I'm kind of new to the whole build your own pc thing. I want to give it because my current pc is almost 4 year's old. I mainly want to game on it (eg. Battlefeild 3). Can anyone suggest a set up that is not too expensive but will still run games on close to the highest settings and will last me another 4 or so years. Im in Australia so places that i can buy them from would be helpful too. Thanks
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=183202 Answering those questions first will enable you to get the right help. If you only have £500 to spend you'll be wanting a very different machine than if you have £2000 to spend.
Right, given the details OP has laid out i recommend: i7 990X (£800) 2 x Nvidia 590 Graphics cards (£700 x2) Asus Rampage III extreme x58 mobo (£275) 24GB (6x 4GB) 2000Mhz DDR3 (£400) Cheapest DVD drive (for the budget conscious) 1TB PCIe OCZ RevoDrive SSD (£2500) The largest Lian-Li case money can buy (£400) 4x 30" Dell Ultrasharp monitors (4x £1000) Cheap Keyboard, mouse, speakers. Ive saved money on the speakers which allows you go spend a bit more on other parts of the build as you can see above.
You forgot a 580GTX for PhysX On a more serious note, you would ideally want to wait for bulldozer and IB to be released before getting a computer now. At the very minimum, the fight-out should theoretically benefit the consumer with lower prices.
You should probably check out the bit-tech buyers guide, if you haven't already. That will give you a general idea of the components you'll need. The main things we'll need to know are budget and resolution of your monitor (max settings at 1024x768 will need a lot less hardware than max at 2560x1600 for example).
How about someone helps you out by explaining roughly how much you need to spend to match your your needs. The below includes monitor/peripherals/window £600 gets you a basic gaming machine which will play any game released in the next four years but you won't be maxing any of the more demanding games + costs will have to be cut with budget end monitor/keyboard/case etc. Then at about £1200 spending any more money becomes fairly pointless. You've already got the best single card machine possible (gtx580) along with top end monitor/cooling/mouse/keyboard. edit your in Australia so just currency convert that then time the value by 1.1 hardware costs more than in the UK
I'm not sure how you can £1200 is the top end spendature including a GTX580. Now if the person chose a cheaper motherboard, PSU, Case amongst other things then yeah or bought all components from different retailers. I just spend around £1200 on the build in my signature. xD Just wanted to point that out. I went with nVidia 570 instead of an OC or other brand graphics card. As it was cheaper. The September builds doesnt include keyboard/mouse and monitor though thats assuming people have those items already. I know I didnt. lol
Maybe that was slightly to low. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2011/09/01/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-september-2011/4 This but a cheaper PSU and no sound card and using that money for a 580 = £1000 Then £200 on a screen and £100 for mouse/keyboard so maybe £1300 is closer.