Things you can buy for the price of a top-end gaming system

Can you get away with a R15,000 gaming system? Most of us can, but that’s far from really high-end.

If you’re the type with more money than brains, you could probably invest in the system below. Which is great – if the cash is burning a hole in your pocket. But before you do, have a look at what else that amount of dosh can get you.

The system

CPU: Intel Core i7 3960X. One of the fastest consumer processors around, a 3960X will set you back around R10,500 locally.

Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme. LGA2011, check. Quad Channel RAM, check. 4 way SLI/CrossfireX support, check. R5,300 price tag check.

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

RAM: G.Skill Z 2400MHz 16GB quad channel DDR3 ram set. We’ll thrown in two of these sets to fill up the motherboard. After all, what’s R12,000 on some RAM?

Graphics card: Asus HD7970. Of course we needed to use AMD’s latest and greatest next generation card! Well, cards – we’ll need four of them. R8,000 a pop for a total of R32,000, nice.

CPU Cooling: There are so many options! Rather than an all in one cooling solution, we’ll probably budget R7,000 for a decent water cooling loop. Go here and customise to your heart’s content!

Power Supply: Antec HCP 1200w. Strange that we could manage all of the above on a single PSU, but we should be able to, with an Antec HCP 1200 unit. R2,500 and we’re half way done.

Antec HCP 1200

SSD Drive (OS): OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS Edition. I would’ve preferred a PCIe OCZ Revodrive, but the graphics cards obscure the remaining PCIe x8 port. So we’ll go with a raided pair of Vertex 3’s for R11,500 instead.

SSD Drives (Storage): Corsair Force GT 480GB. Games storage is important too, and anyone with a machine like this will surely have a massive steam catalogue, not to mention the other games. Two raided 480GB drives should be enough, chalk up another R21,000.

Hard Drives (Storage): 3TB Seagate Constellation ES.2. Enterprise-class hard drives are a must to keep your data safe and secure. We’ll take 4 thanks, so that’s… R15,000.

Case: Lian Li PC V2120B. We have to put all of this crap somewhere, and what better place than a PC V2120? Classy, enough room to accommodate everything, and relatively cheap at R4,700.

Lian Li v2120, big is beautiful

Keyboard: Logitech G19. It’s retarded for requiring external power, but the G19 is expensive, so it features in our system, chalk up another R1,700.

Mouse: Cyborg R.A.T. 9. No sane person would spend R1,400 on a mouse, but then again which sane person would buy all of the above as a gaming system? The R.A.T. 9 is in.

Screen: HP ZR30W. It has an IPS panel, a 2560 x 1600 resolution, and its 30 inches. I’ll take three for an Eyefinity setup, R58,500 later.

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. For the lulz, R1,900.

Total cost: R174,500.

I don’t think I need to say anything else. Look at that price tag. Look at it!

Things you could rather spend the money on

9 nights at the Burj Al Arab. You and a partner could spend 9 nights at “the world’s only 7 star hotel” for the price of the above system. R18,000 a day for the panoramic one-bedroom suite, but there is a price you pay for luxury.

9 nights here, personal manservants included

Honda Jazz 1.3 Trend 5 door. Stylish, practical, economical, reliable, everyone loves the Honda Jazz! For a smidge over what you would pat for the above system, you could be driving around in one of these. Plus, i-VTEC yo!

Omega Speedmaster Professional. Yes ladies and gents, you too can own the “Moonwatch”.  Qualified by NASA for use in space and used by Astronauts in both the Gemini and Apollo programs, this beauty will set you back around R78,000 locally. So for the above system, you could buy one for each arm, and still have some pocket change for a fancy dinner!

13940 litres of Mayonnaise. Who doesn’t like Crosse and Blackwell mayonnaise? I sure do, and with R174,500 you could buy yourself 13940 litres of the stuff. What you then do with it is totally your decision, we won’t judge.

You see all this Mayo? You could buy more

Every current generation gaming console. If you’re not into the whole PC thing, how about a Playstation 3? And an Xbox 360, and A Nintendo DS, and a Wii, and a soon to be released Playstation Vita, and even an iPad! Well technically you could buy all of the above 8 times over, and stock up on a bunch of games with the change.