Beginner building a Gaming PC.

[randycfowler]

My step father who has taught me alot since I was three had given me an Asrock 939 Dual Vista motherboard. He builds alot of computers and I kinda want to surprise him on fathers day to show how much I learned from him. My question really is more like advice and some expertise help. Asrock 939 dual vista, Amd 64 processor , I know tomorrow I am going to order 4 gig of ddr400 that uses less than 2.7v. I have a atx 650watt power supply. I alrady have that in the tower and have fans and led lights ready to install. Ok.... is the Nividia Quadro fx 3800 1gb a good pci-e card for this system? What would be the best Hard drive I could use? I already have the cd/dvd rom. Also what would be the best o/s I could use. This computer will be used so I can play Guild Wars 2 and such with him on weekends and some rainy days. Any info will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[CaptainSiscold]

Are you making this build out of old parts you have lying around, or are you planning on buying the parts? If you're buying new, I HIGHLY recommend going with newer tech than you have listed. For probably $600 or less you could have a nice, reliable PC, and for $650-700, a very nice PC that is just as reliable. I have a few part lists thrown together for some theoretical builds I thought up a while back, I can show you some of those, if you'd like.

That being said, to answer your questions: The Quadro FX-3800 is a pretty old card that will have trouble keeping up with newer games, but if you're just cobbling together a PC out of old parts, it should work fine. Its better than our old computer's HD 3450, and that could run StarMade on medium settings at 40-60 FPS

Hard drive: Hitachi, period. Especially Hitachi enterprise drives. They can be noisier, but they have very good reliability, and can usually be found for very good prices. As for OS, this essentially comes down to personal preference. Windows 8.1 runs *slightly* faster, and can be made to behave like Win7 if you prefer. Win7 is more familiar out of the box, and some like its looks better. Linux OS's are free, and you have a lot of choice in what you get, but they can be harder to get running, and aren't as good for gaming.

Hopefully this helps you a bit, feel free to ask more questions!