^ Yeah, I learnt from painful experience that a graphics card makes a Hell of a lot of difference.
A good video card is the difference between running a game at low setting (if at all) and running a game on at least medium settings.
Ed is right, there are HUGE differences between each setting.
Now I think for most people a $400 Video graphics card is a bit extreme, for gaming You should be looking for a video card at least above the $100 mark.
Here I posted a open case shot of my PC. Not the best by any means, and I recently learned I got a crap PSU.
As you clearly see, even though I got a budget Video graphics card (a HD R7700), its by no means the bottom of the barrel.
The most high end thing you see their is the ridiculous fan at the back of the case.
When I said budget video card, I should have been more specific. I’m not talking about a $100 card. Something in the $150-$200 range rather than the $400 range is what I meant. Sorry, I shouldn’t have called it a “budget” card, but rather a mid-range card. And my philosophy is based around upgrading that mid-range card once it can’t keep up. Having a CPU and MOBO that won’t need an upgrade for a long time is far more important.
pfft 18 years? Amateur! I’ve been building gaming rigs for over 50 years now Ed. Your move.
But silly dick-measuring aside, an SSD is a waste of money. I have a 1TB hdd that’s nearly full of games, and it cost me about $80. I wouldn’t have been able to do that with SSDs, it would have cost me $800. I couldn’t care less about faster load times either.
ok you clarified the GPU… which I totally agree with… the “sweet spot” with the bang for your buck is between 200-300 and amd/invidia know this 
No e-peen measuring here… but if you havent tossed in a SSD as your OS drive (and your most used games) and a nice 7200 RPM (or more) storage drive you don’t know what you are missing. Boot, install, loading and just general usage is noticeably faster… I took a shot and dropped a 120 gb SSD in and WOW… such a difference. I think I only paid 150 for it at the time and they are even cheaper now. The games will load and run noticeably smoother and it is all around one of the best upgrades I think someone can do for cheap…having said all that I just dropped a 780 Ti in my rig… with an old CPU… (QX 6850 watercooled and @ 3.67 Ghz) and it screams like a raped ape.
I have 4 TB in my rig, and another 8 TB in home NAS… drive space is so cheap it isnt even a cool thing to talk about anymore lol
i got a great deal on a brand new Radeon HD 7850 2 GB GDDR5 256 bit for 115$ shipped like last week, but can’t use it until i get my 750 watt PSU gets here. O_O
So right now i’m stuck with intergrated Radeon HD 4200. Lol
Everything on low tweaked settings… all day every day… if i can run it at all… Till then -_-
When doing a build for someone, I always tell them that your GPU is your XBOX/Playstation inside your computer. if you cant get one of the better cards (at least midrange) then perhaps you should go with a console. A midrange can be great especially now with the price drops happening.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html gives you a snapshot of the cards/prices… come to think of it I might as well put my GTX 570 up for sale on the trading thread since it still is a decent card.
So weird. A few days ago I got an error that said “Overclocking failed”. I checked back into my bios and nothing had changed but it’s as if my computer still loaded default values despite the settings I had put in. I had to reset the bios and input everything back in manually. Anyone has any idea what happened?
What your systems specs, what mother board and video are you using and how are you overclocking your video?
If it was giving a failed OC, it is more likely CPU and Ram OC/timings… these days its simply easier to OC the video card through a GUI interface in windows.
How long ago did you make the changes? Does the CPU allow OC (some dont through some settings)
Ram can be a PAIN IN THE BUTT if you are pushing the the timing…
Bus voltage can be finicky too.
Lastly did the settings stick the second time?
So i finally finished up my first build! I played Battlefield 4 & looks great…Only problem is that i cant play on keyboard. What are some controllers you guys recommend?
mouse AND keyboard 
Try to get used to it… once you do… you may never like playing on a pad again…
also, with a pad you will be at a disadvantage in multiplayer.
Yeah i tried it, its really odd haha…Its like trying to shoot baskets w/ my left hand.
lol your odd is my normal…
Getting used to it doesn’t take long, something to think about is your mouse hand does a majority of the real work. Muscle memory will kick in with your keyboard hand generally in under 7 days if you stick to it and you wont even think about it anymore.
Once you have that, you will see how much faster you can move and aim… Battlefield games are a little slow… the call of duty series is a great to get the fast moving down… and even moreso if you have a old copy of unreal tourny or quake 3 arena 
if I ever use a pad for computer I just grab one of my sons wired 360 pads… but that is usually when I am playing on old console emulators
IF you just dont seem to be getting used to it, you can use the razor nostromo… the crosskey would fit what you are used to and you can still use the better mouse control
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-nostromo/
I rarely do it in multiplayer titles, but when I want to sit back and relax rather than use my keyboard, I use a wireless Xbox 360 controller with the official wireless adapter.
You can also use PS3 controllers via either USB or Bluetooth, but I think you’ll have to hunt down drivers for it either way.
People looking for mobo advice, I have found Asus/Asrock mobos to be declining in quality and I quite like MSI currently.
Using a controller will ABSOLUTELY CRIPPLE YOU. HOWEVER, stock control bindings are fucking dick, especially in BF3 (and thus I’m assuming BF4 has dick bindings)
So do what my friends and I jokingly called “mlg bindings” and just bind shit however is comfortable to you.
I, for example, FUCKING NEVER USE ‘C’ TO CROUCH. FUCK YOU GAME DEVS. IT WAS ESTABLISHED YEARS AGO THAT CTRL IS CROUCH, FUCK OFF WITH THIS C BULLSHIT.
F IS FLASHLIGHT, although many games need F to be the melee. Fuck games that set F to use when E is use(unless Q+E are lean game’s not balanced for lean).
But M+KB is easily the best (provably so) control scheme for FPS, just rebind everything so it makes sense to you. I can’t recall what my BF3 layout was–but I DISTINCTLY, VIVIDLY, recall that EA doesn’t know shit all about layout management. I rebound like half the keys to properly cluster important shit around WASD.
but if you absolutely need your controller, X360 pad / Dualshock of choice, can’t be beat.
I saw some adapters on ebay for the 360 for like $12…I’ll probably just use that or my ps3…Im not a serious FPS player, all i want to do is just shoot people.
Here is a video of my new build.
Sounds reasonable, so long as you have fun play how you want. Looks like a super bling’d out rig though lol very snazzy
I use a cheap $10 wireless 360 controller dongle with Windows 7 64. I’d go for that, unless you want wired. For any game that sucks with a 360 controller, you can use Xpadder and it will work just fine. That’s assuming you already own a wireless 360 controller.
I don’t know anything about using a PS3 controller on PC, but I do know you can get a bluetooth dongle for pretty cheap. And you can use a Wii mote on PC quite easily using bluetooth. Comes in handy for Dolphin and using the Wii classic controller for whatever you want.
I’m also gonna say that you should stick with a mouse and keyboard, simply because it is better for aiming, and often times, more convenient for PC gaming in general. You probably use an arcade stick instead of a gamepad, it’s the same idea really. But if I did have to choose a controller for shooters, hands down it would be the 360 controller.
After using the wired controller on some PC games (cough DaS, skyrim before UI mod, janky ports) for like four years since I played on a 360, I can’t go back to regular controllers with battery packs.
My giant hands are saddened by the lost real estate a battery pack represents. My hands just feel cramped.
For comparison I loved the duke, but hot damn, the wired 360 controller feels like butter in my gargantuan hands
Get a wheeled cart or dolly for that case.
Also I notice fan controllers never take up the full size if the drive bay