[fatherlongcat]

I decided a while back after getting a new job I should build a new computer (my old one was a 955 BE that experienced VRM failiure. Thanks, MSI.)
I found a Core 3000 on NCIX for dirt cheap and built around that.

July 1: Fractal Core 3000 and PCP&C 750W Silencer showed up at the door. Mounting a leftover 120GB Kingston and routing wires.

July 5: Motherboard, CPU cooler, RAM and CPU show up at door. GA-P67A-UD4-B3, Xigmatek Black Knight II, 8GB Corsair Vengance, and 2600k respectively. Shipped, $315 NIB from Ebay for the lot. Radical deal. The 560 Ti was a generous donation from a friend.

After some tweaking, finally got things working! Booted Ubuntu for starters from 80GB Laptop HDD.

Picture of proper guts. Pretty modest.

July 21: Finally got my hard drives! Brand new Samsung HE103UJ 1TBs in RAID 10. $150 shipped, new outside box. SATA connector for SSD broke so I had to drag it out of the case and keep it quite gentile.

In retrospect, this was a stupid way to mount a $100 SSD.

Mounted, properly.

 

[fatherlongcat]

July 31: White NZXT 24pin sleeve came in! Getting there.

Re-arranged the wiring of the HDDs, too. Moved them to top 140 for better cooling.

August 5: 7950 showed up! It's one of those swanky XFX Ghost ones; I sanded off the top bracket to make it silver instead of red. Took a long time because I only had superfine grit.

Looking good.

Case, closed. Sitting with the Mayor.

Aaaaand, final pic for now.
Final cost was around $10 under $1,000.
Specs:
GA-P67A-UD4-B3
Core i7 2600k @ 4.2 GHz
XFX Radeon 7950 Ghost
Xigmatek Black Knight II
Fractal Core 3000 w/ modded front panel
NZXT Sentry Mesh fan controller
4x Samsung HE103UJ 1TB >>> RAID 10
Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB
PC Power And Cooling Silencer MkIII 750W w/ white sleeves

Incoming products:
XSPC 360MM water kit
White tubing w/black and white fittings
Waterblock for 7950
7950 Backplate
Terminal Printer

 

[fatherlongcat]

8/27: Got a Fractal Arc Midi R2 to accommodate a 280mm rad.

Aand, front with the matching front panel.

Hits 45 C at 4.4 GHz running MTY on the CPU, Crysis 2, or BF3. Never goes past 35 C playing TF2 and Skullgirls though.
Incoming: New EK block, second 120mm rad, MCP35x and res top, and 7950 waterblock in the near future.