HR Forums

I've been reluctant to build my own computer - mostly because of the vast number of choices to make, and fear of incompatible parts. HR went a long way toward helping me make reasonable choices, and Newegg reviews narrowed things down even more. Choosing components turned out to be not as hard as I thought it would be - though we did spend a few weeks tweaking.

My new machine is not quite high-end, but a little above mid-range, with upgrade potential. My teenage sons and I are thrilled with the result! Here are the specs:

Intel i5-2500K
CoolerMaster HAF 932
16 GB Kingston DDR3 SDRAM 1333
ASRock P67 Extreme 4 (B3)
MSI Twin Frozer II GTX 560 Ti (possibly add a second one later)
Corsair A70 dual-fan cooler
Corsair Force 120 GB SSD
Corsair HX850 PSU 80 Plus Silver
WD Caviar Black 1 TB 7200 SATA
2 ASUS DVD drives
Windows 7 Professional OEM

Cost $1567

We bought 2 monitors:
Asus VW246H for $200 (which we love)
HP 2031 20", on sale at Best Buy for $90, and I had a $20 coupon

And for fun:
Logitech G35 surround sound headset
Saitek R.A.T. 7 gaming mouse
Warrior keypad

Start to finish, this took my son and I less than 3 hours to assemble (unpacking all the boxes took 45 minutes). The case is terrific - in spite of weighing a ton, it was straightforward to run the cables and wires where they needed to go, and installing the drives was a breeze. We're very proud of ourselves!

How about posting some pics?

It didn't occur to me to take pics during the process - I wish I had. We were so anxious to get started that I didn't think about the camera. Mostly I wish I had a photo of the UPS guy, wheeling up a dolly stacked 4 feet high with all our stuff!

I need to open up the case to unplug the power LED - I could read by that thing. I'll get some pictures then.

One of my sons helped with the assembly; the other helped by staying out of the way, and by playing Bob Marley's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" for us. When it was over, and everything booted up uneventfully, he played "We Are the Champions". Appropriate music is important in our house.

Epic soundtrack ;-). I can imagine the ups guy looking at the boxes and saying yep, he is building a computer. Gotta love coupons.

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