Maximum PC

Hello, as the title suggest I am thinking about building a PC for the very first time. I have very little computer savvy so I will greatly appreciate any help and advice you could give me.

I have a budget of 1,300$ but I would prefer to keep it a bit closer to 1,000. I'm hoping to build a gaming rig that will be powerful enough to play games such as Diablo, Witcher 2, and The Old Republic and a rig that will be able to last me for a good while. I've read the article on this site about building a gaming rig for 1,300 and that PC looks great. However, I was hoping you all could help me make it slightly cheaper while still being powerful enough or just recommend a different build all together.

Thanks you.

"the sweet spot pc" is pretty much the best bang-per-buck, pretty close to what I have running now as my best game rig. Not much has changed really, save the z77 release and GPU price drops.

If I had to get something now, here is what I would get with ~$1100:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Biostar TZ77XE3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($137.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($47.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($227.55 @ Newegg)
Case: Zalman Z9 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.98 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Antec 620W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total (before mail-in rebates): $1126.00
Mail-in Rebates: $-40.00
Total: $1056.00
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-05-14 18:00 EDT-0400)

The big differences, the z77 board, HD 7850 and the HCG-620W psu. The GA-Z68XP-UD3 is still a strong choice, I have one running in mine - it's a toss up, if you are not considering an ivy upgrade z68 is still rockin. The 7850, same performance as the 560ti-448, cheaper and lower power - so you can go with the 620W comfortably (and the psu calc puts this system at the 320W recommend so it's still overkill) but you still have room for x-fire, which is 400W recommended). So if you still need to drop price, you can lose the SSD and get a 520W PSU and still have a warm fuzzy with x-fire.

hope it gives some ideas, cheers

Well it seems like you were able to knock the price down a good bit. I'll be honest I don't understand what most of that means or why it's a good choice, I know so little about building a computer. But as long as that's a good powerful capable of running any game I throw at it smoothly I'm happy.

Thanks a lot.

Also, seeing as this would be my first time building a PC I'm also considering just buying a pre made gaming rig.
How does this compare to the specs made my rico? http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... C447-14001

I'm assuming his is most likely better, but I just wanted to check.

I apologize for yet another post, but as this is my first time making a computer from scratch I was thinking about getting someone to do it for me. I'm working on getting an estimate on much it will cost from a local computer repair shop that can put it together for me, but they're taking a very long time to get back to me on this and I'm getting fed up. Where could I go to get the PC assembled for me?

Hey, so that CompUSA one is not to shabby, especially if you are doing high-threaded stuff like video or raw photo creation/editing. IMHO the i5 / 7850 will give you a better gaming experience.

I usually do builds for pizza/beer, takes a good 1/2 day maybe a bit longer if I am doing a bit of extended knowledge transfer (usually extra-extended depending on how much beer is consumed )

Sorry I can't say on who to go to for a build, that is a good question... If you are in the Northern VA area, PM me

cheers