What is a good amount of money for a new rig?

[jayvee151]

I'm looking to build my first rig and was wondering just how much would be an appropriate budget? I need everything including; a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and a headset. I am planning on using this rig for gaming, as well as doing uni work on. Any ideas whats a good budget? How much did u all budget onto your computer??

thanks

 

[MivkM]

It varies so much you should just spend what you can afford too.

You could go up to £4000 and have a very good machine or spend £1-1300 and have nearly as good and save yourself a lot of money in the process.

I would say if you have around a £1000 that would be ideal but can be done for less!

 

[jak731]

for the tower, you should spend no more then £1000.
for speakers and headsets, if you are obsessed with sound quality, and you have the money, as much as you like in my opinion provided it will make you happy.

for keyboard and mouse, go to a shop and try some, then spend waht you need to ensure you can use your new pc without causing strain and/or injury to yourself.

 

[Munkeh]

They way I budget is that I decide what I want the machine to do, then try and build a spec that costs the least possible but will meet those demands. No point in spending less and then upgrading quickly, you'll only loose money.

 

[jak731]

if you are OCing
here is a tower/base unit for you to consider
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
OcUK Value IP35 Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £134.99
(£158.61) £134.99
(£158.61)
Pioneer DVR-115DBK 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Sub Total : £411.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £73.83
Total : £495.70

you should be easily be able to put a q6600 cpu in if you need quad core

you need to pick your own case, keyboard, mouse, monitor, speaker and operating system.

depending on the monitor you pick and the resolution you use, you may need to get a better graphics card

if RAID is needed a different MB is also needed.

the cooler will allow you to keep you cpu cool when OCed to 3ghz+, it will also easily cool a quad core CPU.

i havent included a soundcard, as i dont know yoru sound quality preference