A Christmas suprise for my roommate.

I have an 18 y/o kid living with me while he goes to school here in town, he was living here with his girlfriend at the time and they were the two best tenants I could hope for. They kept their space tidy, they were quiet and helped with the house chores. At the end of last month she broke up with him over facebook (kids these days) and she grabbed all her stuff and moved out. He's been dealing with it ok but as a gamer with no games, consoles, TV, or internet I can tell he's pretty depressed.

At this time he's currently going to the library to use the computer so he can check his email. He's big into TF2 so I hatched a plan to build him a PC so he can play and not have to brave the winter to check his messages. The problem is the only spare parts I have kicking around are too old to run TF2 at any decent speed, so I was wondering if any goodjers out there would mind helping me put together a system for him as a Christmas surprise.

Here's what I have so far:

Case
Hard drive
Windows license (Thanks Parallax Abstraction!)
Monitor
KB/Mouse

Still Need
Video Card
PSU
CPU
RAM
MOBO

I'm in the Ottawa area and I'm willing to cover shipping costs.

As Stylez said, I'll kick in a legit Windows license that I'm not using. In addition, I have a used Seagate 500GB SATA drive here that's in perfect condition. It's worth its weight in gold now with the shortage but hey, it's Christmas.

I also do have an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM and a fan sitting on a dead Asus P5N32-E SLI from a client. Sadly the board is just out of warranty. If we can't locate a power supply, I'll also kick in the cost of buying a new one. The system will also need a video card to run games obviously but sadly, we just missed Rabbit's 8800GTS giveaway. If any PC inclined Goodjers out there have a Core 2 Duo capable socket 775 mainboard they aren't using, that would help a ton as those are now out of production and may be hard to find.

I have two video cards sitting around: an 8800GT and a 1gb 4890.

I'd totally give you the 8800Gt, which is 512mb but better than Julian's 640mb GTS. The 4890 I wouldn't mind some money back on, but for Goodjers I'd certainly sell it on the cheap.

I'm in the US so I don't know a thing about shipping costs to USA, Jr., but I get huge discounts with UPS through work.

Edit: Keep in mind the 880GT needs something like 26 amps on the +12V rail from the PSU. A newer card would require a less energy.

The 4890 would be great I think, if you look into shipping costs from your area to Ottawa + card value let me know and I'll see if I can cover it. I'd like to build him something that will at least *try* to play some newer stuff along with his beloved TF2. Parallax has an extra Core2duo 775 CPU lying around, so if anyone has a Socket775 that supports the Core2s we will be well on our way!

*edit* doh you already said that :p

Things that I can offer:

6800GS PCI-E
Logitech G500

Would've had a Q6600 LGA775, but I sold that off a while ago.

I have no parts but give me this kids steam account. I can give him the gift of game.

Stylez wrote:

The 4890 would be great I think, if you look into shipping costs from your area to Ottawa + card value let me know and I'll see if I can cover it. I'd like to build him something that will at least *try* to play some newer stuff along with his beloved TF2. Parallax has an extra Core2duo 775 CPU lying around, so if anyone has a Socket775 that supports the Core2s we will be well on our way!

*edit* doh you already said that :p

Can do. I'm off work tomorrow, but will be in on Tuesday. I'll take the card in and get it weighed and come back with a price.

Feel free to look into other deals, I won't be offended.

boogle wrote:

I have no parts but give me this kids steam account. I can give him the gift of game.

Once the system is built, I was going to suggest this as well. I'll definitely be sending him some stuff. I've also got a number of boxed games that I've since bought the Steam versions of because well...like many others, I have a problem. I'll try to figure those out but he's welcome to as many of them as he likes.

I have none of those things, but I love you guys for being so generous. What an awesome group of people.

I'm not sure if he knows his steam login info, but if not I'll create a new account for him and let you guys know what it is.

I was so sad when I saw a boxed copy of TF2 on his nightstand, with nothing else in the room. I imagine he pores over the manual at night.

If the other video cards fall through let me know. I have a 5850 that I'm currently using but, I also have a 6870 that I could use with a fan replacement (right now the fan is stuck on 100% and sounds like a vacuum cleaner).

Or at least I could do the whole game gifting thing.

I can donate 8gb of Mushkin Blackline RAM. Its DDR3, i think 1600.

