Best deals to build a computer this black friday?

[hithisisben]

Hello, with black friday/cyber monday coming up, I am hoping to be able to build a gaming computer for the first time. I am admittedly not very savvy when it comes to buying the parts, and am also willing to settle for a pre-built one if there is a good deal for one out there. I was doing some shopping around and well, since I don't really know what I am looking at, it's hard for me to tell where I am getting the best value for my money. I have a friend who seems to know about building them, but truthfully, I don't think he knows what he's talking about half the time either.

So here it is, I want to spend anywhere between $500-$850 for a pre-built one, or up to $1000 if I am building it myself. I am hoping to buy parts that are on sale so I can get as much bang for my buck as possible. I have looked at a few already:

cyberpowerpc . com/system/Black_Friday_AMD_8-Core/

cyberpowerpc . com/system/Black_Friday_Deal_Z97-I5/

newegg . com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883258065

... and they all seem great because of how much money I would save, but am I truly getting a deal? Like I said, I am also willing to purchase parts to build one from the ground up if I get more value out of that instead. Is anyone willing to help me out with this?

P.S. Sorry for the screwy links, I'm a new poster.

[Kayozay]

I built this at the start of the year for a friend. It had a 770 so I changed that for a 970 and took out the SSD to match your budget.

pcpartpicker. com/p/Lg2MmG

[tielknight]

You would not save any amount of money with them as they over-charge on the vast majority of their parts and use sub-par parts to begin with, especially with the Power Supplies.

You would likely end up spending 1k for a system from Cyberpower that can be purchased and built yourself for around 800-900 and you get better quality parts.

Feel free to fill out the sticky info located here so we know what to look for.

[Spiffums]

I just built a desktop with everything but the tower and it costed me $1200 shipping and all. I got a 750 TI gaming card and i7 4790k ( think that's right). I also got a 1T WD black hard drive and Blu Ray dvd burner. The mother board I got only had SATA so I had to pricer drives. I only got 8 gigs of ram but it's doing great so far.

What I did was use Tiger Direct and pretty much shopped what I wanted. I'm sure you can cut corners that I didn't get it down under a grand. The CPU and Blu Ray drive pushed mine up but I was looking at the long term. I might add another 8 gigs of ram at some point.

[tielknight]

I'm sure you can cut corners that I didn't get it down under a grand.

To be frank, $1200 for a 4790k rig with a 750ti and a HDD is a rip-off. You should have at least been able to get a 970 and a 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD for how much you spent

[hithisisben]

I apologize for missing the sticky, I seem to be having trouble submitting a reply, I keep getting an error saying I cannot post links, images or videos. I'll see if I can reword my reply some other way.

- - - Updated - - -

The budget would be $500-$850 if purchasing a pre-built gaming computer. I would spend up to $1000 in parts if it meant getting a better value for my money though.
I am not sure how to answer what resolution I'd like. I know my friend plays on one of those fancy curved 4k screens. I'd like to achieve something like that.

- - - Updated - - -

The game I desire to play is Skyrim on Ultra settings w/mods at 60fps with no stutter. I know the game is a few years old already and is not much to aim for, but that's my only desire at the moment. I may pick up WoW in the future, certainly some other MMO for sure.

- - - Updated - - -

No other special things would be done on this computer except for maybe watching movies, that would be all.
Country is United States.
I have no parts on hand that can be used in this project.
I would need an OS, I heard Windows 7 is best for gaming purposes so I'd probably go with that.
I do need peripherals, however they are not included in this budget. The budget is strictly for the case, and everything inside it including a power supply.

[tielknight]

4k is a bit out of your price-range(i think, mainly because of the monitors cost + the horsepower needed to run it smoothly), 1080p/1440p would be your best bet and you can always upgrade to a 4k monitor when you get some more cash to spend and it has more support, it's starting to get more acceptance but it's not quite there yet to be a "mainstream" option.


How much are you looking to spend on peripherals?

[hithisisben]

I'm not trying to do anything fancy for peripherals at the moment. I want to take advantage of black friday / cyber monday sales to get the expensive part out of the way. I'll probably end up getting your average mouse, keyboard and monitor, and then invest later down the road if I want to upgrade those pieces. I'm not even sure what I would spend on those pieces really, I haven't thought about it too much. Just to throw a number out there, I guess $300 sounds reasonable, but again, that's not something I am focusing on right now.

[tielknight]

As a example(price is after ~$100 in rebates & discounts) :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.94 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($108.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Zeus Red 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.67 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($327.85 @ B&H)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 431 Plus (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: BenQ GW2255 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($112.00 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Logitech G400s Wired Optical Mouse ($53.49 @ Amazon)
Total: $1319.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-17 01:43 EST-0500

Something like that will last you for quite some time and you can easily pop in another GTX 970 later on to keep your performance up.

[Vash The Stampede]

Building your own PC will likely get you a better machine for the price, but for new PC gamers I would recommend buying a prebuilt. Firstly because I think it's a great learning tool to start getting into PC building and secondly because of warranty. Lets be honest here, not everything that goes wrong is your fault. Just ask Rich from Revewtechusa.

Keep an eye out for deals cause we're nowhere near Black Friday yet. Lots of websites will list the deals so you know what to look for. Lots of websites already have early Black Friday deals but just wait. The deals get better.

- - - Updated - - -

Interesting JayzTwoCents had a video about this very subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGAg...OCarmUKmppD7GQ