PC Build: Parts List

Entry posted by Ruin February 28, 2008

1,101 views

After, no joke, months of research and study, I think I have finally compiled the parts list for me new PC. I thought I'd post it here first and get prepared for my Worklog that will go in the main forums.

Project History: The Beginning

I've been long overdue for a new PC for quite some time. Those who have been here at GR.net for a while probably remember me struggling to run GRAW (and even some [GR] mods) on my old Athalon 6400+ / Radeon 9500Pro desktop. Yeah, it sucks. I had a couple PSUs blow out on it, lost a few hard-drives, and now the thing finally quit. I bought a laptop before I left for school in Washington DC in July of 2006. After one too many nights on the town, going to clubs, and hosting parties... my laptop became a raging alcoholic. To this day, the signs of its troubled past are evident in its wacked out keyboard - the left arrow is always going. Good luck typing a sentence with the cursor forever moving backwards. Don't laugh, it sucks. Well, since its alcoholism, we've had issues. Big issues. To the point I packed up the music, pictures, and important memories and moved them into a new place (external hard-drive). I left for Ft. Knox Sept 10, 2007 hoping that some time apart would solve some problems. Upon my return, I found nothing had improved. In fact, the problems have worsened. Fed up and tired of living with a drunkard suffering withdrawals, I decided it was time to find someone new in my life - to the shegrin of my girlfriend. Well, I did some serious shopping around. Found out the best places to go, and have come up with a computer to rival some of the best PCs found here at GR.net and even around the web for under $3000 (parts only, not to include shipping) with a new Monitor, Mouse, and Software. Really, the actual tower comes out to $1,771 with about $350 in the cooling. Now add the aforementioned parts and some games, we get a grand total of almost exactly $3000 before S/H.

Objective: The Future

I needed a hard-hitter. A go to, go anywhere, do anything, do everything, all-go, no quit PC that would last me at least a couple years on the high-end spectrum. I wanted a PC that was so well rounded a baseball envied it for its shape. Mind you, this was no small task. I demanded a gaming PC capable of burning DVDs, a Digital Photo Editing powerhouse that could entertain 14+ drunken college students, a Web-Browser that could render in 3D. This is where the research started. In a later post I will explore every piece of hardware and software I bought and delve into why I bought them. This will come later.

Ultimately, I had a challenge. Given that I had taken a 4 year hiatus from building PCs, catching up to the technology was a big slap in the face. "Whoah, we have dual cores now? Quad cores!? Holy ######!" You get the idea. I had a LOT of reading to do.

So, in good old fashioned bullet format:

Objectives

Be able to play the latest and hottest games at godly FPS rates - on a large format wide screen monitor.
Be able to load up multiple digital pictures taken at 10.2MP, and edit them all in a matter of seconds to clean up dirty images (heh) and prepare for image processing in CS3 or Lightroom.
Be able to watch and create DVDs without frustrating pauses, lags, and general annoyances.
Be able to run 3D Studios efficiently and create large renders.
Be able to play music - loud.
Be able to do this all simultaneously.

The Build: The Present:

Without further ado, and the ramblings of a giddy twenty year old, I give you...

THE LIST!

NewEgg.com

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Cooler Master Stacker

ASUS P5K Deluxe Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz

G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 @ PC2 6400

EVGA 768MB GeForce 8800GTX

Creative SB X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1

Hiper 880w PSU