Since before my mother-in-law moved in with us (and subsequently moved out), I've hemmed and hawed, vacillating on whether I could afford this project, or even if I had the ability to put it together once it got here. But with money saved from both Christmas presents and holiday pay, and more importantly with my bills budgeted for, I bit the first bullet.
First?
Well... yes. You see, this is the first step. I bought the core components last night, but there are massive upgrades needed before I will be ready to call this thing ready to roll out. So, last night's shopping list.
- Processor: Intel Core i5-3330 @ 3.0 GHz.
- Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro3
- Memory: ADATA XPG Gaming Series DDR3-1600; 8 GB (2x4GB)
Total cost: $325. You may notice quite a few things missing, especially for a build that aims to be a complete computer, much less a gaming machine. You know the old adage, "waste not, want not?" This is a prime example. Last year, my uncle came to me with a computer problem that boiled down to a faulty motherboard. He was short on money, so I sold him one of my older machines -- powerful enough for email and Skype, which is what he used the computer for anyway -- for trade-in plus a little cash.
Why would I do this? Mostly, I wanted to get my hands on a SATA drive. All of my other hard drives are IDE which, if it isn't already, is quickly on it way to being a legacy interface. As evidenced by the motherboard, which does not have an IDE connector. It also gives me access to an empty case and a (more than likely) working power supply; though at 400 watts, it is fair to consider it under-powered for my purposes. I also have a mouse, keyboard, and a monitor on hand that can be re-purposed quite easily.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room. What am I going to do for discreet graphics? For the time being, the answer is nothing. I spent the extra $10 on the i5-3330 instead of the 3350P to get the integrated graphics. A mid-range graphics card would probably end up taxing that 400 watt power supply to brown-out levels even if the PS had the right plug on it. As it is, between the integrated graphics of the 3330 and the VGA output on the Pro3 (because the monitor I'm salvaging was bought when DVI was optional and HDMI was expensive as heck), I'll be in business pretty darn quick.
So, if processor, motherboard and memory were round 1, what's round 2? More than likely, a new case (something along the lines of the Rosewill Blackhawk) and power supply; probably in the 600-750W range, so another $150-200. Round 3 looks like a new, smaller desk and chair because as much as I look forward to gaming marathons, the idea of sitting by myself in my office all day is not particularly appealing. I was looking at the WalMart specials and found a combo in the $75 range, pretty good for me. Then Windows. Yes, I'm waiting that long to put Windows on this computer. I'll decide what flavor when the time comes. Then will come the graphics card; and again, the flavor will be decided by costs at the time.
All in all, looks like a good start.
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