A Friend's $2000 Budget

[HateDread]

Hey,

I'm trying to help a friend out- he has a budget of $2000 AUD, and would prefer to use www.shopbot.com.au for the parts. The budget needs to include a monitor, and OS.

He seems fixed on a XFX 780I mobo, because it has good reviews. I have tried to convince him an ATI card with an Intel chipset is better, but we'd rather your opinion than solely trust mine.

It appears he was talking about getting parts off of Ebay- what are your thoughts? I had thought that it wasn't *that* much cheaper, and the various issues using Ebay negate the small savings.

The setup is for gaming, and he will overclock if it is worth it.

Thanks in advance for your help!
HateDread

 

[johnyeah]

Ebay is fine if you can actually win the bids for cheap parts, but if you don't want to deal with it then just get it from the site.

Monitor:
SAMSUNG 2253BW 22" LCD Monitor $300.00

Operating System:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional $165

Case and PSU:
OCZ GameXStream OCZ600GXSSLI - 600W $119.00
Antec Three Hundred $83.00

HDD:
Seagate 7200.11 500GB $100.00

DVD Burner:
LG GH20NS15 $35.00

Video Card:
ASUS EAH4870/HTDI/512M $365.00

RAM:
G.skill F2-8000CL5D-4GBPI dual channel 2*2GB $108

Motherboard:
XFX 780I: $339.00

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 $229.00

That should be about $1843 AUD, I checked all the components on that site.

Just a sidenote, there's better motheboards than that 780I.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R $160.00.

Unless he's thinking of going 3-way SLI, then I'd get an Intel chipset as well.

 

[johnyeah]

Forgot to mention, the money he saves by getting another solid Intel chipset motherboard, he can get an even better CPU (better C/P that way).