How should I start building my PC?

[Infamy79]

Soleron said:

Infamy79 said:
Go for a Core i7 machine, they absolutely fly

I'm running Vista 64 on it now and it's already lighting fast, going to put Windows 7 on it next week when I get my MSDN key for it

He said $500 or less. I pushed it to $650 since $500 would be like a quarter of the performance, but the chepest Core i7 system without skimping on the video card is $1200+. And realistically if you're going to spend $150 more on the CPU that money would be better spent on graphics for a gaming PC.

Source for typical builds: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/17102/6 and http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3610&p=7

Oh come off it, I built a Core i7 box 6 months ago for $1500 AUSTRALIAN where everything on the planet costs double. That was with 2 hard drives and a 9800GTX+ too. I could have cut that cost down plenty if I didn't skimp.

I just priced a Corei7 system on NewEgg for $765 which was a Gigabyte Motherboard, 2.6Ghz Core i7, 3 x 1GB DDR3 RAM, 9800GTX+, 400GB HDD, Case w/ 500w Power & DVD Burner. Could easily save more by going for a cheaper video card, single stick memory, smaller HDD.