New PC

[villman420]

Had lightning strike my house or close by a week or so ago. had my pc on a Belkin surge protector but seemed to still make it through it and fried my pc and dsl modem . i know what stuff is in a computer but i dont know what works the best together and will last me multiple years. looking to spend 800-1000 for building a tower. not interested in crazy looking towers, just performance. ideas would be appreciated!

i know a pci express video card but which is better nowadays? nvideo or ati?
cpu ? amd or intel?
motherboard? asus the best?
harddrives? western digital or seagate?
ddr3 the way to go and how much ram? 3gig?

like i said i only know brand names and what goes into a tower but thats about it. thanks folk

[Kyrie]

Do you intend to use XP, Vista, or Windows 7?
What are you going to use the PC for? Lots of hard core gaming? Midranged gaming? Heavy future gaming or lots of current/older games?
Oh, willing to test if any parts from your old machine salvageable, or do you just want to go all new?

[villman420]

only game i play on pc is tribes but i do want a halfway decent video card cus i do watch movies and videos. one of my hard drives is ok which is a western digital 100 gig. i would love to install vista if i dont have to pay for it haha.

[Kyrie]

Well, you don't need a video card to watch DVDs and videos. I watch them on this laptop just fine with integrated video. Plays Tribes just fine, too. (And Civ 4, which surprised me but is awesome).
I mean, it just sounds like you want more computer than you need or intend to use. You can easily pay $1000 and get a great machine...but if all you're doing is playing Tribes and surfing the net, you're wasting your money.

I'd really consider a nice laptop if your main concerns are dvd/tribes/web browsing. You can get a very decent machine under $800-1000.
Otherwise, you could probably get what you want with about a $500 desktop

[Particle]

Since you're on a bit of a budget, you'll probably be best served by an AMD + ATI machine.  Radeon 4850 video cards for example are very fast and only run $95 these days.  You can also get an AMD quad core for $200.  Throw in 4GB of RAM for about $50 and a budget motherboard for $150, and you're nearly good to go.  A quality PSU will be about $100.  You can get a fast 1TB hard drive for $80.  Lightning can't hardly burn out your case, so if you're just interested in performance you may as well recycle that.

$95 + $200 + $50 + $150 + $100 + $80 = $675

That would be a pretty nice machine, honestly.

AMD Phenom II X4 940
4GB G.Skill DDR2-1066
1TB Samsung F1 SATA
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5
PC Power & Cooling 610W S61EPS
Radeon HD 4850 PCIe

[bungle]

Since you're on a bit of a budget, you'll probably be best served by an AMD + ATI machine.  Radeon 4850 video cards for example are very fast and only run $95 these days.  You can also get an AMD quad core for $200.  Throw in 4GB of RAM for about $50 and a budget motherboard for $150, and you're nearly good to go.  A quality PSU will be about $100.  You can get a fast 1TB hard drive for $80.  Lightning can't hardly burn out your case, so if you're just interested in performance you may as well recycle that.

$95 + $200 + $50 + $150 + $100 + $80 = $675

That would be a pretty nice machine, honestly.

AMD Phenom II X4 940
4GB G.Skill DDR2-1066
1TB Samsung F1 SATA
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5
PC Power & Cooling 610W S61EPS
Radeon HD 4850 PCIe

hmm.... but what do you suggest for an operating system?

[JayJay]

I'd sell you mine for 800 or so.

EVGA 790i Ultra SLI Mobo @ 1700.1 FSB
Intel Core2Duo E8400 @ 3.825ghz
2 x 2gbs Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600 Ram @ 1700 9-9-9-24 1.8v
2 x BFG Tech Geforce GTX 260 OC @ 733/1501/2422 SLIed
2 x 500gb WD Caviar @ Raid 0
Corsair TX850 PSU @ 850 Watt
Cooler Master Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition
3DMark 2006 Score - 19040
3dMark Vantage Score - 22638

[12Stones]

i recently purchased this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220526

replaced my desktop..  it's way faster