn't over-clocking, doing light gaming, this is a 100% stable power supply. It might even be considered over-power. I used this in an over-clocked Core 2 Duo rig with an 8800GTS 640mb and never had any issues.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130084
EVGA 8600GTS 256mb GDDR3 HDCP Enabled $159.99 + $5.84 Shipping
-There's no reason to get fancier than this. Direct X10 support, about as powerful as a 1950 Pro/7900GT. A very solid card for $160. If you want to go cheaper on the video card, you can get by with a 7600GT or 8600GT.
That's the main components, as far as the rig's heart goes.
I won't go as far as picking a good case for you, because those are honestly taster's choice and you have to pick what you like, but I will let you know what brands to aim for and which to avoid:
Antec
Thermaltake
Cooler Master
Lian-Li
Those are the big names, as in most reliable, best price/performance value, most respected case names.
Rosewill (Cheap $20 ones)
Raidmax
Aspire
Anything with cheap plastic, neon lights or alien faces
Those are the ones you want to avoid.
Also, don't buy a case at Newegg. The shipping is atrocious. Good case venders:
http://www.techonweb.com/ (Despite having a really cheap looking website, this site has over 1800 positive Pricegrabber feedback. I've ordered 3 cases all near $100 cost and never had problems from these guys)
http://www.thenerds.net/
http://www.clubit.com/
http://www.xoxide.com/
http://www.svc.com/
Every seller I link to or recommend is 100% guaranteed to be a good seller. I've been building PC's for 10 years and doing hardware reviews and benchmarking for going on 6 years now. Going through a ton of resellers I can tell you who's good and who isn't.
Also, avoid:
buy.com
tigerdirect.com
ebay.com
Ebay isn't bad for some things, but for computer hardware it is because you never know if something you'll get is exactly as advertised and it often costs too much to ship back/have replaced so you end up being stuck with it.
Tiger Direct has very 50/50 follow through. The people that love them, defend them blindly. The people that have bad experiences with them, like me, hate them to the core.
Buy.com is notorious for sending wrong products, having sales that aren't honored, rebates that aren't honored and having atrocious return policies. They have a 7-14 day return policy that begins when a product is "shipped out" from their warehouse. So if it takes 10 days for something to get to you, you have 4 days to get it back to them before they won't accept it.