New Computer - the details

Here's what I bought - the prices were very good for what I got, most of the items being a midrange item in it's category. The only top tier item is the motherboard, which just came out a few days before I bought it, but it means I have a seriously solid foundation for my new computer.

• Coolermaster HAF tower case , thought it would be $145 found it for $120.
• Coolermaster 850W modular power supply $145
  
• Asus Crosshair IV motherboard $250 (Brand new 890FX chipset board - Tiger is selling it for $330 wow)
  
• CPU Phenom II x4 965 BE - I was expecting $209 but it was $189 by the time I bought it
• Memory 4GB 2000 Adata 9-9-9-24 $140 bought for $110 on sale.
• Scythe Mugen 2 rev B CPU cooler $50
• extra brackets for 2nd cooler fan $6
• 2 Arctic Cooling 120mm PWM fans $7x2
• SATA DVD optical drive $40 - this one had lightscribe, whatever :P
  

• 3 Dell monitors - 23" rotatable screens - $299x3 on sale for $199x3

• Everything else is salvaged from my old system - mainly my video cards.
  

Total's about $900 for the computer, $600 for the monitors. By hitting sales and doing some comparison shopping, I shaved off close to $500. That's $1500 instead of $2000! I now have a seriously good system for a very nice price. Probably last me another 5 years :D

Coolermaster HAF case:
At first, I was looking at the price of the case - at $120, it was a lot lower than the other full tower cases - most were $300+ But this case in particular is really good with the air flow - bascially, even if you have the covers closed, it is pretty much like having the cover open. Also it has 3 240mm fans built in, as well as a 140mm rear, plus mounting brackets for yet more fans!

The power supply was one of those ho hum well I gotta do what gotta do about this - the modular cables are pretty convenient though.

The motherboard - I was expecting to buy a 790fx chipset board at first, but just last week, the 890fx successor to the 790fx came out. Included are all the fancy features like USB 3.0, dual 16x1 PCIe pipes for video cards (slot 1 and slot 3 eh, not 1 and 2) and even an external tweak/clocking mechanism.

The CPU is a Phenom II x4 - it looks like the price dropped due to the x6 six-core Phenoms coming out.

The memory is a basic high speed memory - caught it on sale for a good enough price that it surprised the salesman. It doesn't have tall cooling fins etc, but it's a good thing, cause otherwise the CPU cooler fan would have conflicted with it.

CPU cooler
I opted for air cooling for practicality this time around - I didn't want the expense of water cooling, even though it looks amazing. After all, the case is really good with air flow, so I should take advantage of it. So I got one of those giant blocks from Scythe. It had a single fan on it already, but I couldn't find a 2nd one of that type. That's why I bought the 2 Arctic Cooling fans and extra bracket - one fan for each side of the heat sink, and so the rpm speeds would match. Plus the white coloured fans are kind of cool looking. Idle CPU 33degress Celsius - 45 degrees under load

Photos to come.

Upsen