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Aside from fixing a few links to accommodate 1155 motherboards being sold again, this is up to date and last had a major change on 2/13/11. We'll have to see how the 590/6990 performs on a larger scale and price/performance wise, so I haven't really considered adding them yet. I don't know why but the costs of a lot of components has went up 5 or 10 dollars since I made those builds for some reason, so unfortunately the builds will be on the higher-end of the budget range. (e.g. 500-600 build close to 600, 600-700 build close to 700 etc) It wasn't always like this. Next time a new series of cards or processors (probably Bulldozer) comes out I'll revamp it again. Remember that prices do fluctuate, and when some of the SB mobos were fixed their price went up.

Last updated: 3/11/11

$300-400

$400-500

$500-600

$600-700

$700-800

The following boards utilize 1155 mobos, and since their 3gbps problem has been fixed, many of them have raised in price so the real price of these builds could be slightly higher (and even go into the next price range) in price. Again, I won't bother to fix these until something is released that requires me to rewrite the entire guide.

$800-900

$900-$1000

$1000-1100

Low-end "Dream Machine"

Med-end "Dream Machine"

High-end "Dream Machine"

I don't even know what I'm doing anymore "Dream Machine"

You can go ahead and change these builds to your liking, but there are a few things to take into consideration when buying components.

Do NOT buy an AMD CPU on a high end machine ($800+), Intel processors perform much better when you get into high-end CPUs. Always remember that GHz/Cores are not the only determining factors in CPU performance.
Avoid Seagate HDDs, most importantly the Barracuda series.
Do NOT buy a shiny/fancy case, they often cost more and have worse airflow/perform worse than a case that is "duller" and cheaper.
Do NOT buy a cheap Chinese brand of PSU. If it's not Antec/OCZ/Corsair/XFX/Seasonic, then try to stay away from it. There are other nice brands but these are generally guaranteed to be of good quality.
Do NOT buy (PSUs aside) according to a brand. No matter how much you like x brand, if y brand is better then buy y brand.
Do NOT buy an SSD unless you have a very high budget, and never sacrifice other components to buy one.
Do NOT pair different types of ram with eachother/buy triple-channel ram for a dual-channel motherboard. If you buy 2GB of G.Skill ram and want 4GB, buy the same kind of ram.

Why no AMD?! D:

Cool guide, but you have a lot of prices wrong and it could be organized a lot better. You can have the component names/descriptions be a link so we don't have to see both.
I like the dream machine section :p

I have a few AMD cards in my low-budget builds and some AMD CPUs in my med/low-budget builds.

The primary reason I didn't include them is that their cards plain out don't perform as well as nVidia cards, however they are very power/heat-efficient, so if that's something of large concern then they are no doubt something to consider. I mainly built this list off of sheer performance in most cases, and nVidia wins there. If you want to save some money on energy (it may come out cheaper in the end if you pay for your own electricity) then the 6970 is a great alternative to the 570.

AMD CPUs just are plain out not good for high-end builds. High-end AMD CPUs utilize 6 cores, and since games only use 2-4 cores, some of the CPU power would be lost, and Intel CPUs generally perform better per core.

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(03-11-2011, 02:15 PM)Nemmyy Wrote: [ -> ]Cool guide, but you have a lot of prices wrong and it could be organized a lot better. You can have the component names/descriptions be a link so we don't have to see both.
I like the dream machine section :p

I made it on 2/13/11 off of Newegg's USD prices. I'll have to go through and check if anything has had a price drop/increase since then.

(03-11-2011, 02:15 PM)getsomepie Wrote: [ -> ]I made it on 2/13/11 off of Newegg's USD prices. I'll have to go through and check if anything has had a price drop/increase since then.

I meant things were way off, like in the Dream Machine section. You said this costs like $15,000 lol

(03-11-2011, 02:21 PM)Nemmyy Wrote: [ -> ]I meant things were way off, like in the Dream Machine section. You said this costs like $15,000 lol

Notice the "2x", "3x", 4x" etc. *after the name. I meant that you should buy multiple of that item. I also did notice the some Cards/PSUs have dropped +-5-15 since then so I'm fixing that now.

(03-11-2011, 02:22 PM)getsomepie Wrote: [ -> ]Notice the "2x", "3x", 4x" etc. before the name. I meant that you should buy multiple of that item.

Ah, my bad. I skimmed to fast to notice that...That would be an epic build.

Updated all of the prices anyway. I don't know why but the costs of a lot of components has went up 5 or 10 dollars since I made those builds for some reason, so unfortunately the builds will be on the higher-end of the budget range. (e.g. 500-600 build close to 600, 600-700 build close to 700 etc) It wasn't always like this, lol. Next time a new series of cards or processors (probably Bulldozer) comes out I'll revamp it again.

Thanks for the one star, lol.
Anyway I've updated the guide again, and unfortunately when the 1155 mobos were fixed, the manufactures decided to raise the price of them, so in reality some of the higher-end builds costs a little more than the actual price I have listed. Not that big of a deal so I won't really bother to update them until Bulldozer comes out.

Although you have some good parts here, I feel that this is not necessary nor effective.

If you are able to update this at least once a week, which is a difficult task to maintain, I believe that the prices of parts are continuously changing, which will vary the parts that should be bought at the time.

In opposition to this, if members post a thread requesting for parts, we are able to provide them with updated parts with low prices, rebates, etc.