Em23 wrote...
There's so much stuff out there, I just have no idea whether they're good or not. If you could recommend a build or website with helpful advice on it all, or how to avoid newbie mistakes etc. that would be great.
Basically, I'm totally clueless and looking for a cheat sheet...
Well you gotta start somewhere, right? 
Yeah, you have to start somewhere I suppose, but honestly, if you don't have any experience with this sort of thing, it's best to get someone to either do it for you the first time, or preferably, show you how it's done so you can do it yourself eventually..
Unless you're very tech oriented, putting a computer together can be tricky for someone thats never done it before and you can make a lot of mistakes that can result in a dysfunctional computer, or even worse, permanently damage the components. Once you get the hang of it though, it becomes very easy. I don't even need to read the instruction manual most of the time because I'm so familiar with the steps involved.
Anyway, here's a good website with updated parts list for various builds depending on your budget. And here's a step by step guide on how to put the parts togetherNow, there are a few questions you need to answer so I can be of greater help to you. You say you're willing to spend a reasonable amount of money if it's worth it, so I take that to mean you want a mid range build that will last for a number of years am I right?
The build that Ringo 12 suggested is low end, so I don't think that would fit your needs. In the parts list that I gave you, there is a good mid range build that I think would be much better...though I would make a few changes personally.
Link to specific mid range build.
Out of all the parts listed there, the only ones I would change would be the video card, case and the power supply.
Lets start with the video card. The Sapphire Radeon 6950 is a good card, but I would swap it out for a GTX 570 if you have the money. Why? Because Nvidia cards have additional features like PhysX and 3D Vision which you may wish to eventually use (a growing list of titles take advantage of PhysX, for an example, see
here), and after all my years of being into computers, I've come to the conclusion that Nvidia makes slightly better graphics cards, and much better drivers than AMD.
A lot of people will agree with me, and a lot of people will disagree. It's one of those things that computer guys argue about constantly on the web..
Next is the case. The best mid range case imo is the venerable
Antec 900. Transparent side with lots of cooling and sexy looking blue LED fans, what more could you want?
Now for the power supply. This
is one of the best mid range power supplies available, and I recently used it in a computer I built for a friend. Corsair is well known for their quality and reliability, and this power supply is particularly tough as nails. It will take practically anything you can throw at it, and if you ever feel the need to expand your rig in the future, you can be sure that this power supply will not be inadequate.
A few other things like the SSD aren't really necessary. If you want to save money, I would start there. An SSD is nice, but a HDD will perform the same task for a much lower price, and much greater capacity.
Also, the monitor. The monitor in the parts list is an IPS monitor, which means it has very good image quality in terms of color accuracy, detail and viewing angles. For gaming however, it's not necessary. You can save money here by going with a cheaper TN monitor,
like this one. You will sacrifice some image quality and viewing angle, but will gain in response time.
Modifié par Carfax, 30 octobre 2011 - 12:15 .
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Read up on all the settings for the components you buy. Last thing you want to do is burn out your new GPU by having it set for the wrong voltage.
