Deals, Discounts, and Best PC Component Buys & Builds

Black Widow:

3.5" internal bay: 2
2.5" internal bay: 3

Ten bays is just ridiculous; I can't even think of a single case off the top of my head that holds that many drives. You’d probably need a specialized server chassis or a workstation build for that kind of setup. Honestly, it might be easier to just grab higher-capacity HDDs instead.

Ultra EDIT

Amazon actually helped someone out the other day by sourcing a w200, check it out here

Timothy Kim60 said:Black Widow:

Ten is just terrible. I can't think of a single case off the top of my head that holds that many drives. Maybe some specialized server or workstation chassis. Honestly, it might be easier to just grab higher capacity HDDs instead.

Ultra EDIT

Amazon once hooked a guy up with a w200 one day, click

Man, what a crazy case. You could practically hang laundry inside that thing. 😁
I'm guessing it's pretty pricey?

Never mind, I dug this up: http://www.google.com

It has 11 slots, assuming the specs are right.

I couldn't find a dedicated thread for upgrade advice, so I'll just drop this here if nobody minds...

I'm looking to upgrade a friend's rig with about $450 to spare. I need a motherboard, a CPU, and a CPU cooler. Honestly, anything goes since he's paying cash—I just want to get him the absolute best bang for his buck. We don't care about overclocking potential at all. His power supply is solid enough to handle whatever we throw at it. He's currently running an FM2 setup, so once this is all assembled, the old CPU and board will be up for sale. He’s already rocking a Radeon 270X, an XFX 550W PSU, and 8GB of RAM.
He was originally leaning toward an fx8xxx, but would an Intel combo make more sense here? Which route would actually be better?

Thanks in advance!!

Andrew Fox74 said:Couldn't find an upgrade advice thread, so I'm dropping this here if it's cool...

I want to upgrade a buddy's rig with about $450. I need a motherboard, CPU, and a cooler. He's paying cash, so I can grab whatever is available. I just want the best bang for the buck—overclocking isn't a priority. His power supply is solid enough for any of this. It's currently an FM2 build; he'll sell his old CPU and board once this is set up. He’s running a 270X, a 550W XFX PSU, and 8GB of RAM.
He was looking at an fx8xxx, but would an Intel setup work better? What's the smarter play?

Thanks!

Asus Z170-P D3
LC Power CPU cooler LC-CC-120 - 120mm Intel/AMD
Intel Core i5-6600K Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.90 GHz) tray

Total: $435.00
centro

Option 1

i7 6700
Gigabyte GA-B150M-D2V (ddr3)

Option 2

E3 1231v3
B85M pro3 or go for the premium route if you want room for future M.2 SSD upgrades via an ASUS H97M-E (there is plenty of middle ground between those two price points, such as the ASrock B85 or H97 Anniversary series)

If you opt for the budget motherboard, you can grab that Asus Z170-P D3 LC Power CPU cooler LC-CC-120; otherwise, keep in mind this Xeon runs cooler than its i7 counterparts

Hey 🕺

Look, I'm putting this rig together for my buddy, and yeah, I know a thing or two about building PCs (well, enough to get by)

Here’s the build I've got lined up. My budget is basically the absolute max, no wiggle room at all $967 and that's just without even counting a case $945, based on prices from Acquisitum in Denver (trying to grab everything from one spot)

So, what's the deal? Is there anything here that's just extra fluff? Anything I can swap out to shave some cash off the total? Also, would it be worth upgrading to 2 sticks of RAM if I can squeeze some savings elsewhere?

Maybe an AMD Athlon x4 860 k processor with that 4MB cache hitting up to 4.00 GHz on an sFM2+ socket, paired with a low-noise Light cooler.
Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-DS2 motherboard, sFM2+.
The Gigabyte GV-R736OC-2GD features 2 GB of DDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, with clock speeds running at 1200/6500 MHz.
MS Endeavor gaming case, no PSU included. Supports ATX and mATX. External bays: 2 x 5.25"; Internal bays: 3 x 5.
It looks like a 400W FSP Fortron/Source Hexa+ power supply, ATX 2.4 spec, model PPA4004900. Maybe it'll do the job depending on what else is in the build.
Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD, 3.5", 7200RPM, 64MB Cache, SATA3, ST1000DM003.
Looks like an 8GB stick of DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz CL11 Kingston Value RAM (KVR16N11/8). I guess it’s pretty standard stuff.

$960 I guess I should probably mention that... ADM.

If this stock cooler turns out to be too weak, you might want to swap it out for a better one later on. Adding a few extra case fans wouldn't hurt either, I guess.

placidhound77 said:Hey 🕺 there.

Look, I'm putting this rig together for my buddy, and honestly, I know about building PCs just about as much as he does (which isn't much).

Here's the build I've got, and I'm stretching the budget to its absolute limit $967. Without the case, the total comes out to $945, looking at prices from Best Buy in Chicago (hoping to grab everything from one spot)
.
Now, is there anything here that's just extra? Anything we could swap out to shave some cash off the price? And would it be worth it to squeeze in two more sticks of RAM if we can find the savings elsewhere?

You're posting in the wrong thread, but whatever. Regarding the build itself—it could definitely be better.

