Hey guys what's going on? Since Christmas funds have come I now have about 1100 to spend on a desktop system. I already have a great monitor and pretty good speakers as well but I would like to build a pretty decent system with that 1100 with parts from a site like newegg. I don't do much gaming however I do a good amount of audio/video editing and graphic design and stuff like that. I am thinking I at least 250GB of storage and would like at least 1GB of RAM. I need everything from a case to ethernet card, I am open to any suggestions. Thanks a lot guys and happy holidays.

Get at least 2GB of RAM. Get a Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. You only need a halfway decent vid card not the best, I suggest a PCI-E nVidia GPU. And, get a real powerful PSU.

Depending on the sources for your video editing you might could do with a video in card.

Do not try to save money on a MoBo. Spend your money on good RAM, MoBo and PSU. You do not want any of those weak, if you are converting a couple hours of video. A crash after a few hours of work is not fun.

Thanks for the reply. I am willing to put a good amount of money into the mobo, processor and ram. If you could make some suggestions at what brand names to look at or maybe a few to take a look at that would be great. Thanks.

Ok. here's an ASWOME computer I just built at tiger direct. The spec.'s are 2gb's of ram, Intel Core Duo processor, 320 Seagate Sata Harddrive, Good 550watt PSU, and a GeForce Video card. All under your spending limit 860 give or take a little. Here are some links in case your interested.

Plain Black Case (30$)
550watt PSU (70$)
2gb Ram (195$)
320gb Seagate Sata Harddrive (80$)
DVD +- Writer 18x (40$)
GeForce 6800 Video Card (135$)
Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard and an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (336$)

If I had the money I would buy this in a heartbeat. Unfortunately I dont. But if you get this, you are a lucky person.

Hope this is what you were looking for,
mstandlee

PSU = Power Supply Unit

I don't think you need the best CPU money can buy, well it alone would cost more than your budget anyway.
Any Intel Core 2 Duo CPU will work.
Here is a list of Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....SubCategory=343
~$200 on up to whatever you want.

For the RAM, newegg is running deals on Corsair. Make sure you get the type DDR2:
http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Category...amp;name=Memory
~$275 for 2GB

MoBo, Asus is a good brand. Make sure it supports Core 2 Duo CPU and DDR2 RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....SubCategory=280
~$110

For the PSU, the more Watts the better. I have an Antec myself, I like it. Get at least 600W.:
Here is a 700W for $140:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16817104015

Total price:
~$750 with shipping for those 4.
Add ~$140 for OS @ newegg. Shop around to save some money. Try resellerratings.com Get the hardware at newegg though.
~$80 for 250GB harddrive.
leaves ~$130 for case, DVD+-R (~$35) , keyboard/mouse (~30), video card (~$35 on up to whatever you want)

You will be cutting it close, but you can do it. I hope I didn't forget anything.

Nice rig mstandlee!

Depending on your gaming needs I would go with something better than that 6800, The 7600GT can be had for the same amount or less than $140. But if you want to play some more high end games (FEAR, Prey, etc) and at rediculous resolutions you may want to check out the 7900 GS, this thing overclocks like crazy, I'd search around for reviews of differnt video cards to see what fits your needs.

Remember not to skimp out on the case for the system. You don't want to end up with cooling problems like I did. At the least get something with a good fan in the front of the case and a place for a fan in the back also.

Hmm, I'd say- (keeping it general)

CPU- Core 2 Duo
Motherboard- I definitely recommend Asus
GPU- A 7000 series nVidia card (ex- I have a 7800GTX)
HDD- There's a sweet newegg deal right now, buy a 500gb HDD and get a 250gb HDD all for $209 (link)
RAM- Idk..atleast 2gb
PSU- Something around ~500w would probably be efficient
Case- I have a Thermaltake Tsunami..I love it...little expensive though.

Good Luck.

p.s. I have some comp parts for sale, you might be looking for more though. I have a-
CPU- Pentium 4 650 3.4ghz with h/t
Mobo- Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe (godly)
PSU- Thermaltake 680w (it's a beast)
Sound Card- Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS PCI
Wireless Card- Netgear 108mb/s PCI Card
..possibly some other stuff.
Just PM me if you're interested...

Cheers

If you want to play Elder Scroll 4: Oblivion, I would recommend getting an ATI graphics card rather than a NVIDIA card.

Also when getting a PSU, don't just look at the total wattage. See if it has dual or triple rails for 12V. Your big power hungry components are your graphics card and CPU which use 12V. The Core 2 Duo's are very power efficient, but some of the high-end graphics card are power-hungry.

Also if you are going to overclock your CPU, consider getting a separate heatsink/fan. The stock heatsink/fan works well at regular clock speeds, but with overclocking, you want something that will keep your system cool under load.

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I went out last night and bought myself a new iMac. I have only used a Mac a handful of times but I did some research to make sure most of my favorite applications supported OS X and then went out and bought it. It has a 160GB HD along with 1GB of RAM and I am already pretty used to OS X. Anyone not sure whether to make the jump from a Windows based system to a Mac I would have to say that as long as OS X supports software that you "need" I would make the move for sure. Just a couple of reasons off the bat are...

1). No system errors after hooking up just about every bluetooth and USB device I could find laying around my entire house (without installing one driver, mind you).
2). OS X is very well organized from the start almost requiring no work from you at all to keep all of your files in order.

Depending on what kind of stuff you do on your computer you may never have encountered problems with either of those things on your PC but I constantly would spend hours installing drivers and restarting for devices I wanted to use.

Well yeah that's pretty much it, and as you can see I am pretty happy with my decision. Maybe for all of the help you guys were willing to give me i'll post a few pictures I took with the built in camera last night when I came home absolutely wasted . Thanks again guys.

Please do! Since you aren't a gamer, that isn't a bad choice for you. I don't know why I didn't think of it. My apologies.

I am setting up a funny video with all of the pics, you guys might get a little freaked out. Basically I was so out of control that I didn't think what was going on was real, so i took the pictures as "proof" for when I woke up this morning To make things even funnier they are in http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/RRZ/Software/Ja...fig/squares.gif kind of style. I will post the video tomorrow.