10-11-2009, 12:24 AM
$2000 USD is a nice budget wished I had that much when I was building my PC. Your main reason is to be able to handle graphic designing and gaming etc. With a budget like that you can really mess around with a lot of computer hardware and like what other people have stated BUILD IT! buying pre built computers come with outdated components that are over priced when you can buy something better for the same price. What it really comes down to is preference and meeting your standards.
Newegg.com is going to be your primary source for just about any computer building and offers great rebates on many products.
Motherboards - I'm just going to give you a rundown on some well known brands like EVGA, ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI.
These four brands IMO are very reliable brands for motherboards that offers great customer support. I personally have a ASUS M4A78T-E Mobo AM2/AM2+/AM3 socket with the ability to enable crossfire technology and compatible DDR3 ram up to speeds of 1600 mhz. I'm not saying you should get this MOBO but for the price I got it at it was well worth it. You might want to invest in X58 Mobos that supports i7 processors if you are looking for a high end build and even though I love AMD and how it can run with the leagues of the i7, Intel wins the CPU battle.
CPU/Processor - Definitely what you want is a quad core both AMD Phenom II X4 965 and Intel i7/i5 processors would be a good choice for your build. Keep in mind that you need an AMD socket to run AMD chips and Intel sockets to run Intel and so on.
GPU/Graphics Card - Theres a lot of good video cards out in the market today and I own a Nvidia Gtx 275 which hasn't failed me yet. But you might want to go and get the new ATI Radeon 5870 1gb video card which is future proof for DX11 games. As of now there isn't any DX11 games but one and I forgot the name haha.
Ram - DDR3 of course. There are many brands like corsair, kingston, mushkin and G.skill. Make sure to get what your mobo can handle
Power Supply - Corsair! just because I'm being biased lol get a 750-1000 watt PSU with 60amps
Computer Case - Mid to full tower sizes with good airflow to keep components at low temps. Brands like Antec, NZXT are good examples.
Other essentials - Hard drive as you already know. Might want to consider anything above 500gb to future proof yourself for upcoming games.
Thermal Paste/compound Arctic Silver 5 - essential for cpus,gpus to transfer heat to the heatsink.
Newegg.com is going to be your primary source for just about any computer building and offers great rebates on many products.
Motherboards - I'm just going to give you a rundown on some well known brands like EVGA, ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI.
These four brands IMO are very reliable brands for motherboards that offers great customer support. I personally have a ASUS M4A78T-E Mobo AM2/AM2+/AM3 socket with the ability to enable crossfire technology and compatible DDR3 ram up to speeds of 1600 mhz. I'm not saying you should get this MOBO but for the price I got it at it was well worth it. You might want to invest in X58 Mobos that supports i7 processors if you are looking for a high end build and even though I love AMD and how it can run with the leagues of the i7, Intel wins the CPU battle.
CPU/Processor - Definitely what you want is a quad core both AMD Phenom II X4 965 and Intel i7/i5 processors would be a good choice for your build. Keep in mind that you need an AMD socket to run AMD chips and Intel sockets to run Intel and so on.
GPU/Graphics Card - Theres a lot of good video cards out in the market today and I own a Nvidia Gtx 275 which hasn't failed me yet. But you might want to go and get the new ATI Radeon 5870 1gb video card which is future proof for DX11 games. As of now there isn't any DX11 games but one and I forgot the name haha.
Ram - DDR3 of course. There are many brands like corsair, kingston, mushkin and G.skill. Make sure to get what your mobo can handle
Power Supply - Corsair! just because I'm being biased lol get a 750-1000 watt PSU with 60amps
Computer Case - Mid to full tower sizes with good airflow to keep components at low temps. Brands like Antec, NZXT are good examples.
Other essentials - Hard drive as you already know. Might want to consider anything above 500gb to future proof yourself for upcoming games.
Thermal Paste/compound Arctic Silver 5 - essential for cpus,gpus to transfer heat to the heatsink.