Remnantmods

Tired of having a shit performance laptop. Gonna fix it up with a new drive. Either sell it on eBay or put it away from travel use.

Anyway, I want to build a new desktop. Target price is about 550USD for the hardware.
I'd like some advice on selecting the parts and hopefully seeing if what I have would work.

So far I have this selected:
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103727
GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130680
MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128519
...which comes with this RAM for free:
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231428
I then add that again so get 4x 4GB RAM

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371045
CASE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119233
HDD: 2x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136769
Any advice?

Not sure about the Gfx card, but Heh if you're not into computer games, you have nothing to worry about.

That's the same CPU I have. I was going to get that same board too but ended up getting the GA-990XA-UD3 because I found it cheaper. The RAM looks good. Video card is a bit weak but like click said if you're not a big gamer it will work just fine.

What do you plan on doing with the Hard drives? RAID?

Any other plans like overclocking?

Needs a better Graphics card. I wouldn't spend less than $100.

Planned on having a mirrored setup for the drives until I could afford more drives for a RAID setup.

Though I have little need for PC gaming. Being able to would be nice though.
What about this card?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... llFullInfo

I would maybe consider a beefier power supply if you're going to have a 125W CPU and a beefy(400W ??) graphics card as well. I'm not a guru on that type of stuff, but I would imagine you'd be taxing it pretty hard if it's only 450. I like your choice of going with the cheap hard drives and a raid 1(mirror), prices haven't come back down to what they used to be even after the flooding recovery has come quite a ways, I imagine they will come down further, possibly after the holidays. My only other thing I would say is wait for deals on the CPU and ram(they had 16GB for 60$ today as shell shocker, ~$70 is a steal though), black friday and cyber monday are within 7 days, so I would pick up a couple things that aren't already discounted and/or rebated then if you can.

Unless every piece of hardware is running at 100% 24/7 there won't be much strain on the power supply. The 550 Ti only draws 120W or so.

Like I said I'm no guru, but I was under the impression that some of the higher end graphics cards used about 400W. Can anyone else confirm I have no idea on this issue?

I was looking at the card on the manufacturers website.

They require a PSU with 23A 12v rail. (276w)
The one I selected is out of stock anyway. I selected another 600W one.

Better to have extra since I intend on adding more later on.
Overshot my cost goal a bit but whatever.

You could probably get a higher quality case for $50 shipped (not that Cooler Master is bad, that's what I've got and I'm pretty happy).

Also, you can get 16Gigs of ram for ~$62 instead of getting w/e crap is bundled with a mobo (I bet you can get a discounted mobo black friday or cyber monday)

I hope this is the 600W PSU you are buying ($30 after rebate, it's a Corsair too)

If I were buying a new build, I would definitely get that Ram, it's about the cheapest you're gonna find. Unless you're going to do some SERIOUS upgrading soon with really power hungry stuff, that PSU is a steal too, especially from a name like Corsair. I have no experience with Lian Li, but their cases are usually more expensive, and it has pretty good reviews along with the inside looking pretty well designed in the pictures.

Also, I do like the case you picked out too, so it's down to personal preference/budget. I just thought it looked like a pretty good deal. I definitely wouldn't buy the CPU and mobo without at least some type of discount, even if it's only $5 or something. I'm positive the CPU will be sold for less later as they just came out with their next generation stuff last month I think(so that's two generations ago, although still a great performer). I got the last generation 8-core for $130 this month(it was about $180 a month or 2 ago)

OwnZ joO,
I think you linked the wrong ram, that's for a laptop...

The G. skill RAM bundled with the motherboard is not really crap, it's timings are one step looser then I prefer for that speed, but it's not slow. Plus it comes with the motherboard so why not get it? The only big issue I see with it is if you decide to install an aftermarket CPU cooler because the RAM heatsinks might get in the way.

This is a pretty decent power supply calculator: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psuc ... orlite.jsp

Also it wouldn't hurt to throw in a cheap sata dvd burner.

I went ahead and placed my order this morning. Swapped out a few things like the case and PSU. The latter being the very same OwnZ linked.
Also added a cheap DVD burner and keyboard.
Also got a 2.5inch hard drive enclosure off ebay so when (if) I fix one of the laptop drives, I can use it as external storage.

Only thing I'm missing now is a monitor because I have no intention of sharing my gaming monitor with the 360. (though a switcher is connected so I could)

Turns out the 360 has it's own crude version of Internet Explorer so I've been using that somewhat.