Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5456708-20130528222055/@comment-7153552-20130911214746

Well, then custom built is out, those are costly. Mine cost me two thousand - granted I got a lot more than I needed, lol. I would suggest hitting websites like www.ibuypower.com and www.lenovo.com and maybe even try www.digitalstormonline.com. I bought mine from iBuyPower, and love it. 32GB RAM, two 1TB HDD and a 60GB SSD for my OS, NVIDIA GeForce 750series, 1000watt power supply, 12-in-1 media reader, combo optical drive (CD and DVD +- R/RW with BluRay reader), 5.1 sound card, i7 quad core with hyper threading technology (which means eight cores) running 2.6GHz.

I would say you don't need all that though. I would suggest something along the lines of the following:


 * 16GB RAM


 * Hard drive space if your call, but I can't suggest an SSD for your Operating System strongly enough, the non-spinning disk is just safer.  If you play a lot of games, I would suggest a 40-60GB SSD and a single 1TB HDD


 * You don't need the media card reader, and your optical drive doesn't need BluRay, but you can't go wrong with the DVD +- R/RW, this is just a good call and doesn't cost all that much


 * You can get away with on-board sound if you aren't doing anything major, but the 5.1 cards usually aren't that expensive


 * Processor doesn't need to be an i7, you can run an i5 just fine.  They run four cores without hyper threading, so it's still four cores.  Total GHz is your call based on money spent


 * My final major suggesstion is to stear clear of Window 8, which the only way you can do that is by custom building.  If you buy from a store you will end up with it, but it just isn't worth it, in my opinion.  Stick with 7, you'll be a happier gamer for it.

These aren't hard rules, but it's what I would say is a good starting point. Go to iBuyPower and Digital Storm, compare the builds and the prices, see where you get. Then I'd check out www.newegg.com and www.tigerdirect.com and see if they have any kits and the extra parts to make one of the builds, you may save money that way. The final option is see about buying all the parts together from a store, you can still buy Windows 7, just not a computer with it from a retail store.