Part III: Choosing Parts the Smart Way (continued from last post)
Of coarse the most important part of this article is actually choosing the parts such as which is better than the other. You could surely ask someone on the forum to put a build together but as good as it may be there are always ways to cut cost but not performance on builds, you just have to exhaust all possibilities. I will go down each main component and how not to spend more than you need too.
CPU
When looking for a CPU for your build, you most likely know possible chips that your build will probably consist of. You may think you already know exactly the chip your getting because of whatever the reason and a lot of people don't even consider that a lower model could be better for their cause. CPUs all come in certain lines of processors and are numbered to make you think that with increase of the number the better. However there are many different factors you should look at when choosing a CPU, the first being your total budget. If you are looking to build a gaming computer such as the $800 build I used an example of you would never look to go for a really slow stock chip just because you have a higher budget. On that 800 buck budget I used the example of the E4xxx series because 110-160 is pretty standard to spend on a CPU with a budget such as this and these chips are in no way bad however....there actually is a BETTER chip for a significant less price. When I say better I don't always mean faster but rather "on par" and this is usually achieved through overclocking. The chip that I am talking about right now is the E2180 which has not been given too much attention in the computing world, and especially not in these forums. This chip costs around $90 and has an average overclock of 3.4-3.8ghz with 3.84ghz recorded so far on air. The E2xxx line is actually the exact same thing as the E4xxx line except with less cache. Cache is not very significant factor in most applications, gaming being one of them. The average performance increase from 1mb cache to 2mb I believe is around 2-4% in games at the same clock speed. The E2180 will overclock the same as the E4500 if not BETTER I have heard for $50 less. When you compare the price: performance ratio, 2-4% of an increase in games isn't the best investment of $50 bucks. Looking at the initial Build#1 example used in part 2, 50 bucks can be added initially to upgrade the quality of the PSU, better aftermarket cooling that will yield higher clocks, or a better video card if there is one available in the price range. This is a much better cost efficient way to use your money. I'm not saying there will always be a chip such as the E2180 but be aware of the chips on the market and do research and read up. You may find a better chip for your money even from a different company such as AMD while everyone is recommending whats popular.
Video Card
When choosing a video card you should be looking heavily to see what card is best for you and not just what you hear are the best cards. Whats best for one person in your price range, may not be best for you. The first thing you must address is the resolution that you will be using on your monitor/tv/etc. Certain cards perform very well on a certain resolution compared to another in their price range for whatever the reason but on the flip side perform very poorly at a different resolution (usually higher). This is usually due to the amount of Video Ram on the cards as at higher resolution the more video ram the better off you are. Always keep an open mind when selecting a card because some people usually just look at the Nvidia cards in their price range and ignore the ATI side of the spectrum and end up with a less powerful card for the same price, if someone recommends you a card and it seems they are biased to one company a bit then look for benchmarks yourself to compare cards. Also a very important factor when selecting a card is which card is best with overclocking rather than stock. Overclocking on video cards are pretty much completely safe and do not void the warranty of all the reputable companies (physically modding the card eliminates the warranty). An example of this is the 7900GS vs. X1950PRO both. At stock speeds the X1950PRO really wipes the floor with the 7900GS and they were pretty much the same price, however most people would recommend the 7900GS just because of it's ability to scale from 450 to around 600mhz on the core with stock volts, which would usually beat the X1950PRO overclocked in most games. Volt modding the card can yeild a card that performs on par with an X1950XT even (of coarse this voids warranty and you will usually need aftermarket cooling). However on the flip side benchmarks would show that the X1950PRO started to pull away at higher resolutions (1600x1200 or above) therefore showing how you cannot just go by one factor. I want to touch on the issue of SLI and Crossfire as well. I will start by saying that 99% of the time Crossfire and SLI will always be a waste of your money. The simple reason that you are paying 100% extra for the other card and gaining on average 25-45% increase in performance, while at the same time making your PC run hotter and use more watts than a good single card. Instead of buying an extra card as an easy upgrade to performance the best thing for your money to do usually is sell your current card, and spend some more money to get a single card that will beat 2 cards in Crossfire/SLI while at the same time being more cost efficient, using less watts, and producing less heat. The only time usually that SLI or Crossfire are worth it is when you buy two very high-end cards for either benchmarking or playing at very high resolutions. Most time even at very high resolutions one high-end card will suffice your needs anyway. One last thing I want to note is buying a low-medium range card with DX10 enabled. Right now at the time of this guide DirectX 10 has not come into full force and won't be for some time. The lower or medium ranged cards that support Direct X 10 such as ATI's 2400/2600 series and Nvidia's 8500/8600 series. These cards are far too weak to really take advantage of the DX10 because the games that use it are very graphically intense and you most likely will not be able to use the eye candy of DX10 without lagging badly in games. DX9 cards such as the 7 series and R500 can play DX10 games just fine (you just cant use the one or two new features of DX10). Usually DX9 cards will perform better than their Dx10 counterparts in the same price range and therefore are the better bang for your buck at the moment, and example is how the X1950PRO beats the 8600GTS pretty much in every game but is noticeably cheaper, this is just the choice if you want higher FPS.
Motherboards
Pretty much the part that rises the question "I have no clue which to choose!, any suggestions??" the most, is the motherboard. While choosing a motherboard can be tricky and usually it is best to ask around and read up don't just read what is the board that is popular at the time for whatever reason because a lot of times there are other boards that perform/overclock just as well that are cheaper. The only difference being is they don't support certain features such as RAID, onboard Firewire, "Ultra Cooling", Multiple memory support, SLI/Crossfire, Wi-Fi, etc. Half the time if you don't have any clue what motherboard to get you won't use most of the features that makes boards expensive and its not worth spending the extra money. I will give the example of how right now the P35 series is very good and highly recommended and the majority of the boards perform and overclock well. There are boards that overclock and perform the exact same for almost twice as much. Gigabyte has the DS4, DS3P. DS3L, and then two different DS3R's which are all priced different but yet overclock extremely similar. To get the most out of your money your job is to research the differences in different boards to understand which is right for you. Most times if you are a gamer even with a very high budget, the cheaper boards are all you need. I myself own a DS3R because that was what was released first and I needed a new board. If I had to buy one right now I would purchase the DS3L since the only difference is it lacks RAID, 4 SATA ports opposed to 8, "Ultra Cooling", and a different power phase. None of these which I need or really for myself to keep my system running fast and effective. The differences in the two DS3R's (P35 and P35C) is one has extra slots for DDR3 memory which is DEFINITELY not the most bang for your buck memory right now since DDR2 is still all you need and much much cheaper. Why pay for features that you really won't find yourself using anyway? You could put the extra 20 bucks you save into something else for your system instead. That is truly the most important factor when purchasing a motherboard, you must figure out what board is "really" right for you; not just the most popular or recommended.