Thinking of building a new rig

[Xeogred]

First time doing this so any suggestions and tips I can get will be appreciated. I spent about $500 on this slim machine I got two or three years ago and it got the job done for awhile, but it's still not great. But now I've got some money saved up and I'd definitely like to build a PC that can handle anything out there right now at ease.

So what's the best game to benchmark for? BF3?

Who's on top right now and affordable, ATI or nVidia? I've used both in the past, so I have no major preference.

All that said I think my budget will still be about $1,000 or so. I'll want Win7 but maybe my friends can help me do something about that. Monitor, keyboard, and mouse can all probably wait so that's not a big deal either, though I'll need a case. I know I want tons of HDD space though... I'm just a PC pack rat with so many externals, so I'm thinking like 6-8TB or something and that would probably work lol. But other than that, yeah. I'm hoping to build a high performance gaming PC with a fair budget.

So... where to start? I googled around Tom's Hardware but didn't really see any suggestions for my price range. I don't want to go too cheap or drop gold here, but yeah hopefully I can build something that'll be a little future proof, or perhaps all I'll need down the road would be some gfx card replacing.

[gtmtnbiker]

I suggest reading the hotdeals section of slickdeals.net to look for posts on deals for computer parts. You'll save money by getting parts that are on sale and/or have rebates.

If you have a Microcenter nearby, they usually have the best prices on the CPU and you get additional savings by getting a motherboard along with it.

An i5 2500 will be plenty for you.

I highly recommend getting two drives. An SSD (solid state drive) around 128GB or more for your operating system boot drive and then a regular drive for your data.

I can't offer any advice on graphic cards. In my HTPC & my desktop, I'm using integrated graphics (Intel HD2000 for the i3 in the HTPC, Intel HD3000 for the i5). It's fine for what I do. I can always add a graphics card down the road if I so desire.

[Erik_Twice]

For that money you can buy a triplehead setup. So why not get one?

[Xeogred]

I doubt I'd make use of that...

I suggest reading the hotdeals section of slickdeals.net to look for posts on deals for computer parts. You'll save money by getting parts that are on sale and/or have rebates.

If you have a Microcenter nearby, they usually have the best prices on the CPU and you get additional savings by getting a motherboard along with it.

An i5 2500 will be plenty for you.

I highly recommend getting two drives. An SSD (solid state drive) around 128GB or more for your operating system boot drive and then a regular drive for your data.

I can't offer any advice on graphic cards. In my HTPC & my desktop, I'm using integrated graphics (Intel HD2000 for the i3 in the HTPC, Intel HD3000 for the i5). It's fine for what I do. I can always add a graphics card down the road if I so desire.

I do have Microcenter around. I still think most of my friends just go with newegg though, but I'm not sure.

Yeah it seems like i7's can't be fully utilized right now or something, so it's sounding like an i5 would be fine.

Any reason on the separate OS drive recommendation? I guess I can see how it's not a bad idea though.

[AppleQueso]

Any reason on the separate OS drive recommendation? I guess I can see how it's not a bad idea though.

Way faster booting and if you need to reinstall the OS you won't have to worry about backing up all your other files first?

$1000 should be able to get you one hell of a system i'd think. Mine was like $250 and half the parts are hand-me-downs.

[isiolia]

Actually, they just posted a $1k gaming PC article on Tom's (here) - though I'm not sure it's the best route to take. It doesn't include the cost of Windows, and basically blows half the budget on the GPU. If all you'll use the machine for is gaming, that might be a good route to go. If you want better day-to-day, eating into the GPU budget for a better CPU and an SSD might be preferable.

You probably don't want to work much storage into the build. HDD prices are coming back down, slowly, but the kind of storage you're talking is still going to cost a few hundred in and of itself. Could also consider repurposing your current system as a file server if you have other stuff that'll be accessing it.

So what's the best game to benchmark for? BF3?

Realistically...what you'll be playing on the system. BF3 is probably a good one for a game that can actually run well. Metro 2033 is still one of the more taxing games out there to run at full settings. It still takes fairly high end cards to squeak into a solid 60fps at 1080p+ As does Crysis: Warhead. That said, I get more of the impression that those games just aren't that optimally coded at heart. Arkham City isn't a bad benchmark either, as the DX11 variant (at least) isn't a complete gimmie like Asylum was to run (at least at higher resolutions).

Who's on top right now and affordable, ATI or nVidia? I've used both in the past, so I have no major preference.

Depends on what you mean by affordable

nVidia is doing quite well this round, but right now they've got little in the under-$400 segment (just put out a low end card, little in the midrange). Plus very little supply for the GTX670 and 680 at their $400 and $500 MSRPs. The GTX 660 is probably going to be great, but it's not out yet (probably in the next few months).

