Computer Computer-hunting.

[Slazer]

I brought this up on another thread, but I felt it would be more prudent to put this in its own so I don't hijack it.

Until recently, I had a very good custom iBuyPower rig that I bought in March of last year. It used an AMD X955 Phenom and an AMD 6850 with 4 GB RAM running Windows 7 Home Premium; "budget" gaming in the custom computer scene, but it was more than adequate for my purposes. It was my first actually good computer, upgraded from an ancient Dell dinosaur with 512 MB RAM and a single-core Pentium 4, and I quite enjoyed how it performed. Unfortunately, due to personal financial difficulties and an absolute failure of communication, that computer was recently eaten by a pawn shop- I'm never pawning anything ever again after that fiasco.

With income tax time coming in the next few months, and myself heading off to college not long afterward, I'm looking to replace it with either a really good desktop or a gaming laptop. I'm going to have a budget of around $1200, with maybe $100 leeway if I'm careful, and would appreciate suggestions.

[Dio]

Is that $1200 for the tower or $1200 for all hardware? $1200 for the tower gives you a lot of flexibility over the kinds of components you can use. If it's $1200 for everything, it gets a good bit tighter, but still entirely doable.

[Slazer]

Essentially just the tower. I can probably get a decent monitor for less than $100, and the mouse/keyboard are non-items in the scheme of things; I'm not the type of person who refuses to game on anything except the latest $200 gaming paraphernalia.

Also, keep in mind portability and durability are going to be issues here. Whatever I put together is going to have to run me for 4+ years of university college.

[Dio]

You'll be looking for a mid-tower case then. It balances form factor with space for expansion if you want to add on to your build later in your university career. I like Corsair as a brand, but I've heard good things about Fractal cases as well. I like Intel kit, so I'd recommend an i5 processor. For your purposes you can probably skip out on the K processors (unlocked for overclocking). You won't be needing an SSD, so just pick a large capacity HDD. You can get a 1TB drive for around $80 off Newegg. I like Western Digital as a hard drive brand.

I recommend Corsair power supplies. In addition, your $1200 budget should give you room for a Corsair H60 closed-loop liquid cooler for your CPU. It will make your rig quieter and it's more efficient than the stock air cooler that will come with your CPU.

Asus makes good motherboards, but I've also seen Gigabyte and MSI recommended. You can also go with the Intel-branded mobos.

Finally, for your graphics card, an nVidia GTX 760 is a great mid-range card and should be more than enough for your gaming needs. There are different brands of coolers and PCBs for the same GPUs, but I like Asus' cooler design and tuning software, so I'll recommend their DC2OC series cards.

Halide might also have some more information to chime in with since he actually works in a computer shop while I'm just a hobbyist.

EDIT: Forgot to add on a bit about OS. I think everyone is still comfy with Windows 7. Windows 8.1 allows you to boot into desktop mode, which I'm told replicates the functionality of W7's desktop and it gives some very good performance gains in some pretty intensive games like Battlefield 4. I haven't used enough Windows 8 enough to give it a vote of confidence, but I'm told it's not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. When in doubt, choose Windows 7 x64.

[Slazer]

That seems like a good plan to me. Thank you for the prompt and helpful advice, Diomedes.

I'm still open to ideas from any other computer enthusiasts in the community, as well. It never hurts to hear opinions from multiple sources.

[Dio]

Derp, I forgot about RAM

For your purposes, 8GB in 2x 4GB sticks running in dual-channel mode should be plenty. Corsair and G.Skill are good brands. Troll the internet for deals and make sure they're pin-compatible with your motherboard. You might also want to do some research to see if there are any model incompatibilities, since that may happen from time to time.

You can get the specs I'm running in my rig in my user profile. My machine was around $1300, so it's close to the price point you're looking at.

There are loads of tutorials, build guides, and recommendation videos scattered all over youtube. Linus Tech Tips has very good comprehensive build guides that are very professionally made and the guys Linus works for have a great reputation.