Now I'm looking at an i5-2400/RadeonHD6870 setup.
Total: $984.15. Jesus Christ, that's 80% of my current bank account balance. The price of quality, I guess.
I could just bump the CPU up to an i5-2500K for an extra $15, but would that be overkill given the rest of the system? Just compared the
i3-2100 and
i5-2500K to the i5-2400, and the improvement over the i3-2100 is greater than the gain from the i5-2500K, so forget that.
Here's my current list of parts:
CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($149.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Intel DP67BAB3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($115.98 @ eCost)
Memory: Mushkin Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($35.99 @ NCIX US)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($80.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Antec 550W ATX12V Power Supply ($55.24 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG WH12LS39 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($79.99 @ Mwave)
Monitor: Asus VS228H-P 21.5" Monitor ($126.00 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $984.15
Once I pull the trigger on this build, it'll be a matter of time before I'm playing Half-Life in style. I should probably get my taxes done before making any major financial decisions, though...