Quote Originally Posted by Akoko View Post
Okay, with you guys' advice I think I have narrowed down the choices a bit.

[Computer Shopping List]

Please let me know if I am making any life-destroying horrific computer decisions before I send in the order! It's also slightly over budget but I'm not sure which component I should trim down on.
Looks good to me. Always be prepared that there may be a possibility of something being shipping to your location dead on arrival [DOA]. I've never had it happen to me [knocks on wood] but it can happen to anyone, it just doesn't happen very frequently. Also keep your main system pieced together and online so you can be ready for the other possibility you may need to hit some tech forums to seek advice on troubleshooting something that isn't working as expected.

Also when piecing this beast together, try not to scuff your feet across the carpet to build up static and then go play with all of your computer components. You can zap your own hardware and kill it on the spot or lower it's life expectancy. Not trying to make you nervous [because it doesn't seem to be a big deal these days], but you can help avoid this up by installing your power supply, plugging it in, and then touching the PSU chassis every so often to help discharge any static build up.

You should also kind of know about spreading thermal paste. I say 'kind of' because you don't really have to. Your processor will already come with thermal paste on it ready for you to install it [at least that's how Intel did it with their last generation CPUs]. In the event of an emergency [or an upgraded CPU cooler], you can just do a search on Google or YouTube for applying thermal paste, there are tons of results. In fact, your good buddy Linus from NCIX is willing to show all of us in this video from their site [even though it's from 2008].