Gotcha. That's a pretty big budget so you have tons of flexibility. An i7, 16GB RAM, maybe NVIDIA 980, should play anything you throw at it! Just keep Kodi/XBMC as your frontend, download a custom skin so you can create shortcuts to Steam and WMC. Steam's Big Picture mode and a X360 controller works SO well. Love streaming my games from my gaming desktop to my HTPC.
As for specific hardware recommendations, I can't give exact models but I can recommend brands all day long. Let us know if you have any other questions.
Let's steal an idea from that other site, and ELI5 (but I guess ELI55). I've been out of the hardware loop.
I guess the big question: what case/mobo/SSDs/RAM/Power supply/etc is good nowadays. I used to buy Asus, but they went to crap as of the last desktop I bought of theirs.
I'll give you my take of a few of those items that I personally owned:
Mobo: I went with a MSI Gaming 3 motherboard for the Z97 chipset, plenty of SATA ports and memory speeds. It's been crazy solid and fast on boot up.
SSD: I've owned 2 Crucial SSDs (budget models) and they've done great for both my laptop and gaming rig. I've also bought a Samsung 850 Pro for my wife's laptop and it's just as fast. Samsung is probably the biggest name that I've seen for SSDs. Go for the 850 Pro!
RAM: I bought semi-budget on this one since I don't OC my RAM. Currently I own a pair of 4GB sticks from GSkill and they do the job quite wonderfully.
PSU: Once you figure out your wattage, go with a solid brand like Corsair, XFX, Silverstone. And ALWAYS go modular. I didn't have a choice when putting my current rig together but I'm definitely buying a modular PSU a little later this year.
Case: Are you going for a HTPC case or just a standard desktop case? I currently have a SilverStone HTPC case and it has served me quite well. The only issue I have is that once you throw in a few hard drives, things get a little too crammed for my taste. This is always personal preference though.
Gotcha. That's a pretty big budget so you have tons of flexibility. An i7, 16GB RAM, maybe NVIDIA 980, should play anything you throw at it! Just keep Kodi/XBMC as your frontend, download a custom skin so you can create shortcuts to Steam and WMC. Steam's Big Picture mode and a X360 controller works SO well. Love streaming my games from my gaming desktop to my HTPC.
As for specific hardware recommendations, I can't give exact models but I can recommend brands all day long. Let us know if you have any other questions.
Let's steal an idea from that other site, and ELI5 (but I guess ELI55). I've been out of the hardware loop.
I guess the big question: what case/mobo/SSDs/RAM/Power supply/etc is good nowadays. I used to buy Asus, but they went to crap as of the last desktop I bought of theirs.
I'll give you my take of a few of those items that I personally owned:
Mobo: I went with a MSI Gaming 3 motherboard for the Z97 chipset, plenty of SATA ports and memory speeds. It's been crazy solid and fast on boot up.
SSD: I've owned 2 Crucial SSDs (budget models) and they've done great for both my laptop and gaming rig. I've also bought a Samsung 850 Pro for my wife's laptop and it's just as fast. Samsung is probably the biggest name that I've seen for SSDs. Go for the 850 Pro!
RAM: I bought semi-budget on this one since I don't OC my RAM. Currently I own a pair of 4GB sticks from GSkill and they do the job quite wonderfully.
PSU: Once you figure out your wattage, go with a solid brand like Corsair, XFX, Silverstone. And ALWAYS go modular. I didn't have a choice when putting my current rig together but I'm definitely buying a modular PSU a little later this year.
Case: Are you going for a HTPC case or just a standard desktop case? I currently have a SilverStone HTPC case and it has served me quite well. The only issue I have is that once you throw in a few hard drives, things get a little too crammed for my taste. This is always personal preference though.