Computer Building

+1 to 53's build but I would change one thing. For $20 more you can get the 4790K and the Z97 Extreme4 (combo deal from Microcenter). The CPU is .4GHz faster at stock and has the ability to overclock should you ever change your mind in the future.

This build is going to kick butt in a number of ways. I'll explain my reasoning below.

CPU: The i7-4790 is an awesome all-around i7, and while I would normally go with a Xeon it's a steal at only $250 at your local Microcenter and also has Intel HD graphics 4600. These should tide you over for a month or two until the new 380x/390x from AMD come out.

Motherboard: This is an amazing motherboard, with M.2 capabilities. M.2 is basically next-level storage, offering throughput of up to 10 GB/s.

Memory: For the price, that memory is INSANE! I'd buy it quickly before they run out of stock. CAS 8 1866 MHz RAM is awesomely fast.

Storage: Went with a lovely SATA III SSD here, a 256GB one from A-Data. It was only about $90. Also put in a 2TB HDD as you wanted, but a 1TB one will do the job fine as well.

Case: Went with the Enthoo Pro here. Excellent case, and has a lot of different options for cooling with fans. Also has awesome airflow and great aesthetics.

Power Supply: Simple, fully-modular, 80+ Gold, and 650w. What else could one ask for? Pretty future proof, considering the 390x is supposed to have a TDP of just under 200w, and I'd assume the 380x will have one lower than that.

ODD: Cheap and simple, functions as both a CD and DVD reader/writer.

Good luck with your build!

Nevermind just seen your post.

OK so maybe I was a little off on the part picking but hey, it's 02:49 AM and I've been busy all day.. you can't expect me to be wide-awake etc lol

Wait, just noticed you've been sneaky and swapped out the CPU for one $65 cheaper.

CPU: Cheaper
Motherboard: (More expensive but only by about $10 or $15)
RAM: Cheaper
HDD: Cheaper
GPU: Cheaper (just)
Case: More expensive.

Ok, I'm definitely off now.

But that was cheating!
I think the technical term for you in this situation is 'rekt'!

Ah, noticed a minor advantage with PCPP. It provides deals, such as the one in the link above, buy the motherboard and processor together and you could save about $10.

Well, combining my current list and PCPP's list, I'd say mine would turn out cheaper, but, it's 02:38 in the morning so I reckon my thinking is being affected. I'll call it draws with PCPP.

Edit: 1 last thing, buying parts as bulk saves on delivery, but if you can only pay up to... hmm, let's say $300 worth of parts per month, that's where manual searching comes in handy because it would probably be less effort to buy the parts separately than with PCPP.

With that, I'm heading off now. Almost 3 AM x_x

I congratulate your efforts but I decided to check up my parts in PCPP, and using similar parts (because the case wasn't there so I selected a 402-WB instead of 404-WB), it returned $4 more expensive. Not a huge deal but I still declare my manual searching cheaper. You also didn't use the exact same RAM, however I have. Nor graphics card, I have. Hard Drive is also a 1TB rather than 2TB which makes it cheaper.

I determine the technical term for this 'even', not 'rekt'. Because, I like to be fair, and I'll call it a draw between my searching and PCPP.

For reference: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2MvqVn

My bad. I've corrected it. New CPU is only $10 more. Doesn't drastically affect costs, still < $1000. It's a simple mistake, oh well. Everyone makes them. Even PCPP has probably had a few.

awesomeguy345
Because sometimes, it doesn't take into account the delivery costs.
Go take a look at page 1 and compare my prices to the other 2 made by PCPP.

I took a look at your build and saw you have an LGA1155 motherboard on an LGA1150 CPU. PCPP would have known this was an error and wouldn't even let you pick that one.

to awesomeguy345, troll post is troll.

In reply to randomness, who instead dropped the video card but squeezed in two monitors, how do you output to 3 monitors when some IGP units don't support 3 monitors? They'll be sat there, kinda useless. OP could atleast get about 1 other 21" monitor with the $145 left.. so I guess that's something.

