Which site provides the best customizeable Gaming PCs?

I am looking to build my own computer, and I have never done this before.RossMathis

I was looking for some sites that provide cheap ($500-$800) computers.RossMathis

Build your own...it's easy.

Only trouble I've ever had is with RAM compatibility. So you either reflash the MB to update and support ram you bought or return ram and buy a different brand. Corsair and PQI have always done good by me, OCZ has given me trouble in the past.

First and foremost, FOREGET this idea. YOU WONT BE ABLE TO PLAY GEARS OF WAR ON A $500-800 computer, unless it's a used PC that was purchased for about $1500-2000 and now someone wants to get rid of it for $800. Now when we got that out of the way, please read on...

Build your own computer. It's much more cost effective.

Only thing is, dont listen to people who say building your computer is EASY. It's NOT easy! The reason for this, is unless you have money pouring out of your behind, you really want to be extra carefull with everything you do or you WILL loose money, and possibly lots of it. Also you might loose hair on your head. ;)

In order to build your computer you must be someone who is willing to do LOTS of research and LOTS of reading. There is enough info on the net to teach/show you every single step required to build a PC. One of the most time consuming and stressful things is selecting the right components. The reason for this is:

1)Price (unless you are filthy rich)

2)Compatability. Incompatable components will simply not work(best case scenario) or short, possibly taking out something else too. Returning components that do not work in your PC(for whatever reason) is a lot of heartake and wasted time/money.

Prior to building a PC, you want to visit a forum like www.anandtech.com and ask people to look at the list of components you have selected and criticize/comment your future rig. After you get replies you have to ask these people if they are sure that everything is indeed compatible and will work from the start without any difficult fine tuning. After these people say yes, you must make a new thread asking people to YET AGAIN, confirm that everything will work 100%. The reason for this is that it's not these people loosing their hard earned cash if something dont work. It's YOU. (I learned this the hard way)

Someone might give you wrong info because they didnt read your question carefully or simply didnt know any better. That's why it helps to get as many 2nd opinions as possible, and once you do, stick with what the majority said.

Once you finally ordered all the parts, and are ready to build, it's important to mind the static electricity and touch a metal surface every 5 minutes or so. Some people say it's nonesence, but ask yourself if you are willing to bet your $500 video card on that. ;)

Sorry for writing so much, but I am only trying to help. If you dont care or you are too lazy to do this, I thank you in advance for ordering your computer from people like me and wasting your money so that we can get rich. Who knows.. Maybe it's me who will be building your computer and getting rich. Do you want that? Muhahahah.

PS: The only legit reason for not building your PC is if you are a very busy man, or you have some very serious problem.

In that case, the only site where you can get a PC in your price range is www.dell.com. Dont expect to play any recent games on a PC in this price range though. You have been warned.

If you are willing to spend a few(or lots for that matter) extra bucks, you can order a PC from Alienware, or Dell XPS branch of Dell. These PC's are pure beasts and will run any game u throw at it. However expect to speand $2000+ for anything decent that would only cost you about $1200-1500 if u built it yourself. If you need further advice, you can Skype me at "ibex333" and I will help you free of charge.

try this site.....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/ or newegg.com

First and foremost, FOREGET this idea. YOU WONT BE ABLE TO PLAY GEARS OF WAR ON A $500-800 computer, unless it's a used PC that was purchased for about $1500-2000 and now someone wants to get rid of it for $800. Now when we got that out of the way, please read on...

IBEX333

Id have to disagree, Gears can run on a less than $600 custom built machine a low-medium, remember the U3 engine is highly optimized, however if you buy a pre-built, expect to spend upwards of $1000 for the same results

Not IBuyPower, they're terrible, can't build a PC to save their liveswhgresiak

lol i just searched gaming comp iv never bought a comp from any of those places, just looked for cheapest places

[QUOTE="whgresiak"]Not IBuyPower, they're terrible, can't build a PC to save their livesferret837

lol i just searched gaming comp iv never bought a comp from any of those places, just looked for cheapest places

Then i would just reccomend build your own computer with that budget, so make a new thread here............

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_topics.php?board_id=314159272

and they will help you....

[QUOTE="ferret837"]

[QUOTE="whgresiak"]Not IBuyPower, they're terrible, can't build a PC to save their liveswhgresiak

lol i just searched gaming comp iv never bought a comp from any of those places, just looked for cheapest places

try this site.....

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/r05/ri05.asp

or even this one.....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/ or newegg.com

ferret837

Forget CyberPower, they are bad. Ever check their BBB ratings? They use to have an F rating of how many complaints they got. Bad experience with them.

I know at NCIX, you just select what parts you want, even the real good ones on sale, then you can also add in the "build for me" or whatever, and they will put it all together for you.

If you want, I can set up a decent PC gaming machine for 800 and have a build option so you don't have to put it together.

All that + 50 or 25 bucks for them to build it for you. And there you go, a good overclocking/gaming machine. Get rid of keyboard and mouse (if you already have them) and then processor to upgrade to the E6550 if you want a good system without overclock.

But a true gamer, would find more intertainment if they tweaked and overclocked their system. Not to mention, the 8600gts has a lot of overclock potential. As the system is not gonna play all upcoming games on highest (due to video card), it will be enough to play titles like Crysis, and GEARS of war on resolutions such as 1280x1024 and or widescreen like 1440x768 or whatever, with decent frame rates, at mid-high details.

