Building new with past parts

[Bucknut]

Approximate Purchase Date: hopefully as soon as possible, next week or so

Budget Range: 500-600 after rebate

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming, htpc, browsing

Parts Not Required: keyboard, monitor, hard drives, speakers, mouse, dvd drives,case, and power supply (610w pc power and cooling)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg, tigerdirect, amazon

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: Prefer intel
Overclocking: maybe

SLI or Crossfire:maybe

Monitor Resolution:1680x1050

Additional Comments: right now running off an OC'd 8800gt and intel E8400. Just looking at something that will last me a good bit just like this build did for the past 4 years.

 

[FrozenFlame22]

I just rebuilt my desktop using this:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 - new
Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 with packaged cooling - new
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X 4GB (2 x 2GB) - new
Video Card: Radeon HD 6570 - bought Nov 2011
Power Supply: Nspire NSP-750V2-2BF14PFC 750W - bought 2007
HDD 1: Seagate SATA 500GB, Windows 8 Consumer Preview - new
HDD 2: Seagate SATA 500GB, data drive - new
HDD 3: Westren Digital SATA 320GB, Windows XP - bought 2010
HDD 4: Hitachi Deskstar SATA 80GB, Kubuntu - bought 2007 (not plugged in)
Optical Drive: HP DVD1260t DVD-RW - new
Dynex Internal All in One Card Reader DX-CRD12 - bought 2007
Case: Thermaltake Armor with 250mm side fan VA8003SWA - bought 2007

I watched prices for a few weeks and was able to buy all new parts (motherboard, processor, RAM, and 2 harddrives) for under $350. Building this from scratch would easily be under $500.

I'm very happy with this setup. The motherboard was marketed as being specifically long life. It has thicker copper traces than most motherboards and many of the capacitors are solid state. It also has dual bios so that if I screw up the bios through tinkering or a botched firmware update then it will automatically replace a messed up bios with the backup. This motherboard is very overclocking friendly, but I don't plan to use those features. If you do start tinkering with overclocking then you need to be absolutely certain you know what you are doing.

I bought this processor because it preforms very well for moderate gaming (I don't anticipate any problems with the new Diablo game), light movie watching (streamed videos and an occasional DVD), and the general home office stuff. There are more powerful processors out there, but the average user, even the average gamer, won't be able to tell a difference. Yes there are enthusiasts on these forums that will want MOAR POWAR! but I just wanted something reliable. The price was also very reasonable. A word of warning however, this processor absolutely positively will NOT overclock. Overclocking this processor even a tiny bit is almost guaranteed to fry it. That said, it runs pretty cool, just a few degrees C above room temp.

Video Card will play any game I want without problems. There are slightly nicer cards out now for comparable price that I paid for this one.

You'll notice I don't have a sound card. I do have one from my last build, but the onboard sound is actually better than my dedicated card. Unless you are running a media center machine or are in the music industry, you don't need a sound card.

I hope that helps! You might also want to look at Lifehacker's Always Up to Date Guide to the Best PCs You Can Build for $600 and $1200