Reddit.com/r/buildapc

What are your needs?
I.e. what games do you play, what you do with your PC, if you have loads of music and or music and all that good stuff.
From reading that you have a laptop I guess you need a monitor as well, what about peripherals?

Ah, I should have added that in.
I play tf2 a lot, and want to get a high fps cap although I get that now.
I'd like to be able to play more graphic intenstive games on higher end graphics, such as Battlefield, Planetside 2, Crysis, etc.

I'd also like to try potentially streaming

My personal tip is too wait a bit, for the next GPU series to be unveiled or for the new consoles ( NO Not to buy the console but to see the next gen titles that finally will be able to make my hardware go up in flames when I try to play it)
Crysis 3 will be playable at higher end settings with a 670, I'd also suggest to get a decent HDD + ssd for your PC, and only put your OS and your programs onto the ssd, don't put your games on it, the difference is not really worth it.
I have a 120gb ssd and had tf2 on it, only launch times were better and almost no difference when loading maps.
Also if you didn't knew it but a ssd performs best when its spaces is used up to 50% everything above will just make it slower.

so what should I section my money off for?
Since I'm basically starting from scratch since I can't use my laptop's stuff, can I get a better computer for 900 bucks if I'm building it myself?

I wouldn't buy anything yet if your laptop is still working, I don't see the need for a new PC for you, crysis 3 ain't that great and bf4 isn't out yet.
I also don't know the prices over in NA that's a big problem for me to recommend you a solid build.

I would try to get the Nvidia 660 TI or AMD 7950 for $300. Cpu I would opt for the i5 3570k.

Case is honestly subjective: bitfenix prodigy, sg08, or lian li q08 (mitx), lian li a04, sg09, tj08-e (matx), fractal arc mini (m-atx). Personally if you are only going to have one card and maybe a dedicated audio card with just a few hard drives, I would just opt for matx as mid towers are pretty damn big.

Ram I would go with g-skill as they have been in the business for a long time. 8 gigs at 1600mhz is enough and should be around the $50-65 mark.

Motherboard: I would pay for at least a $130 motherboard (make sure its the 1155 socket if you go with ivy bridge, i5 3570k). Gigabyte and Asus are my favorites probably by far to go with. Asrock I hear is a hit or miss as their quality control can be inconsistent. MSI is a decent cheaper alternative.

Hard Drive: Mechanical drive I would go with Western digital blacks as they are very fast. A good thing to try is a Western Digital Raptor 10000rpm drive with an SSD (Get a Samsung 840).

PSU: This is easy, if you're going with a single gpu setup, honestly a quality 450-550 watt psu is all that's needed as pc components have gotten much more power efficient over the years. Brands to go with are: Pc power & cooling, corsair, seasonic, antec, enermax, rosewill capstone line, kingwin platinum series. I personally would go with gold modular as you get the best of both worlds: good power efficiency and using only the cables you need, which means less clutter and easier cable management inside the case.

Hope this helps!

r/buildapc is bad. Just a bunch of intel fanboyism.

Right now the best value (basically) is a fx 6300, a 990fx mobo, 8gb 1866 or 1600 ram, and a 7870. But if you need to be intel nvidia than a 3570k and a 650 ti or possibly a 660 non ti, but that would cost more. Amd is the way to go unless you have tons of extra money•
Do you need to do all max settings? Or could you be fine just turning it down to medium or lower AA. Multi monitor? How much money are you going to spend.

Building it yourself is ALWAYS. ALWAYS the better option. Prebuilts cheap out on many of the most important parts, oem psus are usually complete shit. I'll link you to a pcpartpicker list once I get out of school (in free block right now)

For psu go with a quality brand like seasonic. For hdd just get segate. You can get a 1tb 7200.14 for $70, or a wd black for like $100. Both work fine.
About the gpu, the 660 ti is a terrible value. I own one and use it in my build, but only because I got it on sale for $230. At the current price ~$300, its not worth it. I'd just go with a 7950 and overclock it. Even stock speeds it beats the 660 ti on most games. (not trying to be amd vs nvidia, its just a fact that the 7950 outperforms it).

