Building My First Computer

My 2.5 year old Dell Inspiron 9300 was beginning to show signs of its age (i.e., not being able to play Crysis at a decent framerate), and I felt it was the right time to get a new computer.

The processor and video card were easy decisions:
* Q6600 @ 2.4GHz (OC to 3.3GHz)
* 8800GT w/512MB

For components that were harder to choose, I usually picked what was relatively cheap and popular on Newegg:
* Gigabyte P35 motherboard
* PC Power & Cooling 610W power supply
* Antec 900 case

For the hard drive, memory, and optical drive, it didn't really matter what brand I got, so I just went for what was cheapest:
* WD 1TB hard drive
* 2x Crucial 1GB DDR2 800 memory
* Samsung DVD burner

I got most of the components from Newegg, and I went to Fry's to get the case. The total came to around $1300.

Go here if you want to see more pictures of the computer assembly.