Girlfriend said she wanted a new computer. - For the tech junkies

[dwoodward]

Girlfriend has played games for years from her laptop, enduring medium to low settings and 30-40 FPS. She just gave me the go ahead that she wants me to finally build her a kickass desktop, she said she doesn't want to spend a dime over $1300, so I went to work working out a system that I figured she might like.

I asked her if she would like a theme or something and she didn't really care. Her favorite color is Orange so I went with that. No OS installed yet, just finished installing all the hardware last night and fired it up to make sure it works, and so she could see it.

Parts list:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme3
Memory: G.SKILL Sniper 8GB 2x4GB DDR3 1866
Storage: 120GB Samsung 840 EVO Solid State Drive
Storage: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Superclocked
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE
Case: Cooler Master HAF XB
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750W 80 PLUS Certified
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Fans are Xigmatek XLF series, 2x 140mm, 2x 120mm, and to my surprise whisper quiet at 100%. Cables are sleeved in orange and black individual sleeving.

Total cost was just under $1200, within budget. Looks great in my opinion and best of all, she is super pumped and very happy.

[Steve]

Very nice!

I finally upgraded my workhorse at home earlier this year (it was only slightly younger than my daughter!)

Processors: 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i733770 processor (up to 3.90 GHz)
Operating System: Windows 8 Pro, 643bit (which I hate BTW!)
Memory: 24GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz – 3 DIMMS 24GUDIM 1
Optical Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/3RW), write to CD/DVD 16XDVDR 1
Hard Drive: 2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive 6.0 Gb/s 2TBS 1
Video Card: AMD Radeon™ HD 7770 2GB GDDR5

I thought about a solid state drive, and may yet add it in.

[mosesbotbol]

I need to build a workstation or have it built. My laptop has 16GB RAM, but sick of taking it home every day from work.

[dwoodward]

Originally Posted by Steve

I thought about a solid state drive, and may yet add it in.

You should. It makes your system feel 10x snappier that it is. Get a good 80-120gb ssd and install your OS and programs on it. Then use your 2TB as a storage drive.

[mjdx88]

Its not a Mac..... jk. Looks pretty sweet. I have wanted to build a rig for a long time but havent had the cash and xbox is just so much easier to boot up and play a game....one of these days I will get back to PC gaming

[Genetic Defect]

Originally Posted by mjdx88

Its not a Mac..... jk.

[357]

Nice Derrick. If it were me I'd double that RAM. Overall its very cool.

[dwoodward]

Originally Posted by 357

Nice Derrick. If it were me I'd double that RAM. Overall its very cool.

No need really, it will be used pretty much purely for gaming, web browsing, and office documents.

I don't see her ever using even half of the memory at once. 8GB is pretty much the value bang for buck price point and still gives you dual channel. Can't go wrong in my opinion.

[pkny1]

Very nice Derrick. I'd save up for the new generation of 3GB video cards that are coming out.. but by the time they get to a decent price range you'd be able to sell the existing 2gb card for pretty good $$$ and recoup most of the difference.

OR SLI it!


Here's what I'm running:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4
Memory: 2x 4GB Samsung M379B5273DH0-YK0 1600Mhz (9-10-10-27 @ 1.3v)
Storage: Too much to list. No SSD. Did that once.. It broke. Replacement SSD in laptop.
Video Card: XFX Raedon HD 5850 1GB (standing the test of time.... outperforming 7850)
Optical Drive: LG something-or-other
Case: Corsair 500R (white)
Power Supply: Corsair HX850
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

using some Apevia 140mm fans, have a Cougar orange/black fan of some type on the CPU cooler.. much quieter improvement over whatever came with it..
currently messing around with Guild Wars 2, War Thunder, and well.. actually I have like zero time for games.. lol

nice clean build you have! Can't believe nothing is more bang-for-the-buck than the Hyper212... I mean.. its soo OLD.. but still the best b-f-t-b out there!

after reading this.. we should get a Cigar Asylum World-of-Tanks team or something together ha

[Shawn hines]

I think i would have just got a new girl friend... might have been cheaper?

joking

[themoneycollector]

I was thinking about selling my barely used Samsung 840 PRO 128G SSD which uses MLC nands for $115 shipped if you are interested.