Building a PC

[jackslammer]

Here's where I've ended up:

Code:

CAS: Cooler Master Elite 431 Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ Side-Panel Window CD: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR) CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-3570 3.40 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1155 FAN: Intel Certified CPU Fan & Heatsink HDD: 128GB ADATA SP900 SATA-III 6.0Gb/s - 550 MB/s Read & 520 MB/s Write (Single Drive) HDD2: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200 RPM HDD (Single Drive) MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1866MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS) MOTHERBOARD: [CrossFireX] ASUS P8Z77-V LX Intel Z77 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ IRST, Lucid Virtu MVP, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, 2x PCIe x16 (1 Gen3, 1 Gen2), 2x PCIe x1 & 3 PCI NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network OS: Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium POWERSUPPLY: 750 Watts - Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 80 Plus Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

Total price is $1148. Dropping down to an i5, 8GB memory and Win7 Home let me add the SSD and up the graphics card without changing the price much.

I like ADATA's RAM and that SSD has a standard Sandforce controller but I'd go with a better SSD like the Crucial m4, Intel 320 or 330, Samsung 830 or 840, OCZ Vertex 4, etc. Rages mentioned how the new generation of SSDs are around the corner, and the Samsung 840 is amongst the first of them, here is a review of it: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6337/samsu...0gb-review

It's only $10 more than the ADATA SP9000 on Newegg as well: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820147188

Here's a good deal on a GPU although if you can get a 670 for less than $300 stick with that;

EVGA 03G-P4-3661-KR GeForce GTX 660 Ti 3GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
$329.99 - $10.00IR - $32.00 promo code "HARDOCP1X31A" (10%) - $20.00IR = $267.99 with free shipping
Promo Expires on 11/6/12