AMD, on the other hand, actually has their $250 card (7850), which is a fairly solid value, and the 7870 is in the low $300s.

IMO, there's really no clear winner or loser right now. nVidia does have the better reputation for drivers, but I've personally had little issue with AMD cards. Probably mostly a matter of budget. I'd definitely favor nVidia cards over the $400 mark, but below it could go either way. The 7800 series tend to trade blows with the 570/580, depending on game/resolution, and are generally cheaper. Below $200 you're probably looking at last-gen cards from either.

[CRTGAMER]

Any reason on the separate OS drive recommendation? I guess I can see how it's not a bad idea though.

Way faster booting and if you need to reinstall the OS you won't have to worry about backing up all your other files first?

THIS.

You could even take it a step further and place the C Drive in a removable bay. Different Boot drives for systems you choose such as DOS, Win98, WinXP and Win7. D drive is internal to share the common files.

[sabrage]

-i5. i7 is significantly more expensive for a very small increase in power.
-4-8 gigs of DDR3. Make sure your motherboard supports it. You can easily tell a RAM's quality by its PC number (e.g. PC10600); the higher the number, the faster the RAM.
-Whatever the best-reviewed ~$100 Gigabyte, Asus, maybe EVGA is. Might want to consider SLI compatibility, but you'll probably want to buy a bigger (full tower) case in that case (bleh). If that's the case, you need a PCIx16
-560ti. AMD is NOT worth the drivers if you're a gamer, trust me, and PhysX is a nice feature. Maybe step up to the 600 series if you can afford it.
-Antec 900 is a fantastic case. Stupid amounts of airflow for a decent price, but also a little loud. Here's a picture of mine. I think the 1200 is a step up. Also consider: Coolermaster, Lian Li is by far the most aesthetically pleasing but also expensive.
-Wireless card? People seem to forget this. I have a Netgear and it works fine, but you should probably go with Cisco/Linksys for the best drivers, reliability, customer support and probably speed.
-CPU cooler: This one don't go with the stock one, it's awful. Even if you aren't overclocking. Get some Arctic Silver too (then use it to fix RROD'd Xboxes)
-Do you really need more HDDs? You will NOT get 6-8 terabytes with a $1000 budget unless you already have them. Otherwise, just get the best deal on a Western Digital or Seagate that you can, and an SSD is a great thing to consider right now if you don't need more platter-based hard drives (as prices are still somewhat inflated due to last year's flooding).
-Don't forget your SATA cables, and to make sure that your motherboard has as many SATA/USB inputs as you need.
-Power supply: Corsair, Antec, Cooler Master again. You'll be fine with ~550w if you aren't planning to SLI, 650 to be absolutely safe. Make sure you get a "modular" power supply, meaning that you connect each molex cable individually. You'll thank me. There's also fancy "hybrid" power supplies these days that use both traditional fan-based cooling at high temperatures but can utilize solid-state cooling when you aren't pushing it. I think this makes them slightly more efficient as well as cuts down the noise they make.
-See if your school (if applicable) can help you get a cheap OS. Otherwise, go with an OEM disk, you'll probably only need Professional.

I will say that the next full build I do (not anytime soon...) will be geared towards making it as quiet as possible. I might even put my music on a central network and keep all my local storage solid-state, and I won't be getting anything with bright LEDs again because they really do get irritating. Cable management is a good skill to learn, I still haven't gotten the hang of it but /r/cableporn (yes that's a thing) might be a place to get some inspiration. As for your future monitor, if you don't plan on hooking up a PS3 to it, get a 16:10 for higher pixel density. Otherwise it'll distort your PS3's resolution and you want a 16:9 (which is also arguably the better format if you're going to be watching a lot of movies.) Good luck.

[gtmtnbiker]

Different Boot drives for systems you choose such as DOS, Win98, WinXP and Win7. D drive is internal to share the common files.

I don't think you'll really be able to do this. The issue will be driver support. You're not going to get drivers for the newest devices/chipsets for the older operating systems (dos/win98). Even XP is going to be dropped soon.

[CRTGAMER]

Different Boot drives for systems you choose such as DOS, Win98, WinXP and Win7. D drive is internal to share the common files.

I don't think you'll really be able to do this. The issue will be driver support. You're not going to get drivers for the newest devices/chipsets for the older operating systems (dos/win98). Even XP is going to be dropped soon.

I did the multi swap boot drives, but it is in an older Tower. A good point, DOS and maybe even Win98 may not work depending on what chipsets are used. The WinXP option as a clean second boot drive will be handy for the older non 64 bit games that refuse to work in Win7.