Other components

Power Supply Unit

While I’m not dedicating any of the $1,000 budget to a specific power supply unit, its significance shouldn’t be underestimated. I’d rank the PSU just slightly ahead of the case, but behind memory and hard disk drive in order of importance. An inadequate PSU can affect the stability of your system, and as SLI grows in popularity having a good PSU will become even more essential.

The only reason I didn’t dedicate any money specifically to the PSU is because I splurged and spent a little more money than I probably should have on the graphics and CPU, but if this were a real-world situation and I was building this system for myself, I’d probably find a way to spend the money on a dedicated unit, rather than going with the PSU that comes with the case.

The case

Try and budget around $50 w/PSU: Again, since I splurged and spent away over half of the $1,000 budget on the CPU and graphics I’m now in serious conservation mode, trying to save as much money as possible so I can remain around the $1,000 budget I outlined for the article.

Therefore, rather than recommend a particular case for the system, I’d go to my retailer of choice and see what they happen to have on special. I’ve happened upon many premium cases with case windows, additional ventilation, and other extras on special at my local Fry’s for around $50 with PSU (including Antec cases!) so that’s the route I’d recommend.

Newegg.com for example has a RAIDMAX Cobra case with a case window, and 420W PSU for $45.99, or this ATRIX case with a drive bay door, case window, blowhole on the side of the case, and 480W PSU for $55. Either one of these cases would be excellent deals for the gamer on a budget.

DVD drive

NEC ND-3520A drive - $42 Price Watch:
With only a few dollars leftover, I’ve now gone from serious conservation, to maximum skimping mode. (Actually, once you factor in sales tax or shipping I’m over the $1,000 budget, but that’s another story.) In other words, there isn’t any money leftover for me to splurge on the optical drive.

Like the HDD though, I got lucky, and was able to find an NEC 16X dual-layer DVD drive with 8X RW speeds for $42 on PriceWatch. Newegg.com has a newer version of the NEC drive selling for $8 more at $49.99 if you want to stick with a major retailer.