I'm planning on saving for a new computer.

[BadKarma]

I'm going to try to put around 200 bucks a month away for a new desktop, but at the same time, I am a college student who works a minimum wage job.

I need recommendations on places/computers to look for that will be able to play the games that come out today at good/high settings and the games that will come out in the future at least decently well, games like Guild Wars and such.

I am not keen on building my own machine as I'd have no fucking idea what or where to begin.

Need some tips or recommendations plox.

Also if anyone says alienware ill cut you, I spent 2 grand on this piece of shit laptop I have now and I want to chuck it out the window with the quickness.

[Zeb]

Build your own, seriously. If you're going to be saving up 200 at a time, you can buy parts when they go on sale at Newegg. It's not hard to put a PC together. Just read the manual that comes with the motherboard. If you need clarification, you can google/youtube for easy how-tos, if that doesn't work

use these:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/103...-Review-Thread
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/102...on-Thread-Tech

[Kerberoz]

Working minimum wage + WANTING to get ripped off = huh?

[SephYuyX]

newegg.com and build

Im actually looking in to building soon myself, but I cant decide it I want to wait till this summer for price drops, or for Ivy Bridge.

[Olo401]

Fear not the DIY project!! Building your own computer may be a little bit tougher the first time around, but it's still pretty damn easy and can be lots of fun.

[Artemicon]

I would advise against buying parts here and there and "piecing" a computer together as the integrity of some components may require a return or warranty and if your warranty or return date is up then you're stuck with a bad part and no way to return/warranty it.

[Jaregue]

Yea, just save up the money and order all the parts at once, by the time you're ready or order, prices on a few things may be cheaper, and some new hardware will be out.
Building your own is super easy too, and the reward is much better knowing you build it yourself.

[Khamsin]

I've built computers before, and I'm still not completely comfortable with it since every time I get around to building a new one, things are quite a bit different than they were before. Last time I built one, dual core was the hot new thing and 2GB was plenty of RAM. Now there's like 16-core, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD, x128 processors... or there will be by the time I build another one. Can I even use a fan to cool things anymore?

[Cheerios]

Since you just missed the boat on Memorial Day sales, if it's not too much of an issue, you can wait until 4th of July sales to come around. I can't dig up links atm, but I can give a quick reference for current prices:

Video Card: Nvidia GTX 460 has been on sale for about $110-120 (can run many games 1900x1200 at high settings reliably).
Processor + Motherboard: Intel 2500k + Socket 1155 motherboard combo has run about $250-300. Some combo deals come with software/game bundles that you can use, or sell to recoup some money.
Memory: 4gb DDR3 RAM for ~ $40
Power Supply: 750w PSU ~$80-100 (500-600w for non-SLI or Crossfire would be fine, and that'd be ~40-$60).
Case: ~$40 when on sale. Some cases come with power supplies, so if you find a case that has a proper PSU, you can save a little bit here.


Mid range PC for about $450-$500 that can play all of the current games very well, assuming you're using 1 monitor. You can overclock the video card and processor pretty easily on stock cooling as well.

-It'd be a little cheaper to build if you get an AMD processor and video card, but it's up to you. Microcenter has a Free motherboard with the purchase of an AMD processor deal going on.

*If you're gonna SLI/Crossfire, avoid a MicroATX board that has SATA ports in the way of giant video cards.

**I left out a few things that you probably have already, such as a Hard Drive (and Operating System), Optical Drive, mouse, keyboard, monitor. If you don't have that shit, then you had better put in some overtime.

tl;dr: build one

[Cephius]

I've built computers before, and I'm still not completely comfortable with it since every time I get around to building a new one, things are quite a bit different than they were before. Last time I built one, dual core was the hot new thing and 2GB was plenty of RAM. Now there's like 16-core, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD, x128 processors... or there will be by the time I build another one. Can I even use a fan to cool things anymore?

Technology changes but the process behind building them doesn't. Start with motherboard. Find compatible processor and memory. Add video cards, hard drives, cooler. Find PSU that outputs enough juice to support all of it. Buy case, play legos

[Cyn]

I've built computers before, and I'm still not completely comfortable with it since every time I get around to building a new one, things are quite a bit different than they were before. Last time I built one, dual core was the hot new thing and 2GB was plenty of RAM. Now there's like 16-core, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD, x128 processors... or there will be by the time I build another one. Can I even use a fan to cool things anymore?

The sockets haven't changed much in the past few years. And the stuff you're listed won't be needed in gaming rigs for quite some time. A good video card, 8 gigs of RAM and a decent (3GHz or so) quad core CPU will run any game out or coming out soon on high settings.

My rig is a i7 870 with 16GB of RAM and a 470GTX, and honestly no game can come close to using even half of my memory or CPU capabilities. Gaming rigs these days are basically a big ass video card (or two) and whatever else you need in the box to support it.

[Khamsin]

Technology changes but the process behind building them doesn't. Start with motherboard. Find compatible processor and memory. Add video cards, hard drives, cooler. Find PSU that outputs enough juice to support all of it. Buy case, play legos

Well, that doesn't bother me, just the paranoid feeling in the back of my mind that something has changed just because there's more cores or more RAM slots than there used to be, or whether or not this stuff needs better cooling than in the past, or if thermal grease and heatsink/fans on the CPU are installed differently than they used to be, etc. It's more about being scared that I'm missing something new that I didn't have to worry about before, than being able to put together a compatible and working machine.

[Cyn]

Nope, all fundamentally the same. You should really only need a serious cooling solution if you're OCing your CPU though.

[SamanosukeShiva]

im speaking from experience, dont use stock cooler for your processor, get a semi decent one.