$675 Gaming Rig

hobbers

Distinguished
Jul 2, 2008
8
0
18,510
All prices in $USD.

169.99 E8400 - OEM … with ECS LGA 775 Mobo Combo
14.02 Tax

159.99 Asus EN8800GT/G/HTDP/512M
124.95 Antec Sonata III 500 Case
59.99 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB SATA - OEM
-30 Antec / Seagate Combo Discount
26.99 Philips DVD±RW CD-RW Lightscribe SATA
25.99 Hyper TX2 LGA 775 HSF
7.99 Rosewill RFX-120 Case Fan
43.99 OCZ Platinum 2 x 1 GB DDR2 800 CL4
119.99 Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Motherboard
39.14 Tax
15.30 Shipping

778.33 Total
-30 Sell ECS LGA 775 Mobo
-30 Asus 8800GT Rebate
-20 Gigabyte Rebate
-25 OCZ Rebate

673.33 Grand Total

Seems pretty hard to beat the E8400 / 8800GT price-performance ratio right now. Also, I chose specific components ...

E8400 ... one of the cheapest 45 nm, 6MB cache, 1333 MHz dual cores.
Gigabyte EP35-DS3R ... one of the cheapest P35/ICH9R motherboards.
Seagate ... Seagate. And one of the cheapest 16 MB cache drives. (Already got a RAID setup, so I don't need massive storage.)

Everything else was convenience and cost (i.e. the Antec combo).

Gotta love the competition in the computer market.
 

hobbers

Distinguished
Jul 2, 2008
8
0
18,510
Eh, at this point after tax/rebates $140 for the 8800gt versus $170 for the 4850 is a better choice. I don't really need to get 100 fps instead of 80 fps.

And you gotta resist adding $20 here, $20 there. You can always just say "heck with it" and step up to the next component easily. But next thing you know, you're at $800 instead of $675. Budget was heavily in mind here. This is replacing an Athlon XP 2100+ and GeForce 4 Ti4200 128.

I got a guy from craigslist coming over to pick up the ECS for $30. If he doesn't show up, another guy offered $20.