My Newest Challenge: Building a Gaming PC Under a $675 Budget

I’ve decided to challenge myself next month since I’ve gave advice on others when building their gaming PC‘s. Their budget was an under a $1000 budget. I decided when its time to build mine I will be staying under a $675 budget. So far I’ve come up with a few things from Microcenter.com and Newegg.com. I think whats going to cost the most is my Gaming PC Case/Tower. I’ve even been on buy.com as well and they have some decent price techs on there as well. The only place I’m avoiding is Ebay.com, I will never shop on there again.

I need to make a list on things I won’t be needing…

• A PC monitor.
• A Keyboard.
• A Mouse.
• A Gaming Case. [If my friend comes through for me that is.]
• B.S. from my moody, snotty boyfriend.
• My boyfriends help.

The things I will be needing…

• RAM [4GB]
• Processor.
• Motherboard.
• Hard drive.
• Gaming Case.
• Power Source.
• Graphics Card.
• Software.
• Patience.
• CD-DVD-ROM.
• CPU Fans.

Usually, I would tell people to look at the game that they are going to be playing the most and go by those specifics. Well the main game(s) I’m going to be playing is The Sims and Command & Conquer. Both are EA games which is the sad part. Anyway, I go to Can You Run it? which is a site that give you a report about  your computer. Right now, I’m on a Dell, a old one in fact, here is my report when I put in the game I want to play on it…[hypothetically]…I put in The Sims 2 but it didn’t work so I put in The Sims 3 and this is what I got…

Note: If you aren’t familiar with this site and this is your first time using it, the site will ask you to download a very small java app that allows it to give the site your specifics about your computer. Its okay to download it, you won’t even know its there. This site have every PC game imaginable if you want to try it out so feel free.

They give you recommendations as well that will lead to different sites such as tigerdirect.com and sites like it.

Anyway, that’s where I’ve decided to get my PC from, I found a AMD based Barebone kit that cost $419.99 after the rebate but that rebate will be over when I get around to buying it so its actually $429.99 which isn’t bad. It comes with everything except for a graphics card.

Here are the specifications, descriptions and prices for it…

• MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum Motherboard – $119.99
• AMD Phenom 9500 2.20GHz Retail – $89.99
• OCZ SLI 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 -$52.99
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB Hard Drive – $59.99
• CoolerMaster CM690 ATX Mid-Tower Case – $89.99
• Ultra LSP550 550-Watt Power Supply -$59.98
  • This sleek, handsome, and powerful quad core barebone is ready to be the foundation of a killer multimedia or gaming computer! The MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum mono supports dual-channel DDR2 1066+/800/667MHz memory up to 8GB, PCI-E x1, PCI-E x16 2.0, SATA 3Gb/s, USB 2.0, Gigabit LAN, and 8-channel HD audio. Ideal for gaming, multimedia, or business computing.

Eventually I am going to upgrade. My boyfriend has a graphics card I can use for now but I won’t be using that one long because I want my own. Well, I guess that’s it…I can post this for now.