Well my older computer setup went as such.
-Phenom 9950
-Asus M3A-78t
-4GB OCZ Reaper DDR2-1066mghz
-Radeon 4870 1GB
-Two 1TB Seagate 7200rpm in RAID 0

The Mobo died and because my two drivers were stripped, I bought another one off ebay in order to retrieve the data. Well that mobo didn't work either. I was going to RMA my board back, but I was getting to leave for basic training and knew my wife would be moving. I didn't know what our new address was going to be so I decided to wait till I got back from basic.

During the move, somehow my CPU, vid card, ram, and both mobos got lost. So just a couple weeks ago I started shopping for more parts, kept an eye on sales, and here's what I have now.

Case: Antec Solo around $60 a couple yrs ago on sale.
PSU: Enermax Pro 82 (625w) Around $70 on ebay NIB a couple yrs ago.
CPU: Core i5-2500k $179+tax at Microcenter
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z68x-UD3H-B3 $95+tax after MIR at Microcenter
Ram: 8GB G-Skill DDR3-2133Mhz. $75 with Newegg's deal of the day.
Boot drive: Kingston SSD V+100 96GB $95 shipped after MIR from Amazon.
Media drives: Two 1TB Seagate 7200's, One 2TB Seagate 7200. (And 3.5TB in external storage)
DVD Burner: I forget. It has Lightscribe though
BluRay Burner: LG 12x is all I remember. I think I bought it for around $90-100 last year.
OS: Win 7 Home premium 64bit. $29.99 with student email.

Right now I am trying to get Win 7 installed. I gotta say, having to install updates which require multiple restarts is making me very happy I bought an SSD! Snappy restarts for sure.

I'll post pics later.

Nice build, I have been looking to upgrade to Sandy Bridge also. What are your thoughts on the graphics card replacement?

asnorton44 wrote:Nice build, I have been looking to upgrade to Sandy Bridge also. What are your thoughts on the graphics card replacement?

Well I don't want to buy a vid card yet. I want to see how well Intel's built in GPU works. I will stream movies (h264, mkv, etc... in 1080p with files usually ranging between 8-12GB) and play older games (Civ 4, C&C 3, Unreal Tournament from early 2000's) so I don't need high end vid card. If I had to get a replacement, I will look towards the 6830 or maybe the 6850 if I find a good sale. Ideally I want to spend less than $100. I will cross that bridge when I get to it though.

*edit* I just tried to turn on my "ribbons" screen saver and I get the message on my screen "The screen saver can't run because it requires a newer video card or one that's compatible with Direct3D". "Looks like I need to update some drivers.

Got all the drivers/utilities in and all the updates installed. Total install (Win 7 Home x64) including web browsers, anti-virus and everything else you need to have a fully functioning movie watching/internet surfing/game playing machine: 26.9GB

Windows Experience index:
Processor: 7.5
Memory (RAM): 7.9
Graphics: 6.3
Gaming graphics: 6.3
Primary HDD: 7.2

I remember my old setup with the 4870 had a high 7 in the graphics and gaming. I will play my ~37GB rip of Avatar and see how the computer handles it. If it plays it with flying colors, then I likely will not buy a vid card.

Pics after I get done routing wires. RIght now we're packing and cleaning house since we go on vacation tomorrow. I hopefully can get pics tonight.

Ok, so I go to test my video playback abilities, which is the #1 priority for this computer.

With VLC player.
13.1 GB .x264 (mkv): Played great.
22.0GB .m2ts (31,482kbps): Played great.
17.5GB .ts (27,217kbps): Won't play. Screen stays black, but will show a snap shot if I click the slider.
25.3GB .m2ts: (33,439kbps) Won't play.

The largest file (Alice in Wonderland) plays fine with WMC and media player, except spanish is the default language for the movie. I don't know how to change it to english without VLC player.

I'm a fan of Total Media Theater 3 and will likely download it soon. I need to figure out how to get the data of these two stripped drives first.

Looneybomber wrote:I want to see how well Intel's built in GPU works.

That's the best joke I've heard all year.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:

Looneybomber wrote:I want to see how well Intel's built in GPU works.

That's the best joke I've heard all year.

Well it's working better than the computer I have been using since my mobo went out over a year ago. Athlon 3400, 1GB DDR-400mhz (now 2GB), Geforce 6800gs. It could do 720p, but stumbled hard with 1080p, even with 4-6GB files.

You should be able to play Quake III!

asnorton44 wrote:You should be able to play Quake III!

I played it a little, but I liked Unreal Tournament (GOTE) better.

quakelive.com

Prepare to watch hours disappear.