My choices were stuck between Amazon and NewEgg, because I live in the UK and Google was giving me some pretty restricted results while off the UK version of it.

CPU: $169.99
CPU Cooler: $34.99
Motherboard: $129.99
RAM: $79.99
Storage1 (HDD): $62.99
Storage2 (SSD): $62
Case: $39.99
Power Supply: $64.99
Graphics Card: $189

Total (without monitors): $834

Edit: Crediting randomness for a few of his links. Combining some with this post to create a reasonably priced computer.

Monitor Option 1: $139.99
Monitor Option 2: $104.99

Total (with monitor 1): $973
Total (with monitor 2): $939

Randomness, did you bother to read my whole post or tl;dr?

Tl;dr: Not always the cheapest, or the best.
Tl;dr2: Shop around. You shouldn't be confined to a website that does it all for you. You could be missing out on deals, especially near xmas.

Edit: To validate my point, or possibly contradict myself, I'm doing a bit of snooping around on websites right now for the best deals. All I have left is a graphics card and case, and the current price is at $627

Edit2: I shouldn't think the graphics card should be more than $250, and the case: $50.
Haven't really bothered to look for a mouse because, tbqh, you can pick them up quite cheap, like someone else mentioned (at $10). As for monitors, OP said something about a 24" monitor. If I can get the graphics card cheaper than expected, he might be able to squeeze in a 2nd monitor within budget limits.

Why shouldn't we use pcpartpicker? What alternative sites are there to use?

PCMR, Why have you chosen M-ATX motherboard? All your other choices were good but I cannot see reasoning behind M-ATX. What if OP decides to SLI/CrossFire if they get enough money for a 2nd graphics card?

Also-
I don't recommend using PCPartPicker. I used it once and the price was horrific. I was looking to build a budget PC that I could build on to. It was AMD based, and only cost a total of £150 (could've been cheaper but I was in need of a SATA-DVD rewriter and got charged £30 whereas online it was £12.. ugh)

My 'budget' pc now has a total cost of £350, with a GT-740 OC from ASUS, 6GB 1333MHz RAM, 500GB Seagate hard drive, AMD A4-5300 CPU (with unused Radeon 7480D) 3GHz -> 3.4 turbo. It suffices in my situation, that being video editing and gaming (while recording, BF4 1080p Med/High, anyone?).

I do plan on upgrading the Graphics Card, and the ram to perhaps 2x 4GB 1600MHz (Found a 1x 4GB 1600MHz card for about £25!)

Sorry for a long post, but the moral of this post is - search around!

Wait until R9 300 series GPUs come out to purchase a GPU.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($159.99 @ Micro Center)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($72.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($77.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Monitor: Acer G227HQLbi 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Acer G227HQLbi 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $853.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-23 18:40 EST-0500

SasukeUchiha2214

PCMRXeon is unnecessary, i5 would suffice. Also $60 mouse is usless.

The Xeon doesn't cost much more but will do better at recording. I actually dont know much about mouses so feel free to enlighten me on that though.

Honestly there isn't that much of a difference between a $60 mouse and a $10 one. The only real difference is material and the amount of buttons.

Xeon is unnecessary, i5 would suffice. Also $60 mouse is usless.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($77.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.97 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($106.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.85 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($329.98 @ OutletPC)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX US)
Monitor: BenQ GW2255 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($104.99 @ NCIX US)
Mouse: Cobra E-3lue Wired Optical Mouse ($10.15 @ Amazon)
Total: $1001.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-23 02:11 EST-0500

This goes a bit overbudget, but trying to get that ssd in there really is what pushed it.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core OEM/Tray Processor ($239.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H50 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($59.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H97 GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP600 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.85 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB XLR8 Video Card ($329.99 @ Amazon)
Case: NZXT Phantom (White/Red) ATX Full Tower Case ($132.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Asus GX950 Wired Laser Mouse ($61.52 @ Amazon)
Total: $1136.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-23 02:07 EST-0500

Also those of you who don't know about computers, dont bash on me for using a xeon.