Building new computer, advice!

[Denchi]

So I'm looking to build a mid-range PC shortly here. My 3.5 year old macbook pro is crapping out. The video card is busted, the superdrive is shot, it's blah. So I went on newegg and priced out a system. I'm just looking to get the best bang for my buck, I don't need a top of the line, but I still wanna be able to play games. The total for this computer is about $690. I'd say $700 is my budget, anything cheaper is awesome.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 $139.99
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX $119.99
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 4770 512mb $114.99
RAM: 2x2gb Corsair DDR2 800 PC6400 $89.99
CD/DVD: LG DVD Burner $26.99
Case: Cooler Master somethin or other $49.99
Power Supply:CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W $89.99
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 500gb $54.99

I just looked at benchmarks and stuff to try and decide what to get and what to avoid, but I haven't been following all the computer hardware stuff for a while, so I just feel a little lost. Thanks for any help.

[fishstix]

Too bad you didn't build something around Black Friday deals :X Do you need the OS to be part of your budget? What you listed looks pretty decent overall, except maybe a few things. If you can spend more, I'd go for an i5 build instead though. I'd go for a Western Digital Cavier Black drive with a 32mb cache and a different video card. The 4770 is a little weak, more of a budget card.

Here's a cheaper AMD build I came up with for another guy

[Denchi]

ooo, I like that build a lot. I looked for some deals on black friday...from the comfort of my home. But the only thing I saw was the cheaper Q8300.

Thanks for the tips, I like the look of that system. OS doesn't need to be included.

I'm looking at cpubenchmark.net for speed comparisons, and everything you chose seems to be a little bit faster, but not a ton faster. Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong benchmarks? Also, how is AMD these days?

Either way, that stuff looks good, except the RAM and HDD are out of stock

Also, is a 500w power supply sufficient for stuff these days? I suppose you wouldn't recommend it if it weren't, but I just wanna make sure.

[fishstix]

Yyea, the ram and HDD were on sale @ newegg for black friday 500w is enough for a standard build. The prices seem to be on the rise though, like just before BF, there was an OCZ sale and had a 600w for $45ish. If you plan on going with dual video cards, SLI/crossfire, I'd go with around a 700w.

I guess that site is ok for a general comparison, but what I like to look at are real benchmark tests in different games. Between the higher end Core2Quads and the Phenom II x4s, I think the visual difference in performance would be minimal. I prefer AMD over Intel for budget builds mainly because it's what I know. Lately, the prices for some decent quality ASUS and Gigabyte boards have been dropping. I bought a Gigabyte MA790X-DS4 not too long ago for $60 to replace a really cheap board that I got when I didn't know better.

AMD vs Intel... it can bring a lot of fanboy debate lol. Personally, I bought the cpu I put in that build back in January and it worked out great for me. If I made a new build with the same money today, I'd get the Intel i5 though. Intel has the fastest chips on the market right now with the i5/i7. AMD released a new line of REALLY cheap budget Athlon IIs, but I wouldn't use those for gaming. I'm sure you can make a similar build with the Q8300, I just squeezed money from each other component to get a better video card.

[Denchi]

Yeah.... the i5 sure looks nice. But the cheapest/only one on newegg is $199.99, which is stretching my budget a bit too much. That AMD chip looks great, though. I'm not going for a top-of-the-line machine by any means... so that should work great.

I also noticed the mobo you picked was micro-atx lol, which is why it's so cheap! I switched a few things around and looked at stuff that was available minus black friday. See what you think now. The HDD really isn't a big deal to me I'm not a media snob... so I just looked for a smaller HDD with a large cache.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...umber=16711167

[fishstix]

ah, didn't notice that lol.

I'm not sure exactly how much of a difference it is, but the Green editions run at a lower performance than the Black ones. They are a little more expensive though. The build looks good though, should be able to max out settings

[Denchi]

Awesome. thanks a lot for your help