Orion: Rationale and Details

Aim true.

This little guy is what I called Orion. This is my parent's computer and my secondary rig. I was wanting something I would be able to hook up to my TV and play a few games on from the comfort of my couch and my parents also needed a new computer. So I built this for them, and for myself. My brother even said "He's just building this so he can play on the TV." That was just the secondary option.

Before I begin, I wanna tell you my parents' previous specs that they got back in 2009. They bought a brand new Gateway from Future Shop. Really decent machine. It had an Intel Core2Quad Q6600 CPU, an ATI Radeon (Yes, ATI, before the times of AMD) HD 4650, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of HDD, and a measly 300W PSU. A year later I upgraded the GPU and PSU to an Nvidia GTX 500Ti and a 500W Cooler Master something, and played some games. And then it started to really get slow last year. The capacitors on the terrible Acer motherboard were starting to pop, so it was dying. So I did what any nerdy child would do and I put my money into buying them a new system. Let's get started.

CPU: AMD A8-6600k @3.9 Ghz
So I was going to use an A10-5700 from my own old Gateway, but sadly, while pulling off the heatsink, the CPU came out of the motherboard and bent a pin. One of the flaws of ZIF sockets. But, I bought an A8-6600k to replace it, which costed less than an A10-5800k. It's a quad core chip, unlocked, so gaming would be decent with it. I disabled the onboard graphics cause I had a GPU I could plop into the build, so the CPU runs fully by itself. It's a good chip for what we use it for, but it won't be doing any intense rendering or anything, not that anyone does that, anyway.

GPU: Club3D R7 265 2GB
I bought this card cause it was on sale and I was going to put it into a Mini-ITX rig, but since this replaced that rig, it went in here. It's a really good card, just slightly less powerful than my R9 270 in my rig, and can even run BF4 on ultra settings at 900p. Better than the PS4 (Yes, I had to jab at the consoles. Sorry.) It's also pretty silent as well, despite only having one fan. It can get loud after 50% fan speed, but if you mind the noise, you can use MSI Afterburner and lock it at less than that. It's a good little card, and really works well with the system.

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H
So I got this mobo since I couldn't use any of the previous ones. It was a good mobo that was available at NCIX when I went there to get a mobo, and it was on sale. I was going to get something cheaper, but it's for the parents, so I splurged a little bit. I hear good things about Gigabyte boards, so I figured the durability would be good for them. I don't wanna have to update this in 3 or 4 years. It was on sale, it's got the best chipset on the FM2+ platform, and it looks really cool inside the all black rig.

RAM: 8GB of Kingston whatever
It was in the old Gateway. The crappy this is that it's over 4 DIMMs, so there's not a lot of room for expansion, as it takes up all the slots. I don't think I or my parents need more than 8GB though. Not now, anyway.

HDD: 1TB Seagate
It was also in the old Gateway, so we just used it. Simple, efficient, and surprisingly fast. It boots from a cold start to the desktop in about 30 seconds.

PSU: Cooler Master 500W Something
I don't know the name of this Cooler Master PSU, but it hasn't blown up on us yet. It's not crazy efficient, but I think it's 80+, cause it hasn't caused our electric bill to explode. It's a decent PSU, but couldn't tell you what kind it was without rummaging through a bunch of old boxes.

Case: Cooler Master N200
I really love this case. It's a simple mATX case, but man is it amazing to work in. It has so much room! Oh, and it's cable management options could rival a full size ATX case. There's a ton of space to work with, and the only issue is that routing cables behind the motherboard tray makes the side panel a little hard to close, but doesn't effect anything else. There is ample room in here, and it was really cheap, something like $45. So if you want an mATX build, I really like this case, even over the Core 1000 from Fractal.

So, there you have it. My parents' build, aka Orion. It was really fun building this, and I even got to teach my dad some stuff about computers. Don't think he retained anything, but it was fun.

Thanks for reading, happy gaming.