3570k - $230
660 ti - $300

vs

8350 - $160 (ish)
7950 - $260-300

The 3570k is $100 more than the amd fx cpus, or even more if you get a combo deal with motherboards. You can find a fx 6300 + 990 fx ud3 mobo for less than the price for the 3570k alone at micro center.

Here's a comparison of the 8350 vs the 3570k. On a lot of games, the 8350 beats out even the $300 i7 3770k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4et7kDGSRfc

as hard as it may be- you should probably sit on the money and wait a bit. Since your laptop seems to get the majority of the job done for what you like to play now, the longer you wait the more computer you can buy with the $900.

The thing I don't like about the 8350 is that its much more power hungry than the i5 3570k and isn't as good an overclocker as well. That being said the i5 3570k, i7 3770k, and 8350 are all great choices. If you want to save more money on the cpu, the AMD 6300 is a pretty good deal. Don't listen to what the other computer review sites say about the new piledriver cpus as they aren't that bad at all.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121656 is a decent price for the 660ti. The thing is the frames thing is a little complicated when you compare AMD and Nvidia in my personal experience. AMD cards need higher fps to match the smoothness of the Nvidia cards, which can be had at lower frames. HARDocp and quite a few other sites have the same conclusion in regards to the frame rates between AMD and Nvidia.

#10 both 660ti and amd 7950 are good cards and they trade blows depending on the game. However, I do feel that the amd 7950 might be a little more future proof as more memory bandwidth and is as well as having much better compute. This all depends on future games of course.

Actually pheesh is probably right. I'd wait for haswell. That is a pretty good price for the 660 ti. However, honestly amd and nvidia cards are just as smooth. I have compared my system (660 ti) to my friends 7870 side by side and they were both about equal. With crossfire vs sli it definitely is better for nvidia. The amd fx chips are getting way more hate than they deserve, especially when you can grab a 6300 + a decent 970 motherboard for $150 at micro center. $150. That's $70 cheaper than the 3570k even without a mobo.
But, agreed, basically any of these cpus will be fine. Just make sure you get a good motherboard and quality other components. No point in spending big money on a cpu and then cheaping out on the mobo or psu, or vice versa. You want the most balanced build.

The only previous reason to buy nvidia in my mind was for CUDA suport in adobe cs6, but now they have announced they are going to make it work with opencl. People say nvidia drivers are better than amd, but they're both really fine as long as you don't use like beta drivers.

PS about the power hungriness, in that same tek snyicate video they calculated it costs about $15 more per year for the 8350, but that's only in extreme situations (I believe that was like running it all day 7 days a week). And I've heard people can usually get up to 5ghz with the 8350, or at least ~4.6+

edit: also the 7950 overclocks like a mofo, way more than a 660 ti. The 660 ti really competes better with the 7870

This is all good, but I think going into actual product names is a bit unnecessary. What I do is check deal websites, neweggs deal page (http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/latest/index-landing.aspx), amazon, and some other sites and just look for whats on sale and then screen the reviews for blatant issues or incompatibility (learn to ignore people who claim the product doesnt work, they usually are idiots). After you have a general idea for what you want (I want a midcase, 450W PSU thats quiet, 2TB of HDD and maybe a 128GB SSD, a radeon 7850/7950, an i5-3570k, 8 bars of ram) go ahead and just buy them when they go on sale, no point in not being patient if your laptop isn't dying. Just Don't cheap out on the motherboard though, it's the heart of your computer, but I will say stick to the deals plan. Deals are great and only idiots pay full price for anything above 100. After that, learn how to overclock your CPU, sandy bridge is ez overclock and the GPU is just naturally good.

Ever since the radeon price cuts there is almost no point in not buying a 7850/7950, they are cheaper and better than their nvidia counterparts, don't get nvidia really.

EDIT: And don't be an idiot and never replace peripherals! While all the above stuff is GREAT don't ever forget about buying a really accurate mouse at a good price (http://www.esreality.com/index.php?a=post&id=2024663) if you ever see it and maybe a mechanical/cherrymx keyboard somewhere down the line. any monitor works great (only idiots make a big deal about 1680 vs 1920, smaller monitors beware though) and theyre easy to get used, just remember that people will sometimes be gaylords and rip you off. 120hz monitors are too overpriced right now, let it drop or wait for a drop itself.