Being slightly fed up with sitting on an old laptop, I'm now thinking about getting something new. Since I already need to get a new laptop for my wife and just one computer isn't enough, I thought about building a desktop system instead of getting two laptops.
Basically, I'm looking for best value/performance ratio in a desktop system. The reason why I'm asking for suggestions or advice is because after sitting on laptops and not playing anything more demanding than Lusternia I'm no longer certain what is too little and where to cut corners.

As much as I would like to make an i7 system, that's really out of my range. CPU itself isn't that bad but when you add a decent motherboard and the more expensive DDR3 memory modules it really starts to hurt.

Instead at the moment I'm thinking about turning to the dark side and get something like this.
AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition (capability and ease of OCing plays a role here)
GigaByte MA790FX-DS5 (possibly the best AMD board in that price range?)
4Gb (2*2Gb) 1066Mhz RAM (bare minimum for modern day standard?)
TOTAL so far: ~$400

That's the basics more or less sorted, everything else will be added in "cheaper is better" mode.
Biggest problem is the GPU. Last one I owned... don't laugh... had 64Mb of RAM. What's the bare minimum I should go for? Do note, I don't plan playing Call of Duty or whatever in highest level of detail. I'm aiming at something low-end that still can handle a leeeetle bit of gaming. Was thinking about something like HD3650 Radeon.

Everything else is more or less clear, well, everything besides the PSU, you reckon ~550W is enough?



Thanks for any replies I might get!

When I went to build my work machine, I was told that AMD isn't like it usd to be, and you are better off with an asus motherboard and an Intel chip.

If you can find a GPU with 256 MB that fits your motherboard, go for it, otherwise you will need 512.

edit: and the machine I built was $600 (well really my brother in law built it... who has time to build computers these days?)

I would suggest C2D E7xxx, but if you really feel like you need 4 cores then Phenoms are cheaper than Intel's quads.
GPU: nvidia's 8800GT/9800GT 512/1024 or ati's 4850/4870 (I'd go for nvidia, ati always seems to have more issues with drivers and compatibility).
550W is more than enough. If it's a good psu of a trustworthy brand that is.

@daganev:
Ehh... It's the same as with everything else really. Someone will say that Mercedes is the best, other that BMW is. Similar with AMD and Intel.
True, lately AMD has been struggling in the battle with Intel and most of their products do not deliver same power as a similar Inter product. However, AMD offers lower prices, at least offering some options for people on budget. As for Asus and their boards, that's always a solid choice. However, in this particular case a board that would be on par with the Gigabyte one would cost me at least extra $40.
And, heh, I do have the time to build a system. Hell, I'm even thinking about getting a laptop barebone and building it myself, which while a waste of time, is fun and you save something like $50+(multiply by two if it's a Sony and by three or four if it's Apple) by not having a brandname printed on it.

@Kashim:
Did a small research and something like E7300 costs about $30 less than a Phenom 9600 BBE. Is $30 really enough to justify buying a dual core CPU with 2.66Mhz instead of getting a 2.3GHz quad-core which has all multipliers and voltages unlocked and can be overclocked up to 3.0Ghz with just air cooling? Dunno, I'm leaning towards the unlocked quad personally. Then again, the Intel one would most likely allow me to get a slightly cheaper and still decent board and save on a cooler, cause kit coolers are never really good for tampering with CPU.
Yeah, ATi's dirver problems where sort of legendary for a while, with Linux almost being a no-go zone, unless you got lucky and your card was supported or some good soul had made 3rd party drivers. The reason I was considering a Radeon was the fact that ATi owned by AMD, so it's their chip on a card that goes in a board with AMD chip in it and AMD CPU. Dunno, chances are it's my weird sense of... what's the right word... order, heh.
As far as PSU goes, I think I was looking at an OCZ one, though chances are it was something eles. But yes, I know that it's better to get a slightly more expensive PSU than some mystical creation that comes in kit with the case. Well, I figured 550 should be enough, even though the Phenom is a fucking powerwhore.

