So, I just saw that the video card says that it needs 450W minimum to work, but the power supply that Ex recommended says that its max power was 400W. New video card, anyone?

that's just a recommendation. You're fine with that power supply/gfx combo.

Well unfortunately that power supply ran out of stock. Would something like this be a suitable replacement?

No, it will not. You do not buy a Rosewill PSU EVER.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371029 This will do though its very slightly more expensive.

Note that a power cord is not included.

Replacement DVD drive since given one is OOS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135221

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 3 2011, 11:28 pm by Excalibur.

The rosewill green series are alright (presumably, not many people review it, but the 630W one is golden on hardwaresecrets), but they cost just as much as any good power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182199
This is the cheapest rosewill/ANTQ I would recommend, and it's still more expensive than the seasonic antec excalibur posted.

Seasonic, enermax, and super flower make the best power supplies, period.

If you can wait until february, the G520T should come out for $70 and will be simply incredible for the price (the e5500 ex listed is also $70. I would be surprised if the G520T at 2.2 GHz wasn't 50% faster at least). The only problem is a lack of overclocking, which I wouldn't expect you to do anyway. Most of the deals are dead now anyway making it a bad time to buy, but I understand the need to get a computer NOW.

The price has already gotten a little higher than I intended, due to my dad putting this off and the discounts going away. I'm at $502 right now (including a monitor), so I really don't want to spend more money, even if it's only 10 dollars.

Also, I've been reading up on some things about installing operating systems on multiple computers with one CD and everything has said that it's not possible because they all use the same key. Is this true? There's no way I'm going to be able to get this if I'm going to have to spend over $100 on a Windows 7 disc.

Installing the same windows on multiple computers works just fine. However it's not legal.

But how would it work? I've read that it won't install unless you've got the same exact hardware configuration as the first computer. Besides, the disc I have is an OEM disc. Would that even have the full installation on it?

The windows license says that you can only install the OS on one particular computer and can't transfer it. However they don't regulate it. The oem disc will work, it's windows with an OEM license already on it, so you never have to input a key. The license is a batch license, so thousands of people are already using it. Your OEM payed microsoft for the license to be used a bunch of times, and thus it will pass genuine advantage and all that crap.

Okay then I'll write you up a bit of a buying guide. What products I choose, and a bit of a description as to why.
$19 Optical drive - this is not all that important, but newegg has frequent deals with either free shipping or a combo deal. It is imperative you get the cheapest one, shipping included. All Opticals are the same within their respective categories. Also, it has to be SATA if you're buying new. Typically prices range from $17-$20.
$39 Hard Disk - there are 3 7200 RPM drives worth buying now, and no 5400 RPM drives worth installing an OS on: Spinpoint f3, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, Western Digital Caviar Black. The caviar blues are too expensive. Superbiiz has the best deals on hard drives, period, due to low prices and a continual global coupon. This week it's "HELLO2011" for 15% off ($15 max). Both of the $46 drives on the link are good.
$95-$40 Graphics card - Your graphics card dictates exactly how much you can game. We're going for price/performance here, and at $55 AR, there is nothing better. It is a power hungry card though, so you need a quality PSU. Should be as fast as a 4850.
$95 CPU - You can go cheaper, certainly, but the CPU is the main ingredient to having a good computer, and is also the hardest thing to upgrade later. If you start with something good, it will last a long time. Hopefully a price drop will accompany sandy bridge (coming out today).
$75 Motherboard - Note how I divided the combo here, all towards the CPU, since it's important for balance in all things. 115/55 is not a good idea. The motherboard itself is Biostar, which has an excellent website and pretty good support. This is a dead socket (no new processors will come out for it) so the price may drop after sandy bridge. The motherboard has zero frills, and won't be stupendous, but the quality of the motherboard only determines how likely it is to fail (pretty low for all mobos) and how stable the overclock is. When talking raw performance, the motherboard is one of the least useful things do drop your money into. CPU/GPU are where it's at.
$50 Case - This is certainly the least useful thing to drop your money into. However cases never die, so if you get a good case now, it will last forever. This one has excellent everything, and is $10 more than the shitty rosewill Ex linked. This was a good deal at $60. EMCKJKF34 for $10 off. The cheapest cases I could find were $27 to $35. This is IMO a very good investment.
$60 - $20 Power supply - This is the only thing you never want to skimp on but always end up having to. It's a lot like the motherboard in terms of performance, and is quite binary in the way it works (it powers your computer or it doesn't). I don't like rebates, so Ex's psu is still probably better, but at $40 AR, it's cheaper than the neo eco (which has been down to $30 for 400w, $42 for 520w, $50 for 620w). Good deals on power supplies come and go, and this isn't an excellent deal, so don't worry about missing this one.
$42 RAM - 4 GB is pretty much the nuts right now. before black friday it was $65, now it's $40. IMO nearly all ram is identical. The performance gains of overclocking ram are minimal at best. Obviously ddr3-1600 is much faster than ddr-200, but you, as a human, don't really perceive the change, at least not nearly as much as when you run out of ram and start using the page file, or upgrade either cpu or gpu. Ram also doesn't get THAT hot, so heat spreaders are really just something to look cool. Companies don't matter too much, but just by guessing, gskill, patriot, and corsair seem to be excellent, probably in that order.

