New components!

Hey everyone,

A buddy of mine is looking to upgrade his rig, and since he's currently stuck with a slow processor on an old AM2 + Black edition platform, I’m going to have to swap out the whole core setup—CPU, motherboard, and RAM. I did some digging and found this to be the best bang-for-your-buck processor available right now:

Intel Core i3-4160 3,6GHz box processor

They offer free shipping on orders over $125. It would be ideal if I could grab the rest of the parts from the same place, so please let me know what you'd recommend. He’s working with a budget of up to $600 (though honestly, the less we spend, the better), so see if you can make it work within that range. Also, let me know if it's worth splurging on a slightly better motherboard, or if we should prioritize bumping the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB instead. I haven't really kept up with the market lately, so I'm a bit out of the loop here. He's still running an old ATI 6700 HD, which actually handles his usual rotation just fine: Total War: Rome II, Guild Wars 2, Battlefield 3, and the original Total War: Rome.

Thanks!

I’m sure plenty of folks here on the forum are going to jump in and tell you to steer clear of buying parts from this particular shop—mostly because of their reputation when it comes to handling returns or warranty claims, along with a few other headaches.

Larry Ortiz5 said:A lot of people on here are probably going to tell you to stay away from that specific shop because they can be a real headache if you ever need to file a warranty claim or run into other issues.

Look, if the issue is specifically about the store's service, then please point me toward something affordable with free shipping that offers similar vibes—maybe something like Protis or ADM. Around Indianapolis, my only local option is Links, and man, those guys are expensive as hell. I'm looking for the same components, specifically that i3, since I'm pretty sure it's the best value you can find at this price point. Besides, if I ever have a warranty issue, I'd just be mailing it back through the post anyway...

Intel Core i3-4170 desktop CPU (3.7GHz, 3MB, LGA1150) box version.
The MSI H81M-E33 2 motherboard.
2x Crucial 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800), CL11.

All things considered: $587 +$13 Shipping via Centro.

1 x Asrock 970 Pro3 R2.0 AMD 970, AMD SB950, ATX, FSB2400, 4xDDR3
1 x AMD FX-Series X6 6100 Processor, 3.3GHz, 14MB, 95W, AM3+
1 x 8GB DDR3 (1x8GB) Kingmax, 1600MHz, non-ECC, CL9.0, FLGG
1 x Spire Kepler Rev.2 Cooler, fits 1156/775/FM1, 96.5×51×125 mm, 92mm

$612

www.adm.com

These aren't bad offers at all, but I think it might be worth looking at a few other options just so I have some actual variety to choose from. We can see how things look tomorrow. One thing though—does it really matter that the first motherboard only has two RAM slots? Personally, I’d much prefer having four. I always worry that if a slot burns out instead of just the stick itself, I'll be stuck. If there are two extra empty slots, it's easy to just swap things around rather than being forced to buy an entirely new motherboard...

Thanks for all the help so far 👍

You could always grab an option from Tesla if you want—or honestly, just throw a single channel code into SmartThings if that's what's bugging you.