Do not worry, motherboard and ram I selected, would be more then enough to get that bad boy processor, to at least 2.5ghz without hassle, and a good 1200 or more FSB, so you get more performance at the end. Only downfall, is the 1mb total ram.

Only downfall, is the 1mb total ram.

sepheronX

To answer the topic question about the best customizeable Gaming PCs I would recommend Falcon Northwest. Best PCs I've ever seen! They've even have parts that aren't avaliable to the general public yet...like the Radion card that can beat the 8800 ultra. No lie see for yourself!Mondars37

I believe the guy asked for a PC between the ranges of $500-800, no way would Falcon NW build you anything good for that price, they are luxury PC builders like Voodoo PC with their 24k gold Omen case released a while back.

I know at NCIX, you just select what parts you want, even the real good ones on sale, then you can also add in the "build for me" or whatever, and they will put it all together for you.

If you want, I can set up a decent PC gaming machine for 800 and have a build option so you don't have to put it together.

DelItem DescriptionInStockPart#QTYPriceExt.Price Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-5400 DDR2-667 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel MemoryLimit to 4 per customer.In Stock18582 $65.98 $65.98 EVGA E-GEFORCE 8600GTS 675MHZ 256MB 2.0GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV Out DIRECTX10 Video CardIn Stock23716 $169.76 $169.76 Antec Sonata III Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 500W 120MM FanIn Stock24294 $117.06 $117.06 Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R ATX LGA775 Conroe P35 DDR2 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 SATA RAID Sound GBLAN Motherboard* Please Note that this item is currently backordered but will be charged to your account during order processing and will ship when stock arrives. Order can be cancelled and charges reversed in full upon request before shipment.Backorder24650 $133.03 $133.03 Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB ATA100 7200RPM 8MB 8.5MS Hard Drive OEM RoHS 5YEAR MFR WarrantyIn Stock16407 $56.82 $56.82 Pioneer DVR-112D Black DVD-RW 18X6X18 DVD+RW 18X8X18 DL 10X IDE OEM DVD Burner No SoftwareIn Stock22862 $32.43 $32.43 Logitech Office Pro Keyboard Black PS/2 W/ Multimedia Keys & Detachable Palm Rest OEMIn Stock15923 $12.03 $12.03 OCZ X-750 Equalizer Laser Gaming Mouse 2500DPI USB Dual Laser EngineIn Stock22874 $26.68 $26.68 Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 Dual Core Processor LGA775 1.8GHZ 800FSB 1MB RetailIn Stock24577 $86.11 $86.11 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro LGA775 2500RPM 45CFMIn Stock17225 $22.04 $22.04 Check to delete an itemYOUR TOTAL$721.94

All that + 50 or 25 bucks for them to build it for you. And there you go, a good overclocking/gaming machine. Get rid of keyboard and mouse (if you already have them) and then processor to upgrade to the E6550 if you want a good system without overclock.

But a true gamer, would find more intertainment if they tweaked and overclocked their system. Not to mention, the 8600gts has a lot of overclock potential. As the system is not gonna play all upcoming games on highest (due to video card), it will be enough to play titles like Crysis, and GEARS of war on resolutions such as 1280x1024 and or widescreen like 1440x768 or whatever, with decent frame rates, at mid-high details.

Do not worry, motherboard and ram I selected, would be more then enough to get that bad boy processor, to at least 2.5ghz without hassle, and a good 1200 or more FSB, so you get more performance at the end. Only downfall, is the 1mb total ram.

sepheronX

Let's say he's not very experienced and doesn't do overclocking, you don't need expensive RAM, value RAM would do fine being cheaper. Those tight timings don't mean spit in real world performance.

Only downfall, is the 1mb total ram.

sepheronX

I built my own PC by just shopping around I didn't use any of those we build it places becuase they will take twice as much money as the thing actually costs. You will want to do some research. Remeber that the highest of the high end items are only marginally better that componets half their cost in some cases.

Some examples would be: You don't need a quad core processor since nothing is optimized for it yet. That $400videocard isn't much different than the $600 one. The $600 card is better but I doubt you will notice the difference.

A last note is the ammount of memory is on of the most important aspects. If you can afford it get 4GB of memory you will notice difference. I wouldn't go lower than 2GB of memory.

[QUOTE="sepheronX"]

Only downfall, is the 1mb total ram.

BirdofP

I built my own PC by just shopping around I didn't use any of those we build it places becuase they will take twice as much money as the thing actually costs. You will want to do some research. Remeber that the highest of the high end items are only marginally better that componets half their cost in some cases.

Some examples would be: You don't need a quad core processor since nothing is optimized for it yet. That $400videocard isn't much different than the $600 one. The $600 card is better but I doubt you will notice the difference.

A last note is the ammount of memory is on of the most important aspects. If you can afford it get 4GB of memory you will notice difference. I wouldn't go lower than 2GB of memory.

4GB is too extreme...won't even work in a 32-bit environment since 32-bit OS's detect up to 3.5GB and 4GB may cause problems.

3GB is optimal and good enough for Vista, 2GB is enough for XP as of now.

If you have a 64-bit OS it can handle 4GB I was simply saying you might as well get what you can becuase programs are getting bigger. DEFINITELY get more than 1GB. I have 1GB and have moments where I want to low my PC up when I have all those pesky background programs running.BirdofP

Yes, I know 64-bit OS's can handle more but like you said with the quad core CPU's nothing takes advantage of that much RAM or processing horse power at the moment, so it would be a waste of money. Those pesky un-needed programs can be disabled using System Configuration Utility (start > run > msconfig).