Hey guys,

I know these topics are done to death but I am considering building a new PC and I'm looking for a little advice with regards to parts selection and so on.  I really know very little about this stuff these days as I haven't kept up with the whole PC scene in the last couple of years so please bear with me if I ask any stupid questions.

Firstly I live in Australia so I am more particularly looking for advice from people in Australia/New Zealand or anyone who is familiar with/has experience with retailers and prices here. 

Basically I want to build a PC but I don't need a monitor (have a 1680*1050 Dell) and I don't need a mouse or keyboard but I need pretty much everything else.  I want something that can play games but most importantly I want a fairly well balanced system that's going to serve me well for at least a few years.  My budget is 1500-2000 Australian dollars.

Any advice with regards to CPU, GPU, motherboard, OS, good retailers (online or in Australia) etc. would be much appreciated.  Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can provide.

the best website is http://www.gocomp.com.au/ well there pretty good anyway, dont worry about your ram or cpu too much, an intel copre i5 is completely enough, and u only really need dual channel ddr3 4gig ram for gaming, I have a centurion 5 case, its rock solid and very easy to use. i no nothing about mobos so cant help u there, as for graphics cards, i reckon crossfirex 5770's will give u the best of features+performance+price. Also make sure you get a good power supply of 550watts or a little bit more. good luck mate

Cheers Peterisyum, I'll check it out. I was wondering about the whole expensive single card versus cheaper dual cards thing.

On that website you linked, Intel prices are a little high by compared to similar AMD procs. AMD looks like a better option (5-10% more so than in the US).

Phenom II 945, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and an HD 5850. No need to go higher on the graphics card, and unless you do video encoding or 3D rendering no need to get a faster CPU.

It's much more preferable to buy a single card than two slower dual due to poor Crossfire scaling, the fact one card will use less power and produce less noise, and that framerates won't be as smooth due to microstuttering, and also because performance in very new or uncommon games is worse because Crossfire profiles in the driver won't be perfect. In this case I'd recommend against doing two 5750 vs. 5850 since the a 5850 is practically two 5750 anyway (accounting for CF scaling) and 20% more for lower temps/power/etc. would be worth it.

Thanks Soleron, reading up on the CPU and GPU you suggested at the moment.

My suggestions are:

• AMD Phenom 945 3.0Ghz
• HD 5850
• 4GB DDR3 ram
• Windows 7 64 bit
• Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P DDR3 AM3 ATX motherboard link:http://www.gocomp.com.au/index.php?cpath=product&catpath=0_20_106# $104
• 500-750GB HDD (any brand) SATA
• Antec P183 case
• DVD Writer (any brand) so long as its black

If you want a cheap store to go to try MSY, they have locations all over the palce. Cheapest prices by far, although you have to know what you want before you go in becuase they will give you absolutely 0 advice!!

two 5770's will out perform the 5850 for less money.

What's so special about the Antec p183 case and with the above setup, what kind of power supply would I need?

Having looked through some reviews, I agree there's a 10% improvement in framerates on average, and that it's ~$15 cheaper for two 5770 vs. 1 5850 according to the website you linked.

But that does not tell the full story. That average of 10% includes some abysmal performances, for very new or obscure games, in the cases where Crossfire is not enabled due to there not being a good driver profile. So in 10% of cases you'll get half the performance. Also the lead is less pronounced at 1680x1050; CF likes high resolutions.

And then there's the issues I mentioned; power, temperature, microstuttering, and the fact you need a more expensive motherboard with two PCIe x16 slots, that could easily carry a $20 premium and evaporate the price lead. Finally, the big gains (>20%) are usually in cases where you're already gettingt 60fps+, i.e. you won't notice extra. In marginal cases where it would otherwise be sub-30fps CF doesn't add much.

I don't believe it's worth it, not when you can buy a 5850 and avoid all of that.

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@hsrob

Nothing's special about the case; some people get too involved with that. It's a box for components and (as long as you get a quality PSU) you can get any case you want. So go cheap.

You would need a 500W PSU from a quality brand. That should cover everything with a good margin.