I’m building a new machine; I already ordered a couple of parts. I’d like to know what you guys think, if I messed up something, and I might have a few concerns about some things.
I’m a gamer, but not a hardcore one. I multitask a lot (enough to feel that my current dual core is slowing me down), and I was looking to build something for around 600$, by reusing some stuff from current machine that I upgraded (and I’ll put back the older stuff I replaced in it).
This is my first build from ground up; I upgraded plenty of components to my current and previous machines, but this is the first time I buy an empty case.
Note: prices are in canadian dollars
So far:
- Arrived
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[*]Hard Drive
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black (~100$)
OR
1.5TB Western Digital Caviar Green (~100$)
Long story short: I have these 2 drives, and I’m using the 1TB on my current machine while I RMA the 1.5TB, still not sure if I’ll swap them to use the caviar black in the new one. My Caviar Green messed up, so I might have the impression it has lower performances, but it’s probably just me.
-
Case
APEX Vortex 3620 Mid tower (33.59$)
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[]On the way -
Motherboard
MSI NF980-G65
Got both the motherboard and RAM for 208$ tax+shipping included. Newegg had a deal with the motherboard at 113$ instead of 170$ + free shipping, and 20$ off the combo with the RAM.
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[]Not bought yet
-
CPU
With the motherboard I got, I’m obviously going for some AMD CPU… and I gotta say the Phenom II X6 1055T is quite tempting… (227$ current newegg price w/ tax+shipping) -
Power supply
Tigerdirect sells some Ultra power supplies that have a lifetime warranty if you register them… this sounds like a good argument to me. Was thinking to go for either 550 or 650 watts. (55-65$ + tax/shipping) -
DVD Drive
I’ll just get a cheap one for around 20$. I’ll probably wait for a ‘free shipping’ deal on newegg for this.
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[]Reusing from current PC -
GPU
Radeon 4670, unless the onboard chipset turns out to outperform it :meh:
This will definitely be weakest link, but I’ll upgrade it later on… Probably when I get a larger monitor for a dual monitor setup too. (0$ :3 )
Was planning to reuse my current 2GB RAM as well, but that combo deal on newegg changed my mind 
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Approx. total cost: 630-650$ shipping and tax included
That is, if I get a X6 CPU… I could save a lot with something a notch under this, but… not sure if I can resist :jizz:.
So for the moment I’m just lurking on newegg and tigerdirect, waiting for deals to come out… Know any other good online store that works in Canada?
A concern:
I’ll need to update the BIOS on the motherboard for it to support a X6 CPU… Is this easy to do with a CD or USB thumb drive? If I had another AMD CPU I could pop it in, boot windows, and do the update the easy way, but I won’t be able to do this.
Any comments appreciated :retard: