My new, $500 computer

[lilwillis]

Yay, I decided to build a really fast computer for really, really cheap, and this is what I ended up with:

Intel Core 2 Duo: Conroe 2 x 1.86 ghz
1 gig OCZ ram
250 gig HDD
Asus Motherboard
Sony 16x DVD Burner / 52x CD burner
Rosewill Case

And, my lucky bit: My friend decided to buy a new graphics card, so I ended up with his VERY clean NVidia 7800 GT

If not for the 7800 GT, the computer would still be amazingly fast, but wouldn't be a good gaming computer.

Any suggestions you guys can offer for how to make it better would be great, I'm sure there are some parts I went a little too cheap on, and may fail (Like my original 1 gig stick of Buffalo Select ram that died)

[Rc_Racer_01501]

Nice build, Try checking out some Mushkin ram though...May be a better bang for your buck. What model is the mobo?

[lilwillis]

I think the OCZ will last, but if it too fails, Mushkin it is.

The mobo is the ASUS P5L-MX, and it seems like a great mobo for the price, which was around $75 I think. All in all, I'm really stoked with the build. Now, to wait for Windows Vista...

[penguinrusty]

Nice build, Try checking out some Mushkin ram though...May be a better bang for your buck. What model is the mobo?
Or try PQI.

Excellent build lilwillis, however, I would suggest a better mobo, as a crummy one may be the source of many bottlenecks with all the other high-end hardware you are putting in there.

I'm planning to start building my own Core 2 Duo comp soon, I have the proc and mobo, and i can't wait to get it built. Have fun!

[lilwillis]

Yeah, I know some of the parts aren't nearly of the highest quality, but I wanted to see if I could build a pretty kick-BUTT (I guess my original word choice is blocked) computer for $500 or less.