I never noticed any ghosting on the monitor, but I don't claim to be an expert. I'll just say it's the best monitor I've owned.

Also, if you're looking to pull the trigger on graphics soon, there's a 5870 on newegg for $200 right now (after $30 MIR). It's not the newest generation, but it's pretty beefy for the price.

Edit: As far as legal copies of windows go, the only thing I can recommend is to check if your school is a member of MSDN Academic Alliance and if your department is part of it. I'm not sure how to check; I only learned about it because a friend told me.

 

MSI Radeon HD 6850 1GB PCI Express Video Card $143 after $30 rebate + Free Shipping

Slickdeals.net front page ^.^

 

1. Use Newegg. Really, it's the best place to buy parts from unless you have a TigerDirect near you.

2. i5 is a great processor, but you'd still get off of quite a bit for the mobo. DDR3 prices have gone down, though.

3. I always stick with Nvidia (EVGA) for my GPUs, Corsair for my PSU, Gigabyte/Asus for the mobo, and Western Digital for the HDD. That's just me, though, but it gives you an idea of some good brands to look at.

 

After three or four bad WD hard drives, I've switched exclusively to Seagate. One of the drives I have is three years old, and still being used for most of my storage.

In any case, I second the Nvidia and Asus recommendations and toss in Geil for memory.

 

0.o complete opposite of me. Seagate has been unlucky for me, I've had 2 doa and another went kaput after only 6 months. My Wd's fail consistently after 3 years, a couple months after warranty runs out -.-

 

I'm a bit late to the party, but here's what I'd do for your price range:

i5-2500k + ASUS P8P67: $389.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.575884

XFX HD6850 (with lifetime warranty): $194.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150515

HAF 912: $49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233

Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB: $69.99-$15 promo code = $54.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

GSKILL ECO 4GB (DDR-1333, CL7): $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231318

Silverstone 700W PSU (80+ Silver, modular): $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256035

Cheap SATA DVD burner (can't forget this): $16.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

With shipping and the promo code, it comes in right at $900. You can shave some off by using the Corsair PSU (-$10), downgrading the RAM a bit (-$30), using a GTX 460 (-$50ish for the 1GB version), using a different 6850 card (-$15) or by compromising a bit on parts like the case and getting something with a sweet combo deal (the HAF has combos with CM PSUs, but those are generally not seen as high quality). The other way to do this is to find a PSU that you like and see if it has any good case deals with it.

I went with the i5 over the i7 for a couple reasons. First, very few apps will be able to use more than 4 cores, games especially. Some things (like video encoding) use a lot of CPU threads and will benefit from the hyperthreading, but if you won't be using highly threaded apps, then the extra $100 for the i7 isn't worth it.

4 gigs of RAM is more than enough for any program that the average user will run at home. That said, RAM prices have dropped dramatically in the past few months, with 8 gig kits now going for what 4 gig kits used to, so it's up to you.

The Windows 7 Pro student deal was still around last I checked (a couple months ago). The website advertises it as just an upgrade, but apparently you can get the full version for the same price ($60 or $70 iirc) if you call Microsoft and ask about it. Pro has almost all the features of Ultimate; it's just missing some extra language support and a couple high level security features.

 

Oops, I goofed on the 460. The one that was $149 after rebate was the SE model, which has a lower clock rate and fewer processor cores than the normal 1GB version and the 768 MB version. You can get the Superclocked 1 GB (normal version, lifetime warranty) for $184.99 after rebates though (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130568).

I've heard mixed results with people installing the upgrade as a full version. Some people can get it to work, others can't. Iirc from threads I read a few months back, there's some special order of things you have to go through in order to make it work. I'd definitely look it up.

The beauty of building a system with the current core-i series (the 2xxx) is that they all share the same chipset (1155), and thus, use the same motherboards. So, in three years, if you find that you do actually need the hyperthreading support, you can pick up the i7 and drop it into your system with no cross-compatibility issues. It will likely be cheaper then, too. For what you're doing now, 4 cores is sufficient.

You likely won't notice the difference between 1600 and 1333 RAM, and the ones that I recommended are pretty easily overclockable since they run at low voltages and have nice, tight timings (if you choose to go that route). You should be able to bump them up to run at 1600 fairly easily

 

MS Student Discount site (requires a valid .edu e-mail address): http://www.microsoft.com/student/office/en-us/default.aspx

$80 for Office is a screaming deal.

(For UK DLPer's: http://www.software4students.co.uk/)

 

the 2500k SB recently beat out the old i7 980 in benchmarks.

I would recommend a good PSU..seasonic/corsair..preferably modular but they are of course more expensive.

