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A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
Samsung 8GB 4GBx2 DDR3 1600 – $41.99
Samsung is well known for their innovative products and manufacturing quality.
This kit is based on their 30nm DRAM chips and is frequently lauded in hardware circles. Many examples can be found of people pushing this stuff hard via overclocking, but for our purposes, we want simple, reliable, quality ram.The Samsung kit delivers this in spades, along with lower power consumption and a handy low profile form factor.
ALTERNATIVES
Kingston 8 GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Hyper X – $29.99
There are quite a few equally viable kits out there. Kingston HyperX Blu and Corsair Vengeance kits listed above are just some of the other highly regarded offerings out there.
I mention these as I would and have happily used them myself.
Other noteworthy manufacturers include G.Skill, Crucial, Mushkin.
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 – $45.99
When it comes to ram, these are so many quality offerings from companies with solidly established reputations that in my personal opinion, it doesn’t make sense to try and save a few dollars by buying from anyone other than the very top tier.
Considering the impact quality memory has on system performance and stability, along with the relatively minor savings to be had, buy only from the best.
HARD DRIVE HOEDOWN
WD VelociRaptor 300 GB 10k hdd – $119.99
This is fantastic. Not sure how long the price will last, but while the going is good, grab this. Under normal circumstances, the WD VelociRaptor is a performance drive seen in enthusiast and enterprise level systems.
Hard disks spin a platter around at a fixed speed. An armature then reads your data off as the magnetic part passes by. Imagine this to be somewhat like a turn-table playing a LP record.
By spinning at 10,000 revolutions per minute (RPM) as compared to the 5,400 and 7,200 RPMs of most other drives, in combination with the 32MB of cache, the VelociRaptor speeds up the process of reading and writing from the hard drive.
There are some minor caveats though. Some people can find that the 10k rotation produces a very irritating sound. At 300GB, there is a nice amount of storage capacity but by no means spacious in this day and age.
In return, you get a nice mix of performance, space and a 5 year warranty, and all for a very small outlay. Technically, the model available at this price is the WD3000HLHX, which is the 5th generation version of the drive (currently up to 6th generation of the WD VelociRaptor line), so it is no longer right on the bleeding edge. But then again, it is that very discount which allows us to fit it into this budget build. Sometimes, it pays not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
—LAST MINUTE PRICE CHANGE GO WITH WD CAVIAR—
ALTERNATIVES
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB 7200 RPM HDD – $59.99
For an increase in storage space, less noise and and extra 10 bucks in your pocket, the WD Blue is no slouch and not too shabby a pick at all.
If it wasn’t for the VelociRaptor being cheap at the moment, this would be the recommended storage drive in this budget build.