building on a budget

This is the comp I just bought:

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 250 GB SATA $70
Proc: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 $226
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 534 $50
Mobo: MSI P6N $125
Video: EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT 256MB $110
Power: Rosewill RP550V2-D-SL-S 550W $62
CD/DVD: Pioneer 18X DVD±R DVD Burner $32
RAM: Corsair XMS2 2GB $125

Total was $798 after shipping and rebates.

Compared with Rit's, the HD is half the size, the CPU is faster, the power supply is a brand that has bad name recognition so it is half the price but that particular one (there are more reviews in the black case one) has very good ratings, and the video card is almost 3 times cheaper. Now, his video card will be better, that's true, but I don't know how good you'll need it to be. WarCraft 3 (read: StarCraft 2) isn't exactly video card intensive. I picked up DOOM 3 after I built this comp and I was able to play most of it on the highest settings on this widescreen monitor (for a couple of the more massive levels I had to turn it back down to just the "High" settings).

How ya doing, buddy?

Oh right, that's Reznor. Fuck all you and your bizarre names. :P

Wait, so who the hell are you?


Guru did say, though, "reasonable settings", not high. :P I mean, OK, so there's not a point in buying a 7xxx card, but from Guru's request, I don't see the need in a $300 card. A budget 8xxx then, perhaps and you save $150-$200. Skimp on my CPU back to yours and his comp is in the $600s. :P I guess we're just talking about how long his comp needs to remain fresh for (good vid card vs. budget) and how much he does outside of games (good CPU vs. OK CPU).

There's nowhere I can't reach.