[Shapermc]

Ok, hey I hope no one minds or is sick of this yet, but I want to jump in. I'm bascially thinking of doing the same thing since I'm leaving my job in a week and will need a Desktop.

I haven't built a desktop since '99 so I know a lot of things have changed. Not including a monitor/keyboard/mouse I want to put together a PC for $600-700 that can run most games released through this year at very high speeds (not necessarily Maxed setting, but very high quality) at good frame rates (60fps for online, 30fps+ for single player). I also want to be able to fill at least the "minimum requirements" for most games (barring shit that comes out of left field that requires sick specs) for the next 2 years. I'm not talking future-proof, but I want to be able to dabble and stay relatively current, you know?

I don't want to mess around with overclocking because I have a bad history with it. I'm also not a memory hog for hdd, I could be very comfortable with 250gb, and honestly can't see a need for much more.

Any recomendations would be awesome, and I would really appreciat it. If you guys want I can split this off into another thread if you think it would be too confusing, but it seems like intern is done.

OH! One other thing: I want to be able to run everything released up through 2003 at like a million frames per second (i.e. rock fucking solid) at Max resolution (especailly shit from the HL1 engine and Quake 1-3 and shit). I know that's probably a given, but perhaps theirs certain graphics cards that don't do so well with older games. Also, I like ATI better since being burned a few times with Nvidia upgrading and ditching my card for the dust too quickly in the 90's.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

Ok, I think I have my system built. Here’s what I got so far, and let me know if I’m missing anything (dear god I hope not because I’m over what I wanted to spend anyways):

Case: Apevia X-QPack2-BL. 99$
MoBo: (open box) ASUS Micro ATX Intel Motherboard. $35
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz. $127
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GeForce 8800GT 512MB. $270
Memory: Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2x1GB) (PC2 6400). $50
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s. $65
Optical: SAMSUNG 20X DVDR Burner Black. $28

Total: $673.93
Shipping: $26.13
Final: $700.06

So, I’d like to save an extra $50~70 on the graphics card if they will really go down to $200, but that just seems like a shocking price point to me. Anyways, this is only _slightly_ higher than what I wanted to pay, and pretty awesome it would seem. Any recomendations on where I may have cut too many corners and should upgrade? I tried to balance price and quality (lowest price for acceptable quality).

Anyways, *most importantly*, like, all this shit will fit together and then be a fully working PC when I turn it on (and have the drivers and an OS and all that) right? That’s what it seems like to me, but I may have missed something.

EDIT: Oh shit! I got approved as a newegg.com preferred account and that no payments for 6 months ends TODAY. Damnit. I may have to PHONE some motherfuckers to make sure this is an OK deal.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

The 8800GT keeps selling out (and going up in price). I'm going to hold off until one comes in, but I check multiple times a day and even the over $300 are selling within hours. I'm starting to panic, but it helps that I can't even build this thing until the 18th anyways.

Anyways, why does Newegg keep droping everything out of my basket?
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

Ok, might as well update the thread with my final, final list sans videocard (because they don't exist and sell out w/in 5 min of me getting notified they're in stock):

Case: X-Qpack2-BL
MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-945GCMX-S2 LGA 775 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz
Memory: Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
HDD:
Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Optical: LG Electronics Black LG Super Multi 18x SATA DVD Burner
Compound: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM

I bumped up a few things because I figure it's better to do once what I have a decent probability of doing in the future. It totals out to $461.93 and when I add in the GFX card it's probably going to end up at about $750. It's a bit more than I wanted to spend initially, but at least I know i'm in for quality items that will all fit. I'm pretty happy with the package, now if I could just get the damn videocard.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

[Shapermc]

I... uh, didn't know I'd need to "change" this stuff. I figured it was a one application and you're done thing.

Also, anyone care to speculate on when the 8800GT will be in stock at newegg again? EVGA seems to be "back ordered" and... everyone else is pretty much trying to rob you (and they can't even keep their stock). If this were consoles I'd say it will take a month, but I don't know shit about PC parts and their average demand.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

Again, the reason I was waiting online was because of the credit line I opened at NewEgg. I put most of the 8800GT cards on my autonotify and just *happen* to look at my email right as the one I just bought came available! I got the PNY GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0. I'm happy overall and glad it's finally done and that it's all on the same line of credit. I don't have anything to pay until like June, and I'll have all the cash I need by January anyways.

So, next comes a monitor. I have something to hold me over until December or so, but after that I'll need something. I'm looking for something kind of large if I can, but I don't want to pay more than $250 (including shipping). I'm also very sensitive to color and contrast and refresh, and all that shit. I notice video quality problems that other people mostly overlook/ignore/don't notice. Any recommendations?

What I've seen so far is pretty much:

Acer AL2223Wd Black-Silver 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 800:1
It has the lowest contrast ratio and delay time I'm willing to go with, it's large and it offers a pretty high customer satisfaction rating.

SAMSUNG 906BW Black 19" 2 ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2000:1
This one is a bit smaller, and I'm pretty sure that 2000:1 is a dynamic contrast ratio, but it has an excellent response time and I've had lots of excellent customer support and quality products from Samsung. I'd like a bigger monitor, but it doesn't look like a possibility without shelling out quite a bit more.

BenQ FP94VW Silver-Black 19" 2ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen HDMI LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 800:1
This one is also a bit smaller, with an excellent response time, and I'm pretty sure a better contrast ratio. I've heard decent things about BenQ too.

Anyways, am I missing stuff, should I just make a small price bump and go with the larger monitor? Also is the screen resolution going to make that big a difference for this graphics card (outside of shit like Crysis)?
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

Can you give me more information on the "washed out" colors? I only ask because I have a 27" Westinghouse HDTV that I bought for my bedroom that I thought would be decent, but the colors being washed out are so bad that I kind of hate watching anything seriously on it. That could ruin the sale for me.

EDIT: The more I read about that Acer, the more I think I would fall into the catagory of the 3 egg and below users. That kind of stuff really irks me as I'm a mild videophile (not quite the level of thatbox, but probably more than many other people here).
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]