Cake Factory

[BETTEH]

So I need a new machine, my baby is finally showing her age with some of the new games I have been trying to play (namely BF3).

Here is what I got now, if I am going to upgrade (by upgrade I mean buy a new machine) I want to make a considerable leap as this thing has lasted me almost 4 years. Orignially I wanted to go nuts and just throw money at a new machine but after moving I have had to spend a few more bucks than initially planned (need a new car before winter hits bleh).

So I am looking to spend in the neighborhood of 1-1.2k I plan on Keeping my monitor for now so just a tower, and I also don't want to scrap anything from this PC for the new one. I plan on giving this to someone on completion of build.

So yeah, here is my current PC.

Mobo : ASUS M3A78-T AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard (May be slightly different, IIRC it blew out and I just bought a new one similar)
CPU : AMD Phenom 9950 X4 Black Edition Agena 2.6GHz Socket AM2+ 140W Quad-Core Processor HD995ZFAGHBOX
PSU : Thermaltake Toughpower W0172RU 850W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready
RAM : CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
Vidya Curd : Radeon 4850 512MB

For the tower alone I think I spent about 1500, I built a computer for one of my brothers last year for 960$ and it put mine to shame. One of my other brothers picked up a tower off NewEgg for like 900$ which really tempted me, can't remember the exact one but it also put mine to shame. Thoughts friends?

TL:DR Betteh needs a new PC for around a thousand bucks, should I build, or buy.

[Boss Llama]

Always build, never buy, unless it's simply a stack of components on a combo sale that happens to match when you want.

Spec'ing a box for you now - will post shortly.

----The Box----

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V LX
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 SE
Power Supply: CORSAIR TX650 V2 650W
Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion
Monitor: Already have
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
Optical Drive: LITE-ON DVD Burner - 24X
Keyboard: Logitech K200
Mouse: Logitech G500

Total cost as of this post: $980.89

[BETTEH]

Woo that was fast, It is also worth mentioning I did recently pickup a new mouse, keyboard, and I also have a genuine version of Windows 7 Pro I can install. Knock that price down a few bucks, or perhaps invest elsewhere in the unit. Although I wouldn't be too sure on what else to beef up looking at that.

[Boss Llama]

If you've got a mouse, keyboard, and OS, that'll take approximately $180 off the price. Final price would be around $800, for a great system.


If you want to spend it, the things I would use it for would be:

A) A copy of Microsoft Office, if you use that and don't have an extra copy lying around. This particular one is $130 and gives you three licenses, so you can put it on other computers too (laptops, friend/parent systems, etc). Final build price would be around $930.

-or-

B) A crazy-powerful CPU. The Intel Core i7-2600 for example - it's about $100 more than the current one, and is definitely a bragging-rights type chip at the moment. Ten dollars more, for the 2600K, unlocks the chip for overclocking (dunno if you do such things). This would result in a build that's about $900 - leaving legroom for other tweaks if you like.

-or-

C) More GPU power. A 560SE is plenty, but if you are in the mood to spend more, you can certainly upgrade it. Could push it up to a GTX 570 and end up at around $970.

[crimsonshootingstar]

Just get a 690 and be done with it. Its such an awesome video card you wont even need the rest of the computer or for that matter be able to afford it . Seriously though, if I were building a new computer I would start with a 680 and make sure i had a strong enough power supply for it and work down from there.

[Boss Llama]

If you can build a worthwhile thousand dollar computer starting with a $650 GPU/PSU combo, I'll be impressed You could find enough components cheaply enough to make it boot up, yes - thing is, it would be one giant bottleneck of suck.

[Stevo]

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)

I suggest getting 2 of those.

[crimsonshootingstar]

If you can build a worthwhile thousand dollar computer starting with a $650 GPU/PSU combo, I'll be impressed You could find enough components cheaply enough to make it boot up, yes - thing is, it would be one giant bottleneck of suck.

he should be able to use his old PSU, HDD, case, and optical drive everything else 700 bucks for mobo, memory, and processor is easily doable.

Edi: NVM i just reread top and he does not want to disassemble the old one. It is a shame.

[Gizanked]

can't reccommend this case enough

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119216

I've made 2 computers using that case and I'm pretty sure bullet has the same one.