Help me build a computer!

[El Jefe]

My fiancee and I are looking to build a desktop. I already have a moniter and keyboard, mouse. Just need the rig itself.

I am far from knowledgeable in this area so I am turning to you all for help.

I want to build a computer around or under $750 US. I don't want it to be obsolete in a year. I play DODS and a few other games that are not online and don't have huge requirements.

After talking with Deultima, Crypt, doom, deathmatic, etc. in game I have established that I should have the following parts:

1-2 Standard hard drives with 1 TB of memory
1 SSD with about 120G of memory

Help me fill in the rest! Also it would be helpful to post a link and what kind of price range the part can be found in. I am not in a huge rush and can wait for deals to come around.

Thanks in advance,
Dave
Jefe

[El Jefe]

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Op ... 41&sr=1-20

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Solid-Sta ... 41&sr=1-21

Are either of these viable options for a 120gb ssd? They are about $50 cheaper then others.

[bmh]

I would stay away from OCZ drives. I have heard from reading reviews that OCZ has a lot of problems - including needing a firmware update (for TRIM support on Windows 7) requiring that an OS be installed on a regular hard drive to install the update on the SSD. Places like Amazon and NewEgg are famous to having older stock so the possibility of buying a drive needing an update to even work properly is higher than through other companies. For the price and the fact that the read/write speed is double that of the SanDisk I would spend the extra $40 and go for something more like this: http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Force-2-5 ... 16&sr=1-22

Corsair makes a pretty good product and I have installed one of these drives in a friends PC a while back and have never had any issues with it. Intel and Crucial also have good drives. Don't skimp on performance to save a few bucks. You will be disappointed with a slower drive and a cheaper brand might fail sooner.

The average life expectancy of a SSD is 10,000 hours - or one full year of use, 24/7, constantly reading/writing. In real world terms that equates to about 10 years. You get an average of 3-5 years out of a regular mechanical drive so this investment can last a very long time for you. Make it count and get the best you can for the money. User reviews on Amazon are usually pretty good so I would read those as well since any company can make a P.O.S. and the reviews will alert you if a specific model has issues.

[El Jefe]

Thanks for the quality info.

[Sarge]

be careful with the force gt drives...installed 2 of the 120gb drives on my dad's work computer and both had issues. one let me install OS, drivers, update OS files, and then randomly just crapped out. the other wouldn't even finish the OS install. had to update the drives firmware, download a boot program from corsair, do a complete wipe of everything on the drive, and then perform a simple ntfs format in order for the drives to work properly. after that everything was fine. but it was one hell of a bitch to go through.

[El Jefe]

Thanks Sarge!

So here is a 128 GB SSD that has received good reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch- ... 174&sr=1-1

Does it matter that it appears that most people have used it for a laptop? Will it work fine in a desktop? Is it more expensive if it is built for a laptop due to size constraints?

[Sarge]

all you need, as far as i know, to put it into your desktop is a drive bracket. some drives come with them (i think corsair does) and some don't. if it doesn't just get a 3.5" drive bracket and you should be good to go. just make sure if its a sata III drive you have a motherboard to utilize it, cause if it's speed you want, you'll get it. if you dont it's still fast, but could be better.

[bmh]

On that same page there's a section at the bottom that shows what others sometimes buy when they buy that device. One of the items is a drive rack to make it fit into the larger bay. The description of the drive doesn't say if it comes with one so you might need one of these for $8.99 more.

[Mongo]

its an ssd you can just zip tie it like I did.

[El Jefe]

Ok here is what I am leaning towards:

Processor:
AMD FX 6100 6-Core Processor, 3.3 6 Socket AM3+ - FD6100WMGUSBX

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-6100-6-Core-P ... RGH1BZ25DC

Video Card:
ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1 GB DDR5 PCI-Express Video Card with VGA/DVI/HDMI, ENGTX550 TI DC/DI/1GD5

http://www.amazon.com/PCI-Express-ENGTX ... RGH1BZ25DC

Hard Drive:
Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB Desktop Hard Drive WD20EARX

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-C ... RGH1BZ25DC

Memory:
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB ( 2 x 4 GB ) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 Memory Kit for Intel Core i3, i5, i7 and AMD Platforms SDRAM CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance ... RGH1BZ25DC

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GA-970A- ... RGH1BZ25DC

Case:
GAMMA Classic Series ATX Mid Tower Interior Steel Chassis (Black)

http://www.amazon.com/GAMMA-Classic-Int ... RGH1BZ25DC

Power Supply:
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus Series 500W ATX12V V2.3 Power Supply (RS500-PCARD3-US)

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-eXt ... RGH1BZ25DC


This is not meant to be the most badass computer money can buy. It is meant to be a >$700 computer that won't be obsolete in 2 years. I don't play many video games besides DODS and will use it for a variety of functions. I do intend on buying a SSD in the next year to add to it (I just want to wait for the price to come down some).

With all of that said...

-Will these parts work together? My understanding is that they will.
-Is there anything up there that is known for having troubles? They all have good reviews on Amazon and newegg.

[Proletariat]

Looks good to me other than the video card. I would strongly suggest the extra $50 to step up to the Gforce GTX 560 if possible. Here is a link to the page Crunch suggested, showing speed and price of each card. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html