need help purchasing a new pc

thechosenjester

hey guys im buying a new pc specs are
intel core i3 2100
8gb ddr3 of ram
2gb ddr3 of vga
standard case and motherboard

what do you think ? my brother says the prices have gone up and i should wait a month until the go back down.

AvoK95

This is the first rule when buying a PC and NO ONE seems to follow it.
- What is your budget ?
- What will you be using it for ?
- Do you want just the case or with a monitor ?

Second of all , the memory of a graphics card does not matter, you can get a 1GB GTX 480 and a 4GB GT430 and the 1GB will DOMINATE the 430.

Third, yes hard drives and rams have gone up in prices, but they aren't expected to get lowered any time soon.

Fourth NEVER get a standard case, they WILL slowly kill your hardware with the lack of airflow and bad PSU's.

I would recommend the following , if you're using it for web browsing and light gaming:

- Intel Core i3 2100/ G620 Dual core (The differences are minimal but prices differentiate greatly)
- 8GB 1333MHz Kingston DDR3 (2x4GB) (Even though it's overkill, the price is still good and you could never have too much memory)
- ECS H61H2-M3 Motherboard
- Foxconn TSAA725 ATX Case 400W
- Seagate 1TB ST1000DM003 7200RPM S-ATA III 64MB
- LG DVD-/+ RW
- Asus Geforce GT520 2GB DDR3 Dual w/TV

All prices and products are taken from PCandParts.com

If you want to game on a screen bigger than 22" I would recommend you to use the Asus ENGTX550 TI DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 550Ti 1GB DDR5 graphics card instead of the GTS520. (Don't look at the memory, 1GB is plenty for full HD gaming which is about 1920*1080, any resolution bigger than that will need a 1GB+ card but since you won't be gaming more than 1 monitor 1GB is enough).

thechosenjester

my budget is exactly 500$ and i just want the case, i want it for playing video games and being able to record my gameplay with no lag spikes.
thank you for the awesome reply !

The-MMMs

AvoK95 wroteFourth NEVER get a standard case, they WILL slowly kill your hardware with the lack of airflow and bad PSU's.

Learnt this the hard way

RIP 8800GT :(

You'll need an i5 at minimum if you don't that many lag spikes.

thechosenjester

i have seen people game and record on an i3 2100 with no lag !

thechosenjester

but come on 8gb of ram for light gaming ?

The-MMMs

thechosenjester wrotei have seen people game and record on an i3 2100 with no lag !

resolution ?

thechosenjester

1280x720 :)

yasamoka

The best way to record is to get a TV Tuner with HDMI input. Any other solution would slow the game down! And with a low budget, that's disastrous. With a high budget, you MAY be able to sacrifice some performance (I for one would never do it).

Other than that, AvoK95's reply was epic.

AvoK95

OK so now with a 500$ budget I recommend the following :
2.6 GHz - G620 3M/LGA1155 $66.00
4GB DDR3 Kingston ram $25.00
ECS H61H2-M3 V1.0 B3 (DDR3) (LGA1155) $65.00
Foxconn TSAA725 ATX Case 400W $56.00
1TB ST1000DM003 7200RPM S-ATA III 64MB $109.00
LG GH24NS70-24X DVDRW - Dual Layer SATA Black $23.00
Asus Geforce GT520 2GB DDR3 Dual w/TV $65.00

The prices come to a total of 409$ if you add VAT and shipping it will be 454.9$

I know I downgraded to a dual core, but it's almost half the price with minimal performance difference a dual core is basically an i3 with no Hyper Threading (Which is only good for video encoding and bad for gaming performance).
I still used the 520 because of the budget but I still recommend you to use a 550Ti if you could pay some extra cash.

thechosenjester

i game and record on pc XD

thechosenjester

avok will the specs you gave me workfine with no lag while gaming and recording with high graphical settings on a 1280x720 res
?

AvoK95

The specs I gave you are good for your needs, trust me.
I use my i3 540 (Which is slower than the G620 Dual core) for gaming with a GTX 560Ti and do some video rendering of my own.
So you won't need anything more than that dual core. Besides , the budget is too low for anything higher end.

thechosenjester

i think you mean nvidia instead of asus ? and thanks a bunch !
Asus Geforce GT520 2GB DDR3 Dual w/TV

AvoK95

thechosenjester wrotei think you mean nvidia instead of asus ? and thanks a bunch !
Asus Geforce GT520 2GB DDR3 Dual w/TV

Nvidia produces the chipsets which Asus uses to make the cards there are lots of other brands such as Gigabyte, MSI etc.
I still recommend you to raise your budget and get the 550Ti.

yasamoka

The GT520 is too weak. Can't you scale to a higher tier card? You already have $45 extra. Try and go for something like a GTS450. Don't bother to wait for what the 600 series has to offer, because they will be Fermi rebrands (in essence, the 400,500,600 series are almost identical at the low-midrange) The 450 is almost equivalent to the 550Ti. OC that 450 a bit and it will match the 550Ti.

Edit: Eh AvoK95, seems we posted at the same time.

thechosenjester

how much does i cost ? :s

AvoK95

thechosenjester wrotehow much does i cost ? :s

Gigabyte GV-N450TC-1GI Geforce GTS450 up to 1GB DDR5 Dual w/TV $125.00

Asus ENGTX550 TI DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 550Ti 1GB DDR5 $158.00

I STILL recommend the 550Ti because of only 25$ difference you'll get 30% more performance

thechosenjester

mother board + i3 + gts450 = 350$ :P

Beej

Game and record? That needs 3 things: 1. fast cpu (check) 2. fast gpu (gt 520 is almost = to intel built in) You will be able to play on it but trust me when i say (i tested alot of gt430, which is btw is FASTER than 520). 3. Fast hard drive.

Get the gt 430, its faster by ALOT (with respect to entry level gpu) GT 520 is a rebranded gt 240.
Fraps. or better yet msi afterburner records game play but it hammers your hdd. So its better to record on a separate drive, or at least a partition.
These two factors are more important than a better/faster cpu.
Gt 430, trust me its the least entry level gpu you should get.