Final Build Parts

Posted by JC at

So, after a long day yesterday, here are the final parts that I ordered for the machine I am putting together for my wife:

Component Link Cost
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $162 (Combo Price)
CPU AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition Callisto 3.1GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Processor $162 (Combo Price)
RAM G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) $70
OS Windows XP or Vista through ACM $20
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" $65 * 2
DVD Drive PLEXTOR 24X DVD/CD Writer Black SATA Model PX-880SA $40
Video Card    
Case Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum $60 (After Rebate)
PSU OCZ OCZ700MXSP 700W SLI/CrossFire Active $50 (After Rebate)
  Total: $532

A couple of reasons for changing some of the parts from my original plan:

OS - I found out that since my wife is a student, she could join ACM and get 8 license keys to a large selection of software. Sweet deal, and much cheaper than purchasing an OS straight up.

Hard Drive - I went from 500GB to 640GB because I looked around and people were getting better performance from the 640 ones. The price on these drives is a bit higher than you can find but the "Black" brand is one of the better brands of hard drives and especially for the OS. I wasn't going to get a Velociraptor Drive. Too much for me.

Case - You may notice that I switched the cases and the newer one is $20 bucks more. I liked the original case quite a bit and would have been happy with it. The only reason that I switched is because the new case had free shipping, and the old one would have cost $20 to ship. So in the end, it was the same price but I got a better case.

PSU - I had a couple people direct me away from the Apevia PSU and towards some better brands. This one is built by a more reputable company and has pretty similar specs. The price is the same, so definitely worth switching.

Hopefully all the parts show up this week and then I'll be putting this machine together next weekend. I'll be posting pictures and how things go as I start to build it. I am stoked.

**EDITED 9/29/09 - They lowered the price on the hard drives from $75 to $65. I asked them to refund the difference and they did. I lowered the totals accordingly.

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