I'm planning on completing a new 'gaming' build in mid June, but buying parts as they come on sale between now and then. I want to wait on the CPU and motherboard until after Haswell comes out, so they (along with RAM) will likely be the last parts I purchase. I'll pull out 'the form' to keep this kosher:
Approximate Purchase Date: slowly over the next 4 months
Budget Range: $900-1000 after rebates (the closer to $900 the better, I anticipate sales taking care of some specific parts pricing)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (League of Legends, Borderlands, Starcraft II, Company of Heroes, Sins of a Solar Empire, Demigod, etc. I don't currently have or play any of the major, newer games used in most sites benchmark suites.), Office Productivity, Web Browsing, possibly HyperV depending on final budget (built into Windows 8 Pro)
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Everything
Do you need to buy OS: Yes
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg and Amazon are ones I prefer, but open to anything trustworthy if it doesn't create a hassle and saves money. I've also used TigerDirect in the past (~7 years ago). I wish there was a MicroCenter in my area, but the closest one (~60 miles away) closed down last summer.
Location: Northern California
Parts Preferences: Best bang for buck. Likely going Intel for CPU (Haswell equivalent to 3450) and, based off current pricing, AMD for GPU.
Overclocking: Probably not due to budget constraints
SLI or Crossfire: Probably not due to budget constraints
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: As you can see from my sig, my current PCs are quite old and outdated. It's almost embarrassing considering the fact that I'm an IT professional.
Additional Comments: I also decided that I absolutely needed a built in external HDD docking station or hotswap HDD bays as I'm tired of having to open up my PCs every time I need to salvage data off another PC for friends/side-jobs.
Seeing as I will be slowly purchasing parts over the course of a few months as exceptional deals come along, I decided I needed to break down my global build budget so I had a rough idea of what kind of deal/price range I'm looking for in each part. So I'm looking for a little feedback on how my budget breakdown is looking.
Some additional notes on my plan:
■This will absolutely not be a "pure" gaming build, so I am not even going to consider cutting the solid state drive out of my budget and changing to a $300-400 GPU.
■I recently discovered HyperV in Windows 8 (through work) and really like some of the things it can allow you to do. I would therefore classify it as something I am hoping to ■be able to run, but isn't an absolute necessity as it will likely necessitate a minimum $70 price increase compared to a PC that wouldn't run HyperV. (HyperV requires Windows 8 Pro and would be much better with 16GB of RAM than 8GB.)
■I am absolutely including a solid state drive, and hoping for it to be of the 240-256GB variety. I want to be able to fit my OS and all my software (MS Office and all my games) onto the SSD.
That said, here is my current budget breakdown:
CPU: $190-200 (as noted above, Haswell equivalent to the i5 3450 is what I'm currently planning to get)
CPU Cooler: $0 (included with CPU)
Motherboard: $90-100 (I'm thinking I will likely end up with the Z87 equivalent to the ASRock Z77 Pro4)
RAM: $70 (16 GB DDR3 1600)
System Drive: $150 (hoping for a superb deal on either a 256 GB Samsung 830 or 240 GB Mushkin Enchanced Chronos Deluxe)
Storage Drive: $70 (1 TB Western Digital Caviar Blue HDD. Could re-purpose an old 320 GB drive in a pinch)
GPU: $200 (Thinking I will most likely end up with a 7870 GHz Edition)
Case: $50 (Already purchased a Thermaltake Level 10 GTS for this price from Newegg)
PSU: $40 (I expect a good quality 550W 80Plus Bronze model will be sufficient. Kicking myself for missing the deal Newegg had on an XFX PSU last week.)
DVD Burner: $20 (likely to re-purpose an old drive to save money here.)
OS: $120 (Windows 8 Pro on a sale is the hope here)
Total: $1000-1020
If I build this as a $900 build then the first things to go are the extra 8 GB RAM and Windows 8 Pro (drops down to Win7 Home Premium). That saves roughly $70 right off the bat.
