Gaming For Under 1k
Do you drool over images of powerful gaming rigs? Are your dreams filled with images of EVGA Classified Super Record 2 motherboards crammed to the brim with ram, burning a 1500 watt PSU and screamingly powerful graphics with 4 way SLI? If you’re a healthy red blooded American then the answer is yes. Of course the big problem is most of us aren’t independently wealthy and can’t afford to build a gaming rig that costs more than our last four cars. The good news is you may get rich someday or even win the lottery, but better yet you don’t need to spend 20k to build a kick ass gaming rig. All you need is some time and patience and a little know how to build a rig for under 1k. I just built one of these albeit with a different case, a Thermaltake Armor case I already owned, and with hard drives I already had on hand so I was able to build mine for around $700. Even without overclocking I’ve been able to run any game out there (i.e. Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033, etc.) on the highest settings and with out lag. It’s a nice warm feeling, kind of tingly. One final note if you're thinking of doing some SLI or Crossfire down the road you'll need to get a different board then the ones recommended in the list since those only have one 16x PCI-E slot. Something more expensive and along the lines of an Asus Striker II Formula (two 16x PCI-E slots) or a EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 (three 16x PCI-E slots).
ASUS Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Dual DVI/HDMI Video Card with Eyefinity EAH6870 DC/2DI2S/1GD5 - $190
Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5C 8GB XMS2 PC2-6400 800Mhz 240-pin Dual Channel DDR2 Desktop Memory - $100 to $120
Used Foxoconn P35a, Foxconn Mars or Abit ip35 Pro - $30 to100
Used Intel Cpu Core 2 Extreme Qx9650 3.00Ghz Fsb1333Mhz 12M Lga775 Extreme - $375
Diablotek DA Series 600-Watt ATX Power Supply PSDA600 - $29
Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Full Tower Case with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 - $160
or Cooler Master HAF ATX Mid Tower Case, RC-922M-KKN1-GP - $98
Hitachi Deskstar 3.5 Inch 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA II 32 MB Cache Internal Hard Drive - $53
Kingston SSDNow V Series 30 GB SATA 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive SNV125-S2/30GBKR - $60
Total: $941 to $1087