This is what I have so far. This would be the first time I've built but I've been watching and reading how to material and I don't believe it will be too hard as long as take time and dont get careless.
I could drop down to the i3 3220 and use that money for a better GPU or motherboard, but my fear is that games will start needing quad cores soon
I wanted to go with a Z77 motherboard so I could add another GPU later on, but I couldn't make the price work.
I figured 460w would be enough for the PSU.
I've went back and forth on several cases in the sub $50 range, I really don't know about it. I just don't want anything over the top as far as the design- no colors other than black, no LEDs...etc.
Any thoughts or insight from those with more building experience than me would be greatly appreciated.
Get the i3 and get a 660ti, it will be a while till many games can really utilize 4 cores and even then swapping out a cpu is cheaper than swapping a gpu.
Would it be better to get one of these two boards and a 7950 if that left open the possibility of adding another GPU later. Like I said, I've never built before, so I don't know some of the technicalities of the process. Each board only has 1 PCI 3.0 so I would assume the 2nd card would have to go into the PCI 2.0 slot and I don't know if there are compatability issues there or if the 2nd card would be restricted if it had to go into a PCI 2.0 slot.
Excellent build, but doesn't take the price of Windows 7 into account. I would gladly pirate it, but with my luck, I would be the one person to get proscecuted for it.