Thanks for the input.
Any more thoughts anyone?

I recently built an amd machine (AMD phenom black quad core) with a asus crosshair II formula, and it's fantastic. I don't know why people complain about AMD, to be honest with you, but most complaints about them are just silly (and usually just from intel fanatics).

XClio makes a full atx tower that features dual 250mm fans (one on the front blowing on the drive bay, and one on the side blowing on the motherboard) with a 120mm exhaust fan. It keeps my system very cool without the need for alternate cooling systems.

I meant the saving on cooler and just using kit one in case I do get a C2D E7xxx as Kashim suggested. If I'm getting a BE Phenom it would be silly to leave it running with defaults, when everything is unlocked and just waits to be fiddled with. And likewise it would be silly to use a kit cooler which puts quite a limit on overclocking (even extra 200Mhz makes it unstable?). Hrm, come to think of it... does BE actually come with a kit cooler?

Case will be a minor problem since the choice in this part of the world is quite limited. You can either get things like Zalman and Thermaltake cases, which normally costs a ton and then you sort of jump into the noname low end. There are a few decent options in the middle there, but again, either they're ugly, or cost little bit too much. What I think I'll do is settle for nice and discreet ASUS case. Asus ATX-TAD311 has actually caught my eye

You said overclocking, I said Intel.

Hrm, good point... back to Auntie Google!
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Heh, looks like some sick people have pushed that poor E7300 to 4Ghz, tee hee. Hrm!

I was told not to get AMD from a person who fixes computers for a living, and sees more AMDs he has to fix than Intels.

It's just like the advice not to buy things from Fry's even if its a known name brand, because odds are its more likely to break.

Sounds far-fetched, although a few years back there used to be a video about thermal safeguards. Two rigs, Pentium and some AMD cpu based, were running Quake 3 (I think) naked, no heat dissipation. Pentium based rig just started to glitch and froze, while AMD started to generate smoke. But they were some old generation cpus, like Pentium 2 or 3 times.

This might interest you - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-2...clock,2113.html

Its not far fetched at all. Inorder to get the same performance from an intel computer and an AMD computer for similiar prices, you have to overclock the AMD, which increases chances of the computer failing.

I have my phenom BE overclocked to about 3.2gHz/core. I run it day and night, and the temperature stays constant.

I myself have been building and fixing my computers for years, worked with a wide selection of intel and amd cores, and I have never noticed a significant difference between the two breakage wise. Certain implementations of each company (example: intels older Celeron cpus) will fail far more often than other cpus, but brand to brand I think they're equally stable. The failures that I do see between them are generally due to poor installation, poor installation of thermal compound, or overclocking past what the cooling system is capable of handling... and it's about equal between both AMD and Intel.

That said: right now the Intels are faster, and if you buy the highest possible end of the Intel they have slightly better memory handling. Most of the time, that extra speed will be bottlenecked by the southbridge anyways, meaning you don't generally see the difference. This, of course, can be avoided by carefully choosing a motherboard and getting top speed RAM. I would argue that they're not $1000 worth of faster, though.

Good that means you soundly know what you are doing. Not everybody knows what they are doing.

Thank for the input everyone. Although I'm still torn here, heh

Isuka, which Phenom do you run? Since you're saying you built it eight months ago I would guess it's the 9950BE since PhenomII wasn't available then and I can't imagine 9600 or 9850 running at 3.2Ghz.

I'm actually running the Phenom 9850BE (2.5ghz standard) on ASUS Crosshair II Formula nForce 780a SLI Motherboard.

You'd be surprised how well the phenoms overclock, if you watch your cooling.

Are you calling 2.5 -> 3.2 good?

Anyway, here are some oc statistics: http://www.hwbot.org/hardware.processors.do

I fully intend to take it to 4.0, or more if i can get it, when I get my hands on a liquid cooling system. Or at least until I can afford another CPU if I do burn this one out.

link is broken