I'm planning on building a new system, for approximately 700 USD. Because I'm in NZ, newegg deals don't apply as newegg doesn't ship internationally.

I need a tower and screen. Peripherals like mice, keyboards etc aren't a problem. There's a good chance parts cost a bit more in NZ, so cutting costs a bit is good. No OS or CoA needed.

Can someone like Ex help me out? Thanks in advance.

Have you already looked in other threads that Ex has posted in and attempted to find deals on NZ-friendly sites? I usually use NewEgg and TigerDirect for my computer needs, and luckily TigerDirect ships internationally so you may want to look there for some stuff.

I wish I could be more helpful, but I'm at work now and can't start looking up stuff yet. If no one else helps, I can do it tonight when I get home.

Anything listed on here is good. Some are better than others. Come up with a few options, then compare them. There's a few obvious jokes, so don't take it too seriously. If you want a workstation, go for a quad core intel with a light graphics card. If you want a gaming computer, go for an AMD dual core with a heavy graphics card. If you want a mix, and/or intel quad cores are too expensive, AMD quad cores are cheap as hell now. Triple and quad core really do help tremendously in multithreaded programs and if you want to multitask while encoding/running a processor intensive task. If the most intensive thing you do is watch HD video, onboard graphics are fine.

I'd research some prices on various parts, and buy according to your maximum.

You should probably invest like this:
CPU: 20%
GFX: 20%
Mobo: 15%
Case: 15% <-can go much lower, I just like nice cases
RAM: 10%
PSU: 10%
HDD: 10%

Subtract out the screen before you do this obviously. The screen would be whatever you can find that fits your desired resolution. In a low end system, the CPU/GFX/Mobo will cost less percentage wise. Higher end they will cost more. Ridiculous end is just ridiculous, where everything is simply overpriced.

OK thanks guys, I'll research some stuff.

First of all the image rockz posted is dead wrong. Usually that guide is good, but right now, it is WRONG. The market is in a very odd, transitional place, and the i5/i7 still isn't viable over LGA775 alternatives. However if DDR2 keeps going up and DDR3 keeps going down, it may be right in 3-5 weeks.

Being that you're in NZ, I'm going to specialize this a bit.

Keep in mind all prices are absolute maximums. All items should be below the recommended max price.

DVD
What you want: A generic SATA interface DVD burner.
What you should pay for it: No more than 40$
Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289

Case
What you want: A CM RC590 or 690 case.
What you should pay for it: No more than 70$ for the 590, 80$ for the 690
Example: 590 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119152 690 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137

CPU
What you want: If you feel comfortable overclocking, get an E8400. If you don't, and want a system that will last you a very long time, get a Q9550.
What you should pay for it: No more than 170$ for an E8400, and no more than 260$ for a Q9550.
Example: E8400 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037 Q9550 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041
Note: If you can find an E8200 or E8300 for less, like 90-130$, grab it, as they'll OC almost as high and you'll save a bit of money. I wish Newegg still offered them.

HDD
What you want: A Western Digital Caviar Black. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTIONS.
What you should pay for it: 65$ max for the 500GB model. Add 10-15$ for each model up. (640GB, 750GB)
Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320

Motherboard
What you want: An ASUS P5 series or a Gigabyte UD3 series P45 motherboard. ATX ONLY. NO MINIATX OR SMALL FORM FACTORS.
What you should pay for it: 80-100$ depending. (P5Q, P5Q SE, UD3R, UD3L)
Example: UD3L http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128372 P5Q SE + http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131347

RAM
What you want: A 2x2GB DDR2 1066 kit with no greater than 6 latency. Heat spreaders are a MUST.
What you should pay for it: 60-100$ (RAM is getting expensive. :C) Try to get a quality brand like G.Skill, Patriot, or Corsair. Mushkin is fine too but usually overpriced.
Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220426

GPU
What you want: An HD4850 or HD4870, must be 1GB model.
What you should pay for it: Maximum of 120$ for 4850, 160$ for 4870
Example: 4850 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129138 4870 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436

Power Supply
What you want: A NAME BRAND PSU of no less than 550w and no more than 700w.
What you should pay for it: 60-80$
Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341022
Note: Good brands include Corsair, SeaSonic, some OCZ (Check with me), and Antec.

Monitor
What you want: A 20-26" monitor capable of 1920x1200 @ 5ms (2ms GTG)
What you should pay for it: No more than 300$
Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236047

I didn't check the final price, I just gave you good parts for a cost effective build. The monitor almost definitely brings you over 700$, but quite frankly, I doubt you're going to be able to make a good build for under 550-600$, monitor excluded. So unless you can snag a good monitor for 100-150$, you might be out of luck.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 12 2009, 5:38 am by Excalibur.

Does monitor response time matter much if I won't be playing any FPSs at any high level?
Anyway, thanks very much Ex.

If you aren't playing FPSs I'd say just get something with a nice big resolution and say fuck all to latency.

Ok. Two more things, are second hand monitors OK? And will current mobo sockets work with Sandy Bridge?

