I have 1,500 USD and I need to buy everything needed to make a good gaming PC other than a mouse.

I know its not a big budget but thats all I can afford right now. I also want to be able to upgrade the graphics card and use SLI maybe be able to upgrade the CPU in the future also.

If anyone can help me find parts in that price range that would be great. Thanks in advance.

The best method I've found for options is using Neweggs site with their filtering system.

On the left menu you can weed out your choices.

Newegg.com - PC Components, Computer Parts, Computer Hardware & PC Accessories

From your first note I would say the PSU is vital in getting one that is SLi ready which will also be 700 Watts or more with 4 x 6 pin or a combination of 4 x 6 pin/8 pin PCI_E connectors.

Also the motherboard will need at least 2 x PCI_E 2.0 x 16. You will find many lower end boards with multiple PCI_E x 16 slots reduce the second slot to x 8 or even x 4.

Those are the two most important issues for upgrading options.

Your RAM is best @ 2 x 2GB. DDR3 would be nice which again will go to the motherboard.

Also to the motherboard you will see Intel options of either socket 775 or 1366.

The 1366 offers support for the new i7 Intel CPU's.

Anyway those are some basic starters for you.

Don't forget a good case.

i know it may sound lame but i find the best place to get a good case is ebay just be carefull though and makeshure you check the sellers feedback anything less than 98% positive and its not worth it

as for the actual pc specs for $1500 if you whant quad than go foreign you might beable to get a bettor deal on computer comp's from diffrent countries check out the exchange rates you nevor know

Originally Posted by darkdj2009

i know it may sound lame but i find the best place to get a good case is ebay just be carefull though and makeshure you check the sellers feedback anything less than 98% positive and its not worth it

as for the actual pc specs for $1500 if you whant quad than go foreign you might beable to get a bettor deal on computer comp's from diffrent countries check out the exchange rates you nevor know

Yeh but what you save in price you could easily lose in shipping overseas.

Originally Posted by townsbg

Yeh but what you save in price you could easily lose in shipping overseas.

i suposed it would simply be a case of juggiling the exchange rates against the p&p

tricky but not impossible

Well lets say that you save maybe 50 USD on a part but you have a pay 30 [or more] to ship it. Thats not a lot of savings. The longer the distance, the more complicated the travel method(s), and the shorter amount of waiting time will all increase the cost of shipping. You could save only a few bucks and wait for it for weeks wondering if is coming or if it has been lost or confiscated at customs somewhere. It wouldn't be worth it to me. Do you have experience you could share with us as an example? We would love to hear it.

In addition what about the quality of the parts? Would they be reliable? What about warranties, exchanges, etc in case it is bad?

So far this is what I picked out decided to save up some more cash.

EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLI (x16/x16/x8) LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail
ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail

I wonder what would be the best case, gpus, psu, ram for this mobo.

The main question as to PSU is the GPU.

Are you going to run SLi or are you wanting to keep that option open?

If so you need at least a 700 watt PSU with 4 x 6pin + 2pin PCI_E to keep all your GPU options open.

I want to run SLI but I want the cheapest with the most power. Not sure to go with nvidia or ATI.

I want to run 2 cards SLI but in the future I want to be able to buy another of the same card and run 3 way SLI in case I want to.

Also how do I pick a case to fit that mobo? 12.0" x 9.6" would I get a ATX Full Tower?