oops. dp.

I'd say an nvidia 5 series will do whatever you want and save you some cash to boot.
Depending on the motherboard, you might want to think about a soundcard, especially if you're planning on surround speakers.

I have no idea what is in my PC. I bought it from a friend of my grandmother for £250. It has a dual core processor, 4gb of Ram and a terabyte HDD. I put the graphics card in that Mod told me to buy, it cost me £100. It plays everything I have thrown at it so far.

I always find this useful and up-to-date:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455869

Giant red LED light on the front. Voicechip hooked up to rasberyy pi full of 2001 quotes.

I doubt the benefit of SSD outweighs the cost for a gaming PC.

Yup, start with the motherboard. You'll be looking for a socket 1155. I've heard the ivy bridge cpus have made very little gains over sandy bridge and aren't as good for overclocking as they heat up quicker so might be worth geting and i5 2500k if it's much cheaper than the ivybridge.

For the graphics you'll be looking for something that's pci-e x16 (nearly all cards connect that way these days). I'd agree with Kow and maybe suggest the 580 if you can afford it.

Ram is easy, just get some that matches your motherboard in the correct speed and quantity desired.

For the PSU go for something decent obviously, as they say no point cheaping out on it since you'll be powering very expensive components. I'd recommend a Corsair 600w+ PSU.

For the ssd i'd go with the cruicial m4, there are lots of cheaper/faster drives but I got this one because it has a great record for reliability. Get it in at least 128gb size and use it for your system drive and maybe a couple of your most demanding games. You'll also want another large standard hdd. These should all be connected via sata (i.e. don't buy IDE drives).

Case should be easy enough to find and largely depends on taste but i'd read reviews of which you're going for so you don't end up with one that can't fit a large graphics card etc.

Monitor, you'll want something with 1920x1080p resolution.

I could try and give you a sample system with a list of different parts but it'll probably be best if you put one together yourself and then post it here so other can see if you've missed something obvious.

Might be overkill for that screen but you can always get a newer 1080p TV down the line and you'll likely not need to upgrade the PC for quite a few years.

As for the Ram, the motherboard you have lists DDR3 - 1600 so that would be the one to go for, the ram you've selected might work but it may be clocked back so best to go for something like this.

@Mod74

Actually, that motherboard also lists - 32GB (4x8GB) so it might even be better to just get one 8gb stick of ram for now which you can then match to get 16, 24 & 32gb later.

edit: 8gb sticks of ram barely seem to exist yet but looks like there is one for pre-order.

I think it's mainly bells and whistles on the more expensive ones, like they'll have an extra pci-e 3x16 slot, display ports, or the ability to do crazy overclocks with ram etc. Most of the stuff i'd say you don't really need to worry about.

Stick with a hot seller that has the slots you need and you can't go wrong - the motherboard you've choosen is pretty decent. It has 32gb ram support, pci-e 3 x16 and usb 3 so is pretty future proof.

Cheer Pie, and Kow.

Though re the USB I'm planning on hiding it sideways behind the TV so whether they are front or back shouldn't make much difference. Guess I should measure how much space I'd need thinking about it.

Yeah, we can all join an empty server and run around pointlessly for a bit.

Kow wrote:

So you'll be joining us on Steam, Team Fortress, etc.?

Maybe.

I'm thinking more of these "high end PC" games that are being demoed and the types of games that console just doesn't have, like simulation.

Just got onto this thread. Mod, I'm going to be actually physically building my next PC, so I'll post photos etc of the process.

Yes. Well, it was on mine.