My new Obelisk

My old computer died.  I tried to revive it, but the parts are out of stock and problematic to find.

After perusing Toms Hardware guide, I got a battle plan of what I wanted in a system. I checked out the usual vendors and was not happy with what I saw .vs. what I wanted.  Even Costco had some nice towers but too much $$ for too little power.

As I was pricing a system at New Egg when I came across a DIY system that was 90% exactly what I wanted.This little beauty was just perfect!

Here is my system out of the shipping box.  Big black tower in the back.  Motherboard, power supply and processor in front.  In the foreground the Hard drive and RAM.  I salvaged my DVD drive and Graphics card from my old system before recycling it responsibly.

Towers are very important consideration.  Airflow, accessibility and aesthetics all come into play.  The only complaint is the metal is a thinner gauge then I would like.  There is a lot of quality in the product.  The inside was painted to match.  Both side panels have thumb screws for easy access.  All the cables are clearly labeled and plenty long enough for any motherboard.  The front, back and top fans are large powerful and quite, bonus for the pretty blue lights in the front fan.  If you need additional cooling you can add three more without any problem.  The front panel has two USB, Headset and mic and eSATA.  Which is pretty standard.  You have huge add on potential for additional drives and devices.  I am considering a card reader.

The Motherboard is excellent!  It has the current intel chipsets, can handle two graphics cards and up to an i7 Intel processor.  No downside at all!  Everything is clearly marked and well laid out. The tech support is difficult to understand due to the accent.  However, the e-mail support works well, it just takes longer.

Intel i5 2500k is a great chip for gamers.  It is inexpensive and benchmarks above several i7 cousins.  It comes with a nice heat-sink fan and a manual that is good for something...

Hard drives above 500 gigabyte are more then enough.  1-Terabyte is cheap enough, so... why not? I like Seagate for no particular reason.

RAM can be tricky.  Matching the speed to your system build takes a little bit of research.  G.Skills have good RAM at a good price.  These are dual channel DDR3 1600.  They have a built on heat sink and offer a lifetime warranty.

Finally the power supply.  You need to have enough power to run everything and more.  Most manufactured PC's short you in this area.  Dell, HP, Acer, all barely squeak by with the minimum required levels.

This beast is by corsair, it also has the advantage of being modular.  You only plug in the cables you need for your system.  Sweet!