1. Depends. Where are you getting them from?
2. None.

Probably from online auction sites. Main thing I wanna know about them is if it makes much difference a year old to brand new. I wouldn't buy any older than a year.

It doesn't really matter if its a year or two old, just make sure it has a DVI-D (Not just DVI, DVI-D) and/or an HDMI port, and a resolution over 1280x1024. 1280x1024 is the new 800x600.

Edit: Oh and rockz's image did have a point I'd like to point out:

"It's over. Nvidia is finished."

Ex, explain to me how a $200 processor which is better on almost every benchmark is worse than a $330 processor?
Not entirely true. Borderlands completely owns ATi graphics. There's certain games which ATi just does not play well, mainly due to driver issues. I've never used nVidia cards due to bad experiences (none of them ever worked), so I can't comment on nVidia's drivers, but apparently nVidia has the benefit of open source (ie, linux) drivers, and better performance on a large number of games. Both companies tend to cheat, however, by using optimizations for games, which you can get around by renaming the .exe file. It's a long drawn out war that will never really end, but ATi's drivers can really only get better. When it comes down to it, the market does a good job of balancing out which cards are better than others due to the price changing. In all honesty, the g92 8800 GT 512 MB is still one hell of a card (and performs better on borderlands than a 4870, I think).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 12 2009, 6:13 am by rockz.

First of all, I'm recommending a 9550, not a 9650. Check the price difference. Second, I do not, will not, can not, support the i5 platform because it only supports dual channel DDR3. I will not invest money nor the money of others in a technology platform that was born crippled. DDR3 was made for triple channel and any system not using it in triple channel is a complete and utter waste.

You can cite all the specific games you want. Overall NV is having a very bad time right now, and I can't think of a single price segment in which I would recommend their products. Note that I've been saying this for over a year. Maybe its time they switch to making baby bottles.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 12 2009, 6:15 am by Excalibur.

You do know that the pentium line is just a crippled core 2 duo, right? And that the Quad core processors for the LGA 775 are just two dual cores put together? That would mean it's a crippled quad core by nature. Yet they are still perfectly viable processors. DDR3 was made to allow for triple channel. If it were made FOR triple channel then we would only have 1 stick which has 3 channels. Just because something is crippled doesn't mean it's still not good. DDR3 outperforms DDR2 by a significant amount, and trying to say DDR2/LGA 775 is better because it DOESN'T have triple channel is ridiculous.

I am not recommending i7 until DDR2 hits 125$ for 4GB or i7s drop below 175$. I will never recommend an i5, end of story.

2-3 years ago nVidia was the sole leader in graphics cards. They will come back just like ATi.
I hope I can keep my 9600GT until that happens.

Can't find any of the four processors you said there for anywhere near cheap enough. I'll go check what it'd cost with international shipping.

I can get the Western Digital Caviar Black for 66USD 500GB, so all good there. PSU shouldn't be a problem, nor DVD drive. Still working on the rest.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-1333MHz-LGA775-BX80570E8400/dp/B00116SLYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258042640&sr=8-1

Eh, TigerDirect prices them at $10 more than what Ex said to pay. They usually have pretty good deals; how disappointing.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3574211&CatId=2396
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3952342&CatId=2758

$200 Bad monitor, there's a decent viewsonic for $300
>$100 e6300 (fan is $5 extra)
>$130 P43 chipset (not sure if p45 is worth it, also didn't look very hard)
- OR -
>$140 Propus (for multitasking if you encode/decode, do lots of stuff at the same time)
>$150 Gigabyte 785G. I'm not sure how crossfire X works, but the 785G graphics are the 2nd best onboard you can get (790 is best). This is also an awesome motherboard in general.
$90 Caviar Black 500 GB You already found this though.
$86 Silverstone 500W. Pcpacific didn't have anything I saw outright. You might try oczone for the others I've recommended. There are plenty others. Stay away from Antec Basiq.
$153 4850 1GB With a 1 GB graphics card, you're going to want a 64 bit OS. If you get a 512, you can still deal with 32 bit. The difference between 1 GB and 512 MB isn't noticeable until you hit AA/AF and high resolutions with multiple buffering.
- OR -
$147 4770 512 MB
Total: $753 - $819, add $100 for better monitor, case not included (shipping is real expensive, so I'm expecting ~$50+ including case). I'm assuming your limit is $1000.

Use staticice to compare prices for NZ. From briefly looking, it seems pcpacific and OC Zone are the best nz sites.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 12 2009, 7:19 pm by rockz.

What about the ram? Some DDR2 for the Intel-based board or likely some DDR3 for the AMD-based board. The page for that AMD-based board has some conflicting information, so I'm not 100% sure whether it is a DDR3 board (but it is likely that it is) - namely that it says it supports socket AM2/AM2+, but DDR3 boards support socket AM3 processors only and are not backward compatible. This needs some confirmation from elsewhere whether that specific board is for DDR3. I'm thinking that the AMD 785G was for AM3 only, but I don't know for certain.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 12 2009, 9:13 pm by ShadowFlare.