Total price: $475-$60, with free shipping. I think this is respectable to propose to your parents, maybe show them my post?

Ways to further hobo-ify this:
$23 (-$19) Buy 2 GB ram, leaves easy upgrade path later
$105 (-$55) Get an AMD dual core, triple core add $20
$30+$5 (-$15) Get a cheap case, make sure you have at least ONE fan
$60+$7 (-28+$40AR) Get a non rebate graphics card
$44+$2-$10AR (-$14+$10AR) Get an old power supply or ex's for $48 no rebate.
Everything else is either so hobo it doesn't matter, or there's seriously diminishing returns on getting something cheaper. taking ALL of the hobo stuff nets $334-$10

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 5 2011, 7:38 pm by rockz.

Rockz, I think he needs the initial non-rebate amount to be as cheap as possible, so I wouldn't bother with rebates.

That's why I gave an option for everything without rebates.

That's not the case for Windows Vista or Windows 7. You're talking about an OEM edition from a major PC manufacturer, like Dell or whatever, but when you buy an OEM copy from Newegg or whoever, you're getting a 'system builder' OEM copy, which is different.

It comes with a key, which you have to register it with within 30 days of installation, or it goes into lockdown mode. If you try and use that key on two different computers, it won't let you.


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/what-microsoft-wont-tell-you-about-windows-7-licensing/1514?pg=2

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Jan 5 2011, 11:22 pm by Lanthanide.

Rockz, the links are the same for the CPU and motherboard. ;o Also, the graphics card listed costs $114 with a $40 rebate now.

Just hold up Dem0n. I'll see if I can whip up something at or below 400$ for you again before monitor.

Re-done:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135221
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811815006
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136161
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131381
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371029
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.543767
Without monitor: $374.45

And the monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009275
Full 1080p for 135$, I've seen better deals on certain sales but generally speaking that isn't a bad price at all. Especially for a 21.5".

With monitor: $509.44

Note that while Rockz's build is more expensive, it is also better, and for the performance gain, it isn't that much of a price gain. If you absolutely can't afford his build then I understand but if you can throw the extra cash into it I'd say do it. My build is just bare minimum gaming cutting as many corners and pinching every last damn dollar.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 6 2011, 2:08 am by Excalibur.

Cool. Cases aren't that big of a deal, right? I mean, if I get a 30 dollar case instead of a 50 dollar case, it's not going to like fall apart within a year or anything right?

No, it just determines what quality of material, what thickness, how many fans, ect.

The case I picked out is an Asguard II. My current case is an Asguard I and even though the I looks better than the II, I find the one I have to be extremely high quality and I only paid like 30$ for it. I absolutely love it and must recommend it.

If airflow is at least OK and you don't use the power supply that came with it (if it came with one). There's a little more to it than that, but in general that's how it is. For some more expensive cases, sometimes it is OK to use the power supply that came with it (when they do come with one). Sometimes in those cases they will actually come with a decent quality power supply (though that's not guaranteed).

It's a combo, so the links are the same. Graphics card isn't worth it anymore. $55 is awesome, $75 is good, $95 is pushing it, and $115 is terrible. Rebates are never a sure thing.

Cases aren't that big of a deal. If you want to do it cheap, go down to a computer shop/pawn shop/garage sale/whatever and get a case. Hopefully your motherboard comes with screws (I have so many now that it doesn't matter). The difference in the asguard ($40) and the haf 912 ($50) is that the haf is a much better case:
bottom mount psu for gravity fed cable management (less efficient though, since you have to replace the psu fan with an exhaust fan)
removable and side mount hard drive cage.
dust filters. I know it seems silly, but I would pay $10 for dust filters on a unit which didn't have them already. If you live in a dusty environment at all, it saves you from cleaning much of the computer. I didn't clean my graphics card for a year, and it ended getting up to 100C. Now I'm at ~6 months with dust filters and positive pressure with negligible dust.

Ex's combo is dead.

Too bad you won't buy in time for tonight's shell shocker:
$300 for everything except ODD, Monitor, GFX.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.582960

However it does have a good PSU for $40 (only better because it's $8 cheaper).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371023
I like my build with that psu, this ram:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220279
a 5830 and this cpu combo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.579896
for $339

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 6 2011, 2:23 pm by rockz.

Aw, DDR2 RAM? I know I said I want a cheap-ass computer, but the more and more I look at this, and thinking about my dad's consideration in buying a $580 HP desktop, I kinda want more than the bare minimum. :3

I'd rather have a mobo that can have more than 4 gb of DDR2 RAM (even though I'd probably never go higher than 4 gbs). How does this look?

EDIT: After much arguing (and yelling), my dad says he'll get it. I just wanna make sure everything I have is good. I added that processor linked above along with 2 gb DDR3 Kingston RAM. Also, I added in Windows 7 just because I don't want to deal with some complicated illegal bullshit that I don't even fully understand how to do. Here's what I have.



Yeah, this is way higher than the budget that I gave you guys. Sorry for trying to make you all fit everything within it. >_<

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 6 2011, 11:19 pm by Dem0nS1ayer.

You won't get better parts for $300 than a $600 prebuilt...