Looking to Build a Desktop (First Time)

[justinkiller]

It will work, but you will have to buy a 3.5 to 2.5 hdd cage adapter, because that hdd is made for laptops.

 

[ll champion]

Not more difficult to upgrade at all. In high power gamong applications, more expensive intels will beat more expensive amds, but in a $500 rig, and in this case, i believe the amd is better. Games are more based off of gpus anyways. Plus the cpu i told you to use is a quad core, so applications that use multiple cores will fare better with it. You should be able to play most games on high setting, definately medium. I believe laptop just does not like amd, which is why he chose the intel.

He's right. AMD can beat Intel in the ~$100 chip range(Quad cores vs. i3), that processor should be able to do everything you need just fine. The GTX 550 ti does pretty well for it's $130 price, really nice card.

I would try to stick to popular brands, not saying that brand is crap or unreliable, but I don't really purchase hardware from an non-popular brand. That RAM is higher performance though.

I'd say it's pretty popular myself, it's sold from newegg too and has over 900 reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

 

[Sypherz]

If I wanted to skimp, could I get a crappy hdd like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/380448338880 and upgrade later?

 

[Laptop65]

If I wanted to skimp, could I get a crappy hdd like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/380448338880 and upgrade later?

Yeah, you could do that, although some newer motherboards now won't support the older IDE hard drives, although you can can get some sort of adapter for it.

As for the OS, the most common way is it is installed off a disk from which you boot of it from the BIOS (this is really easy to do). I would recommend Windows 7 x64. There are also 'ways' to get it without paying for it, but if you want the least hassle way then just buy a copy legit.

 

[SmperFidelis]

120GB HDD would probably be too small to start out with. I would personally attempt to get at least a 250 HDD.

And are you attempting to build a SATA or IDE computer? Haven't really read over your thread and the parts, but I'll take a look now.

 

[Sypherz]

Well I figured the hard drive is fairly easy to replace. And to be quite honest, I've only used 90gb on my laptop.

 

[justinkiller]

Use my build with a sata harddrive. You wont regret it, and its the best bang for your buck.

 

[Sypherz]

Alright then.
(I'm just trying to find ways to skimp out so I can afford it right now)

 

[justinkiller]

You can get on craigslist and find a hdd, or ebay it. Make sure you get a sata one, and youll be set.