Help building my own gaming PC?

I Need Help With Building A Gaming PC...?

• Heya all I am new to gaming PC stuff... Basically I am looking to build a budget gaming pc (No more than $300-400 in total) to replace my dating imac and hopefully play some good new games. Basically I need to know: Should I go ATI or Intel? And what is a good motherboard for under $120 that will support these? I am looking for CPU to be around $100 too... What sort of tower should i get (I want this PC to be fairly customizable to upgrade it. What sort of ram/video card will these take? Thanks!

• Answer:

  Kinda agree with the frist post, 300-400 is not alot to work with. But I guess it would depend on which games you want to play and at what settings. Some additional details would be great. But anyways will try an help you out as much as I can so far. ATI are cheap, both in cost, and in life. Intel would cost a little more but are more reliable. I don't reammy know the ATI lines because I never buy them. but the average price of an intel i3 (2 core processor) is about $120. You could get something a little more basic like a intel Pentium which average 60-$100, but those are usually listed as the minimum setting in games, expect it to be outdated and not capable of running new games at anything but the minimum settings. I don't know Mobos. maybe someone else can help you on that. Cooler Master 942 HAF X, is probably one of the best medium sized tower cases you will find, excelent air flow, and plenty of room to upgrade, but costs an average of 150-$200 for the chassis alone. But it is probably the last tower case you will ever need to buy. You will find 1000s of excellent reviews for this chassis. average minimum RAM for modern games is 1-2GB, there are currently only a hand full of game that will use more than 4GB of RAM. I would say to get 1600MHz but with your budget look for the 1000MHz range. Graphics card is pretty much the most important part for gaming rigs. It is the primary factor in what settings and resolution you will be able to play your games at. And the only way I can recommend anything is if I new the games and what settings you are wanting to play them at. Lastly, To play a game like Battlefield 3 at medium setting with a decent FPS would cost you around $900. You want a gaming machine that can play any game on the market and play any game that comes out in the next 3-4 years without upgrading, look to spend no less than $1500