For your mobo..the Asus p67 is bugged! Loads of problems with it. Personally I would go for something like the MSI GD65.

GFX- The nvidia 560GTI..when OCed comes close to the 570..

RAM- 4GB DDR3 should be enough for now. in the UK it's easily gotten for £70 but you can get 8GB for £115

A Samsung F3 1TB thrown in, along with a BD-ROM, if you fancy something like that.

Cases for a budget build would be up to you. If you plan OCing, don't forget a CPU Cooler.

As mentioned previously in others' replies, SB based systems are the best bang for buck. Anything else and you'd be wasting your money.

 

Rhett: it's generally a good idea to actually read the whole thread before you post in it. We've already covered virtually everything you talked about. The graphics card you recommended is about the only thing worth mentioning (it's an excellent card), though it may drive the system a bit over budget.

Blu-Ray drives are basically worthless for computers. You can't see the difference in the quality on your average computer monitor, and games aren't bing distributed on blu-ray yet. The only reasons to get a blu-ray drive are if you get a 3-D monitor setup and want to use your computer to watch 3-D movies, or if you burn things to blu-ray.

 

Fair enough mate..but I did suggest quite a few different things compared to the other posts. eg Mobo, PSU, Gfx.

You do make a good point about blu-ray, but I guess it does depend on the guy's monitor, although I beg to differ on the noticeable quality. I was watching a DVD the other day and then watched a Blu-ray of the same movie and even on my laptop (which came with inbuilt blu-ray) there was a noticeable difference. And there's always the big screen to connect to. lol

And whoever suggested the 460, I'd agree if the guy can't fit in a 560 in his budget. ATI just can't compete right now with NVIDIA.

 

Do you have a source on the glitchiness of the Asus P67 board? I haven't heard anything about that.

I already said that the graphics card you mentioned was a good addition; it probably would have been mentioned if it had been released when this thread was started two weeks ago.

PSUs have been discussed in a fair amount of depth. No one mentioned Seasonic, true, but all of the other brands discussed (Corsair, Silverstone, Antec) are of similar quality. The benefits of modular vs. non were talked about as well. In my experience, Seasonic tends to be a little pricey for a $900 (with OS) build anyways.

For AMD vs nVidia, I'd actually say that they're pretty much neck-and-neck right now. Balance of power might be slightly shifted towards nVidia atm because they kicked off with their high end 500-series cards while AMD started with the low to mid range 6000-series cards, but it's definitely a lot more balanced than it was 6 months ago, when nVidia had nothing that could really stand up to the 5000 series cards (pre-460). That's not to say that the 460 isn't still a great card, but it is far from outclassing the similarly-priced AMD products. 460 vs 68xx is a pretty level playing field.

Blu-ray is a largely personal preference thing. I don't recommend it because the cost isn't justified. You wouldn't have to spend much more to buy a dedicated blu-ray player, which will be much simpler to deal with compared to hooking your desktop up to your TV. The only reasons to buy a blu-ray drive for your computer instead of a dedicated blu-ray player are if you don't have a TV and want to watch blu-rays or if you'll be using the blu-ray burner, or perhaps if you use your TV as your computer monitor. Additionally, when you're dealing with a sub-$1000 budget, adding something like a blu-ray drive means cutting something else down - your cpu or your graphics probably.

 

http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=45971

The link above is to an IT retailor's forum regarding the Asus P67. I've also read of issues regarding the ASUS mobos on other tech forums.

 

www.bit-tech.net posts monthly guides at 3-price points that are generally excellent choices.

I would, however, hold off on bying as the new Sandy Bridge processors are significantly better than the previous generation. It is not just the expected increase that you get from the next generation, it is more of a leap forward.

Just of the key points is using a dedicated portion of the silicone to handle video (encoding, etc) rather than just using the general processors.

 

That really sucks. Boo to Intel.

Anyways, you can still get the RAM if you want to go with the "buy everything I can get now" scenario (unless the RAM was part of your combo deal) since the type of RAM needed won't change.

What I would do personally is wait until late February and see if you can snag one of the fixed motherboards when they're released. If you can't, then I'd start looking at cheap processors and motherboards. AMD Athlon II x3 and x4 models would be a good place to start; they use AM3 motherboards, which can be had for as low as $50-$80, the processors are typically sub-$100 as well, and they use the same dual channel DDR3 RAM as the Sandy Bridge processors.

On the mechanical keyboard front, I don't have anything for you. They're increasingly hard to find, especially for under $50. The only keyboard that I know for sure is mechanical will run you $130.

 

This appears to be the state of things. I remembered reading someone talking about mechanical keyboards and this is what they listed:

http://www.daskeyboard.com/
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html

Second place doesn't look so reputable...>.>