Sorry to add some confusion here but ill add my 2 cents too.
I have never been a fan of a single hard drive, i always buy multiple drives. Reason being is
1) Reduce failure risk - If everything is on one hard drive and it failes, you lose everything at once.
2) Speed - If OS is on one drive and games\files on another, then the hard drive isnt trying to run the os and game at the same time.
these days hard drives are cheap enough that you could buy 2 * 1TB drives for the same price as 1 * 2tb drive
I have no preference for Seagate or WD - both brands have failed on me just as much the other.
With memory, i dont believe there is that much difference between brands and non brands UNLESS your overclocking. If you can save money by buying a cheaper RAM at the same clock speeds then do it. Or just google the brand and model #, you are bound to find what someone else has to say about it. Just comes down to whether you have the budget to buy branded or not.
Agree with Thulfiqaar about Power Supply. If that thing goes you are going to take out video cards and hard drives with it. Get a decent one and use it for this computer and the next and the next
One purchase lots of years of use.
Monitor, again just google it and read what others have to say, that will give you a good idea. the one requirement for me these days with a monitor is lots of inputs, VGA,DVI, HDMI, display port. My one thing i would look for these days (if you want to keep the monitor for years to come) is Display Port. All the video cards are moving to that output so if you want to save upgrdes in years ahead, look for one with atleast DVI and displayport as you can always get a HDMI to DVI adapter for $2
Video card : I always spend the most i can afford on that as its the be all and end all in a gaming rig. Check out this chart which will give you a good idea of what is around that performance and what the equivalent ATI card is. Then check the price difference
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011 ... ,2673.htmlOn a motherboard im a bit different to thulfiqaar. I dont buy on brand, I look for how many SATA ports it has (i have lots of hard drives), on board sound (i dont buy seperate sound cards), how many usb and PCI slots it has. Looking at that Asus board it has everything and lots of it so i cant see anything wrong with it
In regards to the drive, if you dont watch Blu Ray movies you can save a lot of money by just buying a standard DVD burner?
on a final note, if its cheaper for you to buy a Windows 7 upgrade rather than the full version, let me know and I can give you a legit XP key brother
I think that covers most of it
