If skora had...$1000 to upgrade from an old pre-built 8-3-09

Here is a concept I'm trying out to provide examples and snap shot pricing of possible system builds. Please check this link and vote if you like this idea or not.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/269153-31-skora


If I had $1000 to upgrade an old prebuilt box, there are only 4 parts I'd recycle. The keyboard, mouse, speakers, and the optical drive. The HDD could be pulled but wouldn't be used as anything more than a storage drive because of the speed. Everything else is included in the budget. Feel free to ask questions of why I picked this over that. Deals/prices/combos will change, so this will expire as a current price map, but will still shows a balanced system example.

With newegg recently reseting all their combos and taking a lot of the mail in rebates with it, I looked to other etailers for this inital installment of "If skora had." Zipzoomfly.com has free shipping on almost everything right now and their mail in rebates are intact. The down side of zzf is their selections are not nearly as vast and some of the prefered products are out of stock. But in the end, the price was around $44 ($26 of it was shipping) cheaper than newegg. See the bottom for a note on multi site shopping.

Here's the parts I've selected:

MONITOR $175-$20mir=$155
I always start gaming builds with the monitor. It drives the GPU and somewhat the CPU and mobo.
ASUS VH236H 23in 1920x1080 Widescreen LCD Monitor 2ms 300 cd/m2 Glossy Black Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010300

GPU $140-$20=$140
ASUS EAH4870 DK/HTDI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express x16 (2.0v) Video Card Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10009877

CPU $170
AMD 945 Phenom II X4 3.00 GHz 4000 MHz AM3 4 x 512KB Desktop Processor Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010872

Mobo $113 from combo
GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AMD 790X AM3 Phenom II Socket AM3 5200 MT/s PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333) ATX Motherboard Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010088

Ram $80 This was the only selection really but still is cas 7
OCZ OCZ3P16004GK 4GB PC3-12800+ (DDR3-1600+) DDR3 Memory Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10008207

PSU $79
ANTEC EA650 EarthWatts Series 650W SLI Active Power Supply Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010587

CASE $60
ANTEC THREE HUNDRED Mid Chassis Black Mid Tower Case Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10007764

HSF $35-$5=$30 Coolers are another weak selection spot for this site, but frosties have this 4 out of 5 stars and it works well enough.
OCZ Vendetta 2 OCZTVEND2 Aluminum & Copper Intel/AMD CPU Cooler Retail
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10008593

HDD $77-$10=$67 Yet again, the prefered black HDD was out of stock so had to settle for this Hitachi. The charts show this performs better than the WD green and that is the other option but has double the capacity. Both carry a 3 year warranty.
HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.B 0A38016 1TB SATA II 7200 RPM 16MB Buffer Hard Drive Bulk
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10009440

OS $109
MICROSOFT Vista Home Prem SP1 64-bit DVD w/ free Upgrade to Windows 7 66I-03525 Software Bulk
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010655

OPTICAL, Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers (built into monitor choice also)
Recycled from old system

TOTAL $1057.32-$55 mir
=$1002.32

Now, if you're willing to shop from 2 sites, I'd get this CPU/Mobo/GPU combo from newegg. It match the price of the above after shipping is applied but you get an 790FX mobo instead of just the 790X.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.215824

I'd also opt for the caviar black 640gb over the hitachi even though it would take us over by $10. Less space but better performer and 5 year warranty.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136319

Hope this helps and if it does, drop a note in the thread. I'm up for changing parts through respectful debate as long as the core of the pricing discounts on the other parts remains stable.

Feel free to start your own thread. I don't want others to think this is the only way to do it on this budget. Also, the parts you need can fit under the $100 so the systems will look very similar.

I just realized the 4890 can be had from zzf for $175 amir. So for $12 under budget, these changes can be made:

4890
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010282

AMD 720x3
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010064

Asus 790GX mobo
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] e=10010097

Old GPU/CPU/Mobo cost $423
This x3 setup cost $410

It would be great to have the money to put these two systems side by side and benchmark them. For pure gaming, I'd probably opt for the x3 setup. To bad I didn't see that till just now.

Thanks for helping me but I think I am going with my own build core i7.
I'll post my system when I think I'm done.

The core i7 is just too expensive for me now.
Combo: asus p6t lga 1366 motherboard, core i7 920 nehalem, ocz gold ddr3 6 gb of ram: total price $560. Just for those things. Gosh

Yep I think so to

I agree with you... I just wish I know what the majic formula to get something made sticky... In my LGA 775 post, I tried to put in the thread, links to all of the other major threads found throughout Tom's Hardware that I've found very useful.

I am leaning towards Skora's build http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] w=0&nojs=0

Is the 650 PSU adequate for a 12nd vid card upgrade?

If you want to add a second 4870 is should be sufficient, but by the time you need to add one the 5xxx series will be out or nearly out and will use less power for more performance.

Thanks for adding to the cause. Unfortunately, shopping carts can't just be linked like that so I can't see what you are trying to show me that way.

Its not my intention to keep this up to date all the time with prices. More of a snapshot in time and then used as what a balanced build should look like. But please update with a link to the combo, I'm always in the market for a great deal.