My first build re-cabled after replacing my motherboard. Apologies for crappy picture quality.
Also officially my first reddit post so... I don't know what I'm doing here. Be nice to me :>
When my friend and I originally picked out the parts for this build back in September we were both very new to this whole process. I'd say we did a pretty good job for a $706 build though. Biggest regret is my case. The Rosewill challenger has that name because they understand exactly how difficult the cable management is in it. You have to keep your cables perfectly flat back there, and if it weren't for the groove, the 24 pin wouldn't even fit. It's tight. When I first put this computer together I had no idea there were all these people talking about cable management, custom sleeving, and case mods. This computer before I rewired it was pretty terrible... Now its approaching decent :P I plan to custom sleeve my next build and cut everything to be just the right lengths and get something like some of the builds you see in this subreddit :P
But for what I've got now, taking the lengths I have to deal with and the non sleeved cables and all the lame things into consideration, do you guys see anything I could improve on?
Every component of my computer was purchased through Amazon Prime.
CPU: AMD FX-6300 6-Core Processor Black Edition - $118.99
CPU Cooler: Lame cheap fan that came with CPU ;( - With CPU
Cooling: 2x Rosewill RFA-120-BL 120mm 4 Blue LED Case Fan (My jet engines. Run loud as hell) - $15.98
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 AM3+ - $66.99
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Blue 8 GB (2X4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory - $79.99
Storage: WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM - $54.99
Video Card: MSI AMD Radeon HD 7950 OC Boost 3GB Video Card R7950-3GD5/OC - $264.72 ($25 rebate)
Case: Rosewill Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case CHALLENGER - $39.99
Power Supply: Raidmax 850W 80 Plus Gold ATX12V/EPS12V Active PFC Power Supply RX-850AE - $84.99
Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - $7.87
TOTAL COST: $731.39 - $25 rebate = $706.36 (We don't need to talk about the part where I forgot to mail in the rebate.)
Heres what I would go with. Note: I don't really know your computer knowledge level so I'm probably going to ramble a bit so sorry in advance. Some things went up so much in price I can't believe it. I paid $25 shipped for the RAM that is now in the $70's....
$129.99 Monitor - Acer 24" 1920x1080 Monitor. Good size, the 'standard' resolution, perfect reviews and a brand I trust
$38.99 Keyboard LED Illuminated Whatever - This one is tough. I haven't tried mechanical keyboards yet, don't know how they perform. I really don't have a hard time with any traditional keyboard unless its a laptop one. Really unless you want a nice looking one just pick up whatever. I picked this one just cause the reviews were fine and it looked cool, and looks are important!
$55 Mouse - Logitech G400 - I will never buy a cheap mouse, so I recommended my favorite. I have spent a good $400 on mice and I always come back to this style. Logitech is my favorite brand simply because they have always been reliable. I think mice are well worth spending good money on, since they are your input source. I replaced my old MX518 with it when it stopped working (after something like 10 years of solid use)
Speakers- For now I would just find some or buy the cheapest possible until you want an alright set. It should be about $50-$75 for a standard 2x speaker and subwoofer setup. Not writing it in for now, these kind of suck to shop for since the only people who seem to review any of them only have bad things to say
$50.00 Case Rosewill Challenger - I have a hard time shopping for cases since there are tons that look good. This one has good ventallation and is affordable
$66.99 Motherboard MSI Computer Corp. Socket AM3+ - Basic good board
$118.99 Processor AMD FX 6300 - I would go AMD. They just have the best price to ratio I have seen, and the main focus you should be dumping money into is the video card. Processors are pretty much never the bottleneck anymore, its all on the GPU. This game runs fine on my comp with a 6100. This ones slightly better. Most games now are multi-threaded (I think PA is, or will be soon) and having 6 cores is just peachy
$250 (GTX760) or $225 (Radeon 7950) Video Card - I have been an Nvidia fan for life because for years ATI's drivers sucked, but since AMD acquired ATI I have shifted my views. I personally have a GTX 760 ($250) and would choose it again in a heartbeat, but AMD's 7950 ($225) is a very nice card as well. Up to you, I personally go with Nvidia
$70.57 Ram - Kingston 8gb Ram - Well holy cow did RAM go up in price. I bought 8gb a year ago that is clocked the same for $25 and now the same deal is $80. Wasn't anticipating such a price hike. This put me a tad over budget :(
$64 Power Supply Raidmax 635W - This ones a pretty decent deal and you need a MIN 550 for the graphics card. Not modular though, which can be nice
Hard Drive - You said you had an existing large hard drive in another post, I would use that for now and eventually buy a Solid State Drive whenever you feel like reinstalling and spending more money. I personally haven't bought one yet since they are kind of expensive but I know they are fast and help with load times.
$21.68 Wireless Card - Rosewill PCI Card - I admit I didn't shop around much, this is what was the best deal when I bought mine and its worked fine ever since. Never even installed drivers
DVD Drive (Unless you install windows through a USB drive) - Whatever you want, if you can steal one from another computer do that. Or install through a USB drive. I would OEM windows and use a loader to get Win7, but if you really want to buy it, it will cost you another $100. Could be up to $25 if you need to buy one
Total: $866 - A tad over budget but the best I could do. I wouldn't skimp out on any of the core components, if you can't wait and need to spend less I'd try to borrow a monitor or mouse or keyboard and buy them later. It would be a touch less if you go with the Radeon card. I didn't include shipping in these because I think they get free shipping when you spend this much. Could be wrong
Anyways, thats my parts list I'm sure others may disagree. Sorry it took so long. Have fun!
EDIT: Note this will be fairly future proof and should lat 4-5 years before actually starting to lag behind, it is very similar to mine, which plays every game on ultra settings and most of them I can crank the anti-aliasing up