I'm always both excited and weary of these kinds of threads. There's always great ideas to stumble upon, but they're always all over place.
CPU:
- Intel Core I5 3570K on sale now for $219.99 at NCIX
or
- AMD FX-8350 on sale now for $189.99
Fanboyism aside, “better” is a pretty subjective term. At this point, AMD is never going to be better than Intel in raw performance, but the value is out of this world.
Motherboard:
- MSI Z77A-G45 LGA 1155 on sale now till November 28 for $114.99 - $10 rebate = $99.99 at NCIX (original price = $159.99)
or
- MSI 970A-G46 AM3+ on sale now till November 28 for $89.99 - $10 rebate = $79.99 at NCIX
I usually stick to Linus' tip and go with the big three: Gigabyte, MSI, or ASUS.
RAM:
- Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 8GB on sale now for $52.85 at NCIX
or
- G.SKILL F3-149000CL9D-8GBSR Sniper SE 8GB on sale now for $51.06 at NCIX
Nothing fancy, just two personally trusted brands that have worked for me everytime.
Video card:
- MSI GeForce GTX 660Ti Power Edition on sale now till November 28 for $289.99 - $20 rebate = $269.99 at NCIX (original price = $314.99)
or
- XFX Radeon HD 7870 Core ED on sale now till November 28 for $209.99 - $20 rebate = $189.99 at NCIX (original price = $239.99)
Two top of the hill bang-for-buck cards as of this moment.
SSD:
- Corsair Neutron Series GTX 120gb SSD on sale now till November 28 for $124.99 (original price $157.98)
or
- Samsung 840 (non pro) 120gb SSD on sale now till November 28 for $104.99 (original price $114.98)
Grab whichever while you can, great prices. However, the Neutron GTX is Corsair's new flagship SSD, and for that price it's a steal. HardwareCanucks did a review and gave them 2 awards. Nothing against Sandisk but they just don't push enough high profile SSDs for me to be interested in.
PSU:
- Corsair Professional Series HX750 ATX Fully Modular 80PLUS Gold on sale now till November 28 for $124.99 - $25 rebate = $99.99 at NCIX (original price = $169.99)
or
- XFX 750W PRO750W XXX Edition Single Rail ATX 80PLUS Silver on sale now till November 28 for $84.99 - $10 rebate = $74.99 at NCIX (original price = $124.99)
Case:
- CM 690II
Total + Tax (if you went with choice #1 in all categories) = $955.15
Total + Tax (if you went with choice #2 in all categories) = $829.95
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