Originally posted by benit59
As an IT professional and someone that built high-end consumer PC's for the past 5 years, I will give you the following advice:
You made the right decision in terms of Intel chipset, but I would look at alternative manufacturers. Asus in recent years had been a poor value. They make very good high-end electronics, but their product offerings in low to mid range components offer little over other manufacturers for a higher price. Look into manufacturers like ASRock or Biostar. You can often get a product that is just as good for a considerably lower price.
The cost of getting a DDR3 8 Gig kit that runs at 2133 (CAS 11), isnt that much more than the other kits you have your eye on. It's worth it. ( I recommend the Patriot Viper series.)
And most importantly -- spend the money you saved on getting a reliable WD Black HDD, reload the OS on it, and stick the old drive in the new system as a backup/data dump. Please don't put anything other than Windows 7 on it either. Also...avoid onboard RAID controllers. For most users its not worth the heartache.
Edit: Forgot to mention --- if you want to save even more money...look at the new Core i3 3220. $129.00. 29 Watt TDP when using discreet graphics. Pretty damn decent gaming performance.
Useful information. But Asus is consider good compare to dell.