Building a new pc

I can stop blogging about my terribly outdated PC components! Hooray! With lots of research and questions I finally nailed down the parts I needed and took the plunge on buying a new PC. My goal was to get the most out of necessary components for under $200. I do have a couple zombie systems already so it wasn't going to be a full build. I have 2GB of DDR3 ram, a bunch of hard drives at my disposal, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive already so I only really needed the main parts. Finding a decent but easily upgrade-able set consisting of a motherboard, CPU, power supply and a mid sized case to fit it all in was the mission. To sum it up, its a success, but the full pricing with shipping included came in at just under $250. For what I got I think I did ok.

The Setup:

Motherboard- ASRock Intel B75 Pro3-M LGA 1155

• Intel isn't going anywhere, plus it plays nice with Linux.
• When the Ivy Bridge Core-i lineup drops in price LGA 1155 will be there.
• It has HDMI out, plus digital and analog surround sound support.
• USB 3.0 and 4 dimms for ram. 

CPU- Intel Pentium G850 Sandy Bridge 2.9GHz

• At $70, last year's sandy bridge processor is a steal on clearance
• At $70, its only $5 more than the 2.7GHZ G630 model...
• Integrated HD Graphics- Not sure how good that is supposed to be, but I wont be throwing down on a video card anytime soon unless its on a crazy sale. Integrated will have to do for now. 

Power Supply- Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W

• Shout out to @JssLifeLike of the GamesMenRPG podcast with the excellent advice on PSU purchasing. I don't know anything about them.
• Those boards don't work on water... you gotta have POWER!! 500W should be fine. 
• It got a golden hardware award and is green certified.... sounds awesome. 

Case- GIGABYTE GZ-F4HEB Black .5mm Steel ATX Mid Tower

• Refurbished for $17 from $40. The NewEgg commenters seem to think its a "new on sale" item and not actually refurbished. It was rated highly across the board despite being a bit flimsy, so ill take my chances for under $20.
• If I felt like I could put a window on the side of the case and add some lights and stuff.... there is nothing to lose with this cheap-o case. Pretty basic, no frills.
• It only costs $7 to ship as opposed to $20+ on heavier cases. Winning.

Well, that's pretty much it. I already have 2GBs of ram, a DVD drive and a harddrive, so I think I am pretty much ready to go. I just hope I have enough SATA cabling to get to everything in there. 

I will of course post more once I have competed building the system and putting it through its paces, installed Windows and Linux, and have later added more upgrade parts, etc... Ideally I'd like to make this a respectable gaming rig, but for now it just has to be a decent/current platform to work with. Yes, the decision may have been made mostly to play Torchlight 2 and a bunch of other indie games I've purchased over time that haven't been properly playable on my system... but its also been long overdue. 

As Usual: 
Follow me on twitter @BigRob029
Check out the Google Plus! Its pretty cool, especially since BigRob and MajorLinux are on it. If that isn't impressive enough, Enthus Reviews has its own social page too! Enjoy.

New and Improved:
Check out the GameEnthus Steam Community at tinyurl.com/SteamEnthus. If you would like to play some games on the master system with us, visit us and join up. 

ShoutOut!:
MajorLinux and Jsslifelike hooked me up this round and provided some awesome advice and helpful hints. Community driven epicness. Check them both out on Google+, as it is the preferred social network of smart people. You're smart, right?