pkeigs

I was wondering what you guys would build if you had 2000 dollars to spend on a new tower, The computers priorities are

Gaming
Photoshop
Cad

Whats the best box you can come up with...

MikeSty

Do I have to take money out for Windows XP or not?

MooseMan3000

$2000? Man, you can build just about anything you want for that much.

Since it's for gaming, you'll want a good graphics card. Since it's also for media stuff, you'll want a fast processor. Either way, you'll also want lots of RAM and fast hard drives. Here goes (prices taken from Newegg, because Newegg rules):

Processor: Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $347. The dual core processor will really help with multimedia stuff.
Graphics Card: eVGA Geforce 7800 GTX $459. The 7800 GTX outperforms even two 6800s in SLI.
Motherboard: ASUS A89-SLI Premium $165. Probably not necessary, but the 4 SATA II ports, along with firewire and built in 8 channel audio, etc. make this a really nice board with lots of capabilities.
RAM: Corsair ValueSelect 2 GB (2x1GB) PC 4200 $168.55. Good RAM at a good price. Don't go generic; I made that mistake before, and it was a bad one.
Case: Antec Performance I P160 Aluminum $102. I went with this case because it's Antec, who are well known for their build quality. It's also all aluminum, which means it's ultra light (nothing worse than having to move a server case that weighs 40 pounds on its own, let alone with stuff inside it). And lastly, with 2X120mm fans, you should stay nice and cool and still be able to hear yourself think. Front firewire, USB2, audio, and LCD are also nice perks. Of course, the case is up to you, but I really like the features this one has.
Power Supply: OCZ Modstream 450 W PSU $89.99. OCZ is known for making high quality components, and their power supplies are no exception. Don't go generic on this guy, either, or you'll definitely regret it. 450 W should be enough to power your devices with room to grow.
Hard Drives: 2x Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM, 36.7 GB $240 ($120 each). Throw two of these bad boys in RAID 0 for your system drive, and never worry about boot and load times again.
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 160 GB SATA II $190 ($95 each). You could do two in a mirror for backup, or just leave them as JBOD for twice the storage. Super fast drives with lots of good features, and they're reliable.
Optical Drives: 2x Plextor PX-740A DVD-RW 8x DVD+R DL $156.50 ($78.25 each). Plextor makes excellent drives, and this one is dual layer capable at 8x. There are other 8x DL drives for less, but Plextor has a good reputation for RW drives for a reason.

That all adds (if I've done my math correctly) to $1918.04. Should be a monster for both gaming and multimedia.

I'm assuming that since you're doing CAD and Photoshop you already have a tablet you like, so I didn't figure that into the equation. However, for gaming, it doesn't get any better than the MX-518. For $40 off Newegg, you can't go wrong for such an excellent mouse.

pokethebody

if u want a gaming pc then u have evrything else covered

550 watts will work
newest cpu from ONLY AMD
ya and evry thing he wrote

cyrnel

$2k is a very healthy budget. I usually only see servers or screen combos at this point.

Add a SB Audigy card to MooseMan's config. Still under $2k. The dedicated audio card offloads one more source of choppiness.

I'd drop one of the opticals for now. They're cheap, and change frequently. Leapfrog upgrade them every six months which means you'll have two soon enough.

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