| Squilliam said: This is the system I would suggest: CPU: AMD Phenom II Quad Core 3.0Ghz $177 LINK Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA770T $96 LINK OCZ 2GB DDR3 1333Mhz *2 $124 LINK Sony DVDRW $31 LINK Antec P183 $196 LINK Antec Earthwatts 550W modular $116 LINK Western Digital 500GB $70 LINK HD 5850 $355 LINK Samsung 24" LED Monitor $455 LINK Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit $112 LINK Subtotal: $1732 Total W/Installing $1832 Plus shipping. How was that for nailing a budget? |
This is actually close to the build I went with except I took the Intel i5 route, plus the extra RAM and larger HDD.
The case is expensive but really nice and quiet, easy to work with, just top notch quality. I decided to go with the better case as I figure it's going to be the nucleus for future builds so it's worth getting something that's quality.
The monitor is sweet, LED so it's extremely sleek and slim, with excellent IQ, great colour and very fast, but on a negative the black levels still aren't as good as I had hoped (My expectations were probably a little high and they are still excellent for a comp monitor). I did heaps of reading on monitors and according to those in the know the XL2370 is pretty much the best thing in that price range but if I was going for a cheaper alternative I would go with this http://www1.ap.dell.com/au/en/home/monitors/monitor-dell-sp2309wfp/pd.aspx?refid=monitor-dell-sp2309wfp&cs=audhs1&s=dhs
The 5850 really is a beast and I've been able to run the vast majority of new games I've tried at 1920*1080 approaching or above 60fps with full details and it literally laughs at older games and console ports. If you weren't going to upgrade to a new monitor though I'm just not convinced all that power is going to be used.
If you dropped the monitor and the 5850 out of the build you then have heaps of room to play with in terms of software, additional RAM or HDD space and you would still come WELL under your $1800 budget.
edit: can provide pics if desired
