Middle_Man

So why should I get the Gigabyte GA-990FX motherboard rather than say the Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 motherboard ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128521 ) which is $90less, and is also AM3+ and has the same memory capacity?

The only difference I can tell is it's much cheaper and it's FSB is 200 mhz less (which doesn't seem like a lot?).

There is also the 5 Vs 2 PCI express slots, but do you think I need that many?

Don't worry - I'm sure I can come up with even more annoying questions.

No reason in particular. I didn't want to skimp on your build, but left plenty of room to do so if needed. The 990FXA is on sale for $138 with rebate. I have the 970A in my rig and I like it just fine. I cannot however run SLI...which is why I like the 990FXA

Not to hijack, but...

A friend of mine built a computer from scratch. Everything worked great until about 6 months. I don't remember exactly what it was doing but it one day just completely stopped working. Realizing it was above his head, he gave it to someone to fix....

End of story: The computer ended up being looked at by six people total. I know all of these people that looked at it and they are very good with computers (One of whom knows more about computers than anyone I know). Almost everything shipped back to Newegg to be replaced at one point or another, yet they could never figure it out. These people also work with tons of hardware that they could easily and readily swap out with for troubleshooting.

I know that is probably a rare occurance, but the fact that the computer you just spent several hundreds of dollars on can break, leaving you screwed and unable to just send it to Dell (in instances like the example above) to fix is keeping me from building a computer...and it probably will stay like that. If my friend had purchased his computer from Dell, it would have a warrarnty on it and he could have just sent it back and let them deal with it, or replace it. Instead, hours were spent trying to figure out what was up, and he still has no computer.

Oh hey, Billy Buzzkill.

Just letting him know that doing something because it is cheaper sometimes doesn't justify the issues that could result from it, especially if he was not fully prepared to do it in the first place, as his original post indicated.

[quote=cokalsM]

Just letting him know that doing something because it is cheaper sometimes doesn't justify the issues that could result from it, especially if he was not fully prepared to do it in the first place, as his original post indicated.[/quote]

I would go as far as to say that your case makes very little sense...Unless everything spontaneously imploded, there was likely just one part at fault, or motherboard/memory incompatabilities that made it shit the bed. I coulda figured it out.

Worst case scenario, your mobo goes bad, you buy a new mobo, slap your ram in, slap your CPU on, etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130609

Is this going to do what I want it to do? I have to be honest. I'd rather get barely what I demand out of it (I'm thinking Skyrim maxed out is a pretty) and spend good money in 8 months.

You have to remember - I want a decent computer, but the push for building my own computer is so I can easily upgrade it as I see fit - So bascially only the processor and motherboard have to carry the weight from day one.

Sweet. I just found this awesome price listing website. Now I'm sure there are other ones, and maybe they do a better job (although I'm doubting it), but I doubt any allow you to "build" your computer on their site like this site does.

Here is the permalink to what I'm currently looking at: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7Oxn

Even cooler here is bbcode for it:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6100 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($134.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($80.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 1GB Video Card ($159.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 650D ATX Mid Tower Case ($161.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: OCZ 700W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DVDE818A7T/BLK/B/GEN CD Reader, DVD Writer ($25.97 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Logitech MX518 Wired Optical Mouse
Total: $890.89
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-05-06 02:59 EDT-0400)

So I just did some quick research on the Bulldozer class of AMD chips to see which ones are the best bang for your buck and I was surprised (but not shocked) at the results.

The first line is the processor name (AMD FX-4100) and the next part is the clock speed (3.6Ghz) and the last number on that line is the cores (4)

The next line in green is the lowest price ($99.99)from like 10 sites.

The next line is the ranking number I came up with (111.1), and higher is better.

I came up with the ranking number by taking the price, multiplying that by the cores and dividing that by the clock speed.

**** means that that processor has a better value than the one directly below it.

Based on this data I may switch from the FX-6100 to the AMD FX-8120.

AMD FX-4100 3.6GHz 4
$99.99
111.1

AMD FX-4170 4.2GHz 4
$139.99
133.32380952380952380952380952381

AMD FX-6100 3.3GHz 6
$139.99
254.52727272727272727272727272727 ****

AMD FX-6200 3.8GHz 6
$159.99
252.61578947368421052631578947368

AMD FX-8120 3.1GHz 8
$159.99
412.87741935483870967741935483871

AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz 8
$232.84
517.42222222222222222222222222222 ****

AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz 8
$204.99
455.53333333333333333333333333333

AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz 8
$328.21
729.35555555555555555555555555556

Edit: The first number was wrong. 154.44444444444444444444444444444 should have been 111.1. It did change the rankings. The first processor no longer has the **** status.

Be careful...I chose the 95watt version specifically because it was 95 watts and will be cooler and less space heater like than your 125 watt options. Less heat = longer life, and overclocking also enjoys less heat should you ever get that urge.

That is why I chose that model.