Fried an old, old Dell P4; so I decided to build a new system in the same full tower case. The case is an Ultra - don't know model number or dimensions. It has plenty of bays.
First decision was the CPU. I chose the Core i5 3570k which I hope to purchase locally tomorrow. I doubt that I'll ever challenge this processor because I don't game and usually just surf, email, and use Office. I DO want to do some conversion of old VHS graphics to digital and write to DVD. Not sure if the native graphics will handle it, but I have an EVGA GeForce 9500T (1GB) card that I can pop in if need be.
Shopping mobos, I finally arrived at the ECS Z77 H2-A3 ATX (LGA 1155) based on price point and features. Got lots of USB 2.0 and 3.0. The mobo arrived from Newegg this week.
I have 6 sticks of Kingston 1333 DDR3 RAM - 2 too many.
I bought a Corsair 750 W PSU because the old one fried with the mobo when the utility company was repairing a neighborhood power outage. Yes! I've tested it with a tester and with a multimeter.
The rest of the components were in the aftermarket case with the old P4. A couple of years ago I got very tired of noise produced by the Dell case and fans and bought the Ultra and moved everything over. i bought fans from CoolerGuys.
The HDDs are WDs, SATA., 1TB and 500GB plus some externals that I use for backups and archiving.
I was running XP Pro SP3 but bought Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit with 3 licenses in case I buy newer machines. I have a small Dell and an HP laptop that is currently not working.
I think I've covered everything but the cooling. I understand that the CPU will come with a fan that many say is inadequate. I'm trying to educate myself about cooling alternatives. I've set a budget cap at $60.
As you can see by the re-used components, I'm trying to do this a inexpensively as possible. I'm retired with fixed income.
For now, about the only thing I can change is the cooling. Have to save a bit of coin before replacing other components. Some time in the future I want to snag a full tower with better cable management but that can wait for now..
I'd be grateful for your comments and suggestions.
Edited by rabbithutch - 11/8/12 at 3:03pm
First decision was the CPU. I chose the Core i5 3570k which I hope to purchase locally tomorrow. I doubt that I'll ever challenge this processor because I don't game and usually just surf, email, and use Office. I DO want to do some conversion of old VHS graphics to digital and write to DVD. Not sure if the native graphics will handle it, but I have an EVGA GeForce 9500T (1GB) card that I can pop in if need be.
Shopping mobos, I finally arrived at the ECS Z77 H2-A3 ATX (LGA 1155) based on price point and features. Got lots of USB 2.0 and 3.0. The mobo arrived from Newegg this week.
I have 6 sticks of Kingston 1333 DDR3 RAM - 2 too many.
I bought a Corsair 750 W PSU because the old one fried with the mobo when the utility company was repairing a neighborhood power outage. Yes! I've tested it with a tester and with a multimeter.
The rest of the components were in the aftermarket case with the old P4. A couple of years ago I got very tired of noise produced by the Dell case and fans and bought the Ultra and moved everything over. i bought fans from CoolerGuys.
The HDDs are WDs, SATA., 1TB and 500GB plus some externals that I use for backups and archiving.
I was running XP Pro SP3 but bought Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit with 3 licenses in case I buy newer machines. I have a small Dell and an HP laptop that is currently not working.
I think I've covered everything but the cooling. I understand that the CPU will come with a fan that many say is inadequate. I'm trying to educate myself about cooling alternatives. I've set a budget cap at $60.
As you can see by the re-used components, I'm trying to do this a inexpensively as possible. I'm retired with fixed income.
For now, about the only thing I can change is the cooling. Have to save a bit of coin before replacing other components. Some time in the future I want to snag a full tower with better cable management but that can wait for now..
I'd be grateful for your comments and suggestions.
Edited by rabbithutch - 11/8/12 at 3:03pm
