Newbie looking at building my own comp Looking for advice and direction

[Aardobard]

Yeah, the red boxes were on sale. FREE SHIPPING! 

[patio]

                

              

[uptonfish]

thanks for all the responses so far

Another question is are the "barebone kits" on tigerdirect worth it for a beginner to make sure I am getting compatible components?

[Aardobard]

The barebones kits are only worth it if they have what you want or better for cheaper.  Usually, that is not the case.

[uptonfish]

This build is $5 over budget.  You can drop down to a slightly smaller HDD to get it under budget if you must.  Please note that it DOES NOT include a DVD/Optical drive as you can likely recycle that from your existing machine.  It DOES include a 19" LCD monitor so you do not have to squint =) .  The components have overclocking potential, if you get the urge, and the video card, while not latest tech, will drive this monitor to all but the highest settings on current games.
[Formerly Big Red Box]

But in case this goes badly again, here's a text list:
CPU E6300 $84
MOBO Gigabyte EP45-UD3L $100
RAM GSkill 2x2Gb 1066MHz F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK $55
HDD WD 750GB Green $60
GPU XFX 9800GT 512 $96
Case + PSU Antec 300 + 430WPSU combo $100
MONITOR ACER X192Wb 19" $110

What is the best area to cut some cost out of the build as my budget has been downsized a bit? Obviously I could forgo the new monitor for the time being but where else?

[Aardobard]

You could drop to an intel e5200, they run about $50 and you won't see much difference (plus they OC like cheetos crunch!)  You could go with a smaller HDD, the 320Gb go for about $50.  The last place I'd rob from would be the GPU.  You can get a decent one for $50-60 but that's the place you are most likely to see a significant difference.

So wth these changes + dropping the monitor you are looking at about $200 in savings.  At that price point an AMD build or even a prebuilt might give you a better value.

[uptonfish]

I have been doing some research over the last few weeks and here is the build I have initially decided on. Let me know what you think.  Thanks

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Callisto 3.1GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Processor Model HDZ550WFGIBOX - Retail
GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK - Retail
SAPPHIRE 100245HDMI Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
Antec Sonata III 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply - Retail
SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223B - OEM
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders w/ Tech Guarantee - OEM



  Subtotal: $619.92

[Sesko]

Buy a base model quad core kit from TigerDirect.com

I did and I love my beast. Be sure to get a CPU cooler to go with it and you should be more then happy with what you get.

If your going to be doing hardcore gamming then you will need to get a decent graphics card which should only be another $100 or so.