I was debating whether or not to get the 600ti and frankly cheapening myself out for 60$ more bucks is silly, so I'll get that.
The problem with the K versions of the i7 for socket 2011 is that the cheapest is:
Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K at 575$. That's a 275$ difference.
You may ask why I'm so stubborn about the quad channel memory; I've just always wanted to build a system with no compromise in upgradeability options. So 5 years from now I could swap the video card and maybe get the latest SSD and breathe life into his computer for at least another 3 years (The i7-k is SIX core, and I doubt Firefox or TOR will ever get close to needing that much horsepower for the future). Maybe the OS by then will be optimized to take better advantage of Quad channel memory.
He doesn't play WoW anymore, but he may try things like World of Battleships, World of Planes, and he plays Pirates of the Burning Sea now and then, and I want to WoW! him when he realizes how awesome these games looks at max settings on a good screen
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I'll seriously consider an SSD, I'm just horrified at the idea of how if one fails you cannot recover anything, unless you make regular backups.