Okay so I decided to make myself a new computer to cheer myself up. I never had anything close to the top of the line gaming PC so that was my aim. I wanted to build a computer that gave me the most possible bang for each buck I invested. So you guys tell me how do I did!

CPU: Q6700.
The q6600 is the best bang for the buck CPU on the market according to my research. But I got the 6700 because for 220$ I got the next level up CPU and 4gbs of RAM. The Q6700 is also better for over clocking if I choose to do so later.

GPU: 9800GTX.
I had to choose between SLI and Crossfire, and after some research I found to believe that SLI is slightly better for me. The 9800GTX was just 140 (which means I basically stole it)
and it's the 3rd best GPU on the market today. When the price drops more I can buy another one and run it in SLI and beat a single 280gtx (best card on the market).

Motherboard: 750i
Great for over clocking, cheap (140$), and is SLI compatiable. What more can you want?

And that pretty much the important stuff. I got a 50$ case with great cooling, I got a SLI 750 watt power supply with 4 PCIe cables for my GPU (and room for the second one I will eventually buy). I didn't get a Hard drive yet because my IDE peace of crap is still working fine. When it dies i'll get some cheap SATA drive. I think that covers it. Here is the math:

CPU: 180
RAM: 30
GPU: 140
MB: 140
PSU: 100
Case: 50
CPUfan: 40
----------
680$

WOOT WOOT under 700$!!!!

Rate this machine from a scale of 1-10 for price per buck.
also 1-10 on gaming power! All comments are welcomed, tell me what you would have done different or what you liked!

For that kind of money it is definitely an excellent gaming rig. As it is I would give it a solid 8. Mainly because it's not able to compete with high end gaming rigs, but price/performance-wise this is definitely an awesome system.

It would score higher if you would look into a slightly newer motherboard and also one of the latest 3D cards. This should in fact be possible without going over a budget of 1200$-1300$ or so.



That's easy, a mother board with PCI-Epress x16 2.0 slots.

I don't agree with what you've said about the 9800GXT either, I'm sure I've said this in a different thread already... but in SLi it doesn't beat the 280GTX.

Cheers

I thought the 750i had pci-e x16 2.0 slots.

your ram is suspiciously cheap. never be stingy with ram, it really doesn't pay off.

? ram is cheap in general ocz is a great brand, i got my friend $22 ocz gaming ram with heat spreading and everything, plus it had a $10 rebate.

didn't we have the brand discussion recently, in connection with the burnt XFX card? there must be a reason why apple uses mostly samsung and toshiba. but you are right, the ram prices have dropped dramatically. and he didn't write how much RAM he got for his 30 bucks. but customer ratings for ocz is generally great, and i didn't have some of these in my pc, so i will just be quiet.

You would get more gaming power with a 1.6ghz pentium dual core for 50$ overclocked to 3.5ghz
My CPU works about 1 year with this setting and if it crashs - wayne - 50$ for a new one

just my 2 cents

Ohh, yeah, you're probably right,

Cheers