Tigerbill wrote:

If the other video cards fall through let me know. I have a 5850 that I'm currently using but, I also have a 6870 that I could use with a fan replacement (right now the fan is stuck on 100% and sounds like a vacuum cleaner).

Stylez, a 5850 is gonna be much better than my 4890. Might want to consider this. I don't mean just in terms of graphical output, but it also uses less energy and creates less heat and sound. Ati's 5 series were really well made in terms of that stuff.

SallyNasty wrote:

I have none of those things, but I love you guys for being so generous. What an awesome group of people.

I also have none of the things, but wanted to +1 what Sally said.

Also, I can't get over a) he was dumped over Facebook?; and b) at 18, he doesn't have his own computer?

The mind boggles!

That's super generous of all of you, thanks so much. I can't wait to get this built for him.

TigerBill the 5850 would be excellent. I think parallax and I will end up splitting on a motherboard, since we seem to have just about everything else, and you can find socket 775 boards for around 60 bucks now.

Thin_J the Ram would be great!

I will PM Tigerbill and Thin_J with my address info, and will keep you all up to date on the build.

Gravey wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I have none of those things, but I love you guys for being so generous. What an awesome group of people.

I also have none of the things, but wanted to +1 what Sally said.

Also, I can't get over a) he was dumped over Facebook?; and b) at 18, he doesn't have his own computer?

The mind boggles!

It's crazy right? Could you imagine having to walk 20 min in the winter snow to check your email?

Also it's nuts that when I was a kid if you broke up over the phone you were being insensitive. Now breaking up over the phone is considered ok, just don't do it over FB!

In a thread somewhere MikeNS said he has 2 low end systems he did not need, check with him!

So a quick update. Have a video card coming in (Thanks TigerBill!), and Parallax and I have found some inexpensive parts to cover the rest. We will be putting the build together as soon as the videocard arrives, at which point I'm going to share his steam account info and hopefully move this thread to "Everything Else" so more eyeballs can see it.

Stylez wrote:

So a quick update. Have a video card coming in (Thanks TigerBill!), and Parallax and I have found some inexpensive parts to cover the rest. We will be putting the build together as soon as the videocard arrives, at which point I'm going to share his steam account info and hopefully move this thread to "Everything Else" so more eyeballs can see it.

Well lets just hope the border patrol doesn't get uppity about my package.

They do, I'll go down there and dispense some justice. None shall interrupt this Christmas surprise! HEARTS WILL BE WARMED DAMMIT!

I can kick in any software licenses I can. Is he just a gamer or does he do programming? I can get Visual Studio, Office, SQL, Project.

He's actually finishing his high school diploma, but has an interest in game design for college. I'll try and coax a little more info out of him and get back to you Edwin.

For those of you playing along at home, the video has officially made it across the border.

Tigerbill wrote:

For those of you playing along at home, the video has officially made it across the border. :)

Giggity! Thanks again dude.

Stylez and I are planning to do the build after work tonight. If your card isn't here, we'll dig up another one to test it with. I've already pulled a bunch of my Steam duplicated retail titles off the shelves and I also found a whole bunch of non-Steam downloadable games I got as parts of various promotions and whatnot over the years that I've never touched. They all go on a flash drive tonight as well.

Video card didn't arrive yet but we built the system temporarily using the video card from Stylez's system. All installed and updated and seems to be running well. We're waiting on a couple of Steam games to download now to stress test it with. His roommate's been hanging out with us for a good chunk of the evening. We told him we were upgrading a system for a friend of ours. He has no idea.

Yeah the card isn't supposed to get there till Mon/Tues; I was just worried about the Border Patrol.

I can't wait to hear the story of his reaction.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Video card didn't arrive yet but we built the system temporarily using the video card from Stylez's system. All installed and updated and seems to be running well. We're waiting on a couple of Steam games to download now to stress test it with. His roommate's been hanging out with us for a good chunk of the evening. We told him we were upgrading a system for a friend of ours. He has no idea. :)

Haha, that's awesome. That's going to be great when you give it to him.

Since you already have monitor and keyboard (the only extras I had), I'd be interested in gifting him a game if once you get Steam set-up for him. I have an extra copy of Bastion if he would like it (and he better because Bastion is a great game).