AMD Athlon x4 860 k
MSI A68HM-E33 V2
Corsair Value select 4 GB
SAPPHIRE nitro Radeon ™ R7 370 2
Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7.2k
EVGA 430W
Mercury 2 Case

Total comes to roughly $969 via Amazon if you use the 3% discount from registering on the forum. You should be able to find those $2.00 😬
somewhere.
Anyway, you get a pretty decent GPU for that kind of money. For some reason, an NZXT case costing $50+ was included in a $967 build, but in my opinion, that's just unnecessary. If my friend can scrape together another $15, he could probably go with an FX 4300 and a decent motherboard with USB 3.0, but that's his call.

EDIT: Also, it beats crimsonstag84's list; he can always add more RAM whenever he wants.😬

Jeffrey Allen92 said:my conclusion was that this i5 from $467 was some kind of best buy, but now that I think about it, I might be wrong. Never mind then, just forget it...

A separate matter. If someone is working in photography and needs a case for ten high-capacity drives, they need those specific ten drives plus the configuration to support them. What would you recommend? I considered being frugal and not buying a motherboard with ten SATA ports, perhaps opting for a cheap one and adding a PCIe SATA controller instead, but I can't seem to find such a controller anywhere for sale.... I also looked at the Black Widow case, but I can't find any info on how many drive bays it actually has. I assume a photographer would need a large case for all those disks, and since the person is growing, they'll want something padded to dampen the noise. For the drives, I was thinking of suggesting these 5TB WD Blues; they're available at Best Buy for under a hundred bucks.

I work in photography myself, and I see absolutely no point in this!

Why ten drives? Two is more than enough—two just to run a RAID setup. Otherwise, one large single drive is sufficient. It would be wise to have one external drive for backup purposes.

mellowtiger83 said:I work in photography, and I honestly don't see the point!

Why on earth would you need 10 drives? Two is plenty—you just use two if you want to run RAID. Honestly, even a single large drive does the job. It's always smart to have one external drive for backups, though.

I'm not really sure myself. I'm just passing along what he said.

Well, that's $50 cheaper than what I'm seeing here in the States, so it's not exactly a huge 😛

Wait, I just saw it for $335

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_in...-_1026217.html

Do these guys ship to the US?

Ultra EDIT

lol, now it's jumped to $365. Something's definitely up. Buy Buy Buy 🤣

Quick question:

Where do you guys list your rigs when you're selling? And where do you look when you're hunting for a new build? Personally, I think I could probably move my entire setup for somewhere around $1,800-$667, but I wouldn't limit myself to just looking within the US to find a buyer. Around here, people rarely want a machine like mine; if they're buying a desktop, they want a total beast, mostly because everyone is feeling the pinch lately. I've been browsing some stuff on eBay, and honestly, I see some absolute junk being listed for prices close to—if not higher than—brand new hardware. It's wild.

Bottom line, I want to sell this rig, so I need some links to sites where it would be best to post an ad. Ideally, I’d prefer something where I don't have to deal with credit card processing—just straight cash. I also need links for finding the best deals on gear. I'm not interested in anything high-end or brand new; I'm strictly looking for refurbished or used components.

I used to stumble upon all sorts of discount links and promo codes on Hard Forum, so I definitely recommend registering there. The catch is that most of it is US-based, so even if you find a deal, you end up paying a fortune in shipping to get it to you. For monitors, I've always thought www.itsco.de was pretty decent. For example, they sometimes have an NEC monitor for $79 that usually retails for $1000.

I can't speak to how foreign sites operate, but we have our own forum marketplace right here (just like any other major forum). If you list your gear at fair market prices, everything will move without any trouble. Just last week, I sold a Phenom II setup to a buddy. If he had wanted to grab everything immediately, there was a 99% chance it would've been gone on day one, but he held out to see if someone would take the whole lot—or as much as possible—so it took a few days to wrap up.

Asus STRIX GTX 980 Ti for $1000(402e):

http://www.amazon.com/asus/as...ti-oc-6gb.html

Disus 🤣

I'm guessing they don't offer shipping to the US, right?

I don't think so, plus Denver is about a hour and a half drive from me, and my brother is actually heading out there the day after tomorrow anyway 😬

I'm feeling a bit of FOMO because I actually have the cash for it right now, but then I'd need a new power supply too. Plus, the main thing is I probably don't even need it since I only play two games that my GTX 760 handles on Ultra just fine 😁

EDIT: Well, they all sold out yesterday, and the price shot up to $577 😂

There's still a Zotac AMP! Omega sitting there for $490, which isn't too shabby. But then you've got the GTX 1070 G1 and those beefier 980Ti/1070 cards to consider.

It turns out those last-gen graphics cards are actually the best deals to grab during the sales

What’s the best 240GB SSD out there right now?
I’ve been scrolling through eBay and seeing a massive variety of options, but honestly, I’m feeling a bit lost. There is just so much hardware out there, and since I haven't kept up with all the latest releases, I'm seeing a lot of brands and models I've never even heard of. I have no idea which ones actually hold up or if most of them are just junk, so I'd really appreciate some guidance on what's reliable.

AData SP550($173), SanDisk Z410($183), Samsung 750 EVO, Samsung 850 EVO

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Maybe I've got this wrong, but... an MSI GTX 960 gaming for $487:

I also spotted a Gainward model for $475 over at Protis or Links.