I’ve been holding on to my Windows XP rig for about 4 years. It is still a fine machine with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz (overclocked to 3.2GHz) processor, a GeForce GTS 250 video card and a XFX NVIDIA 750i SLI Motherboard but it was showing the signs of becoming elderly in online play and while running multiple programs while researching online. It will continue to be a fine machine for my girlfriend who will now be able to write her English papers in lighting speed and, when she plays, game on a rig far superior to her Deckard-Cain-ancient laptop. For me though, it was time for me to move on – to say goodbye to a great companion and allow her to benefit someone else. After shedding a few tears and deciding to use a piece of my severance pay, I started scouting out potential parts like Dr. Frankenstein and make an investment in to a rig that will outlive my last one.
I first perused my last couple of issues of PC Gamer magazine looking at the companies advertising their custom built PCs. Many spend a lot of time deciding on AMD or Intel and I will admit for my first self built rig, this was an intense debate in which AMD won out due to my budget at the time. After spending the last 4 years with an Intel processor I was hooked and admittedly, am now a brand loyal “Intel-lite”. With the processor brand in mind I took to the internet and to the custom built PCs company websites. I took a brief look at the current rigs Alien Ware were producing and then ended up on www.ibuypower.com were I built a couple of rigs within my budget and with all the goodies I required. Once I had an idea of my specs I passed on the info to a friend who did a similar build on Micro Center’s website. At this point I had the itch and only a new rig would be able to scratch it. So after determining on Wednesday that my friend and I would start the build on Saturday, I called him Thursday to start early.
At Micro Center, with parts and DirectX 11 graphics in my head, we went about bargain hunting without cutting quality and below are the final results:
Diabotek EVO ATX Mid Tower (w/4 x 12cm Fans & LED Lighting)
GeForce GTX 570 HD (1280MB GDDR5) Video Card
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4/3.7GHz Processor
GIGABYTE Z68XP-UD3 Motherboard (SLI capable)
Patriot PC3-12800 1600MHz 8GB Kit (DDR3 Memory)
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 32MB CACHE 7200RPM Hard Drive
Antec 650 Watt ATX 12V V2.3 Power Supply
Sony 24x DVD RW AD-7260S
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Fan+Heatsink
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010
Wyatt Kovich 2011 Edition (Friend with superior CPU building knowledge) – P.S. Thanks again.
Below is a summary of the build:
Mother fu... I mean board.
Motherboard (in tower) awaiting to be impregnated by processor.
Motherboard/processor sex is hot so you need to cool it.
A very hard drive (lower) and DVD RW disk spinner in place.
Motherboard tag team: GeForce GTX 570HD inserted to board.
Patriot PC3-12800 1600MHz 8GB Kit DDR3 Memory inserted into motherboard (right of cooler fan,background) and Wyatt Kovich 2011 Edition (foreground).
Final steps: installation of the Windows monopoly.
Running bright and ready for the online fight.
