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Sub-$850 "gaming" PC

T

th0r1

n00b
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
25
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Games (would like to play Sc2 on ultra with no issues), Some Photoshop, HD Movies, Interwebz communications

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$775 - 800 before shipping would be great

3) Where do you live?
Baltimore, MD

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU (i5 760?) + GPU (GTX 460?) + Motherboard + RAM + Power Supply

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
ATX Mid Tower Case (LIAN LI Lancool PC-K62) + 500GB HDD (Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS) + Mouse / Keyboard / Monitor

6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably not but eventually I might.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
24" (1920x1200)

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
In the next week.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Nothing specific. Just a good, stable, trouble free board.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Already have Win7 64
 
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You did not specify which case or particular brand or model of HDD you currently have. You see, not all ATX mid-tower cases are at all suitable for anything modern. Some of them might very well have only two 80mm fans for air circulation, which are woefully inadequate to properly cool such a hot-running CPU and GPU.

And your existing 500GB HDD could very well been one of the very first such drives, with only 100 to 167 MB per platter in a three-to-five platter design. As such, they provide no more than half the performance of newer HDDs.
 
Right, I couldn't remember the model numbers off the top of my head when I posted and didnt think it would make much of a difference. But anyway I went and looked them up:

LIAN LI Lancool PC-K62 case and a Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS drive
(also edited the main post)
 
Well, in that case, there have been several different revisions of the WD5000AAKS drive. Some with a single 500GB platter, some with two or three platters. I need to know how old that drive is - and if it was purchased within the past six months or so, it is likely to be of the newest revision.

The key to the revision of the WD5000AAKS is the group of six characters immediately following the model number. To find that out, you either need to look at the drive's label or look it up in the Windows Device Manager under "Disk Drives". (e.g. my particular WD5000AAKS in my secondary rig has the string "00V1A0" - which signifies one of the revisions that are of the newest single-platter design - after the model number.)
 
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Prelim build:
$295 - Intel Core i5 760 CPU + Asus P7P55 LX LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Motherboard
$220 - eVGA 768-P3-1362-AR Geforce GTX 460 Superclocked 768MB PCI-E Video Card
$173 - XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W PSU + G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL Ripjaws Series 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
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Total: $688 plus tax and shipping.
 
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