What parts do you think I could find for cheaper between now and when I hope to complete this build (mid June) than the cost I have budgeted for them? What type of adjustments (if any) would you make to this budget? Any additional thoughts?
Approximate Purchase Date: slowly over the next 4 months
Budget Range: $900-1000 after rebates (the closer to $900 the better, I anticipate sales taking care of some specific parts pricing)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (League of Legends, Borderlands, Starcraft II, Company of Heroes, Sins of a Solar Empire, Demigod, etc. I don't currently have or play any of the major, newer games used in most sites benchmark suites.), Office Productivity, Web Browsing, possibly HyperV depending on final budget (built into Windows 8 Pro)
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Everything
Do you need to buy OS: Yes
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg and Amazon are ones I prefer, but open to anything trustworthy if it doesn't create a hassle and saves money. I've also used TigerDirect in the past (~7 years ago). I wish there was a MicroCenter in my area, but the closest one (~60 miles away) closed down last summer.
Location: Northern California
Parts Preferences: Best bang for buck. Likely going Intel for CPU (Haswell equivalent to 3450) and, based off current pricing, AMD for GPU.
Overclocking: Probably not due to budget constraints
SLI or Crossfire: Probably not due to budget constraints
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: As you can see from my sig, my current PCs are quite old and outdated. It's almost embarrassing considering the fact that I'm an IT professional.
Additional Comments: I also decided that I absolutely needed a built in external HDD docking station or hotswap HDD bays as I'm tired of having to open up my PCs every time I need to salvage data off another PC for friends/side-jobs.
Seeing as I will be slowly purchasing parts over the course of a few months as exceptional deals come along, I decided I needed to break down my global build budget so I had a rough idea of what kind of deal/price range I'm looking for in each part. So I'm looking for a little feedback on how my budget breakdown is looking.
Some additional notes on my plan:
■This will absolutely not be a "pure" gaming build, so I am not even going to consider cutting the solid state drive out of my budget and changing to a $300-400 GPU.
■I recently discovered HyperV in Windows 8 (through work) and really like some of the things it can allow you to do. I would therefore classify it as something I am hoping to ■be able to run, but isn't an absolute necessity as it will likely necessitate a minimum $70 price increase compared to a PC that wouldn't run HyperV. (HyperV requires Windows 8 Pro and would be much better with 16GB of RAM than 8GB.)
■I am absolutely including a solid state drive, and hoping for it to be of the 240-256GB variety. I want to be able to fit my OS and all my software (MS Office and all my games) onto the SSD.
That said, here is my current budget breakdown:
CPU: $190-200 (as noted above, Haswell equivalent to the i5 3450 is what I'm currently planning to get)
CPU Cooler: $0 (included with CPU)
Motherboard: $90-100 (I'm thinking I will likely end up with the Z87 equivalent to the ASRock Z77 Pro4)
RAM: $70 (16 GB DDR3 1600)
System Drive: $150 (hoping for a superb deal on either a 256 GB Samsung 830 or 240 GB Mushkin Enchanced Chronos Deluxe)
Storage Drive: $70 (1 TB Western Digital Caviar Blue HDD. Could re-purpose an old 320 GB drive in a pinch)
GPU: $200 (Thinking I will most likely end up with a 7870 GHz Edition)
Case: $50 (Already purchased a Thermaltake Level 10 GTS for this price from Newegg)
PSU: $40 (I expect a good quality 550W 80Plus Bronze model will be sufficient. Kicking myself for missing the deal Newegg had on an XFX PSU last week.)
DVD Burner: $20 (likely to re-purpose an old drive to save money here.)
OS: $120 (Windows 8 Pro on a sale is the hope here)
Total: $1000-1020
If I build this as a $900 build then the first things to go are the extra 8 GB RAM and Windows 8 Pro (drops down to Win7 Home Premium). That saves roughly $70 right off the bat.
What parts do you think I could find for cheaper between now and when I hope to complete this build (mid June) than the cost I have budgeted for them? What type of adjustments (if any) would you make to this budget? Any additional thoughts?