$1500 Budget for Friend's Rig

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tungt88

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Hey guys. My friend's in the market for a new rig right now, his budget's $1500. He wants the best possible gaming rig, with the following necessary items:

* 22" widescreen monitor (or better), must be HD compatible
* Gaming Mouse (with cord)
* 2 DVD Burners
* Fast, reliable, hard drive (no SSD please)
* Easy-to-use Gaming Keyboard
* Best air-cooling possible
* Floppy/card reader combo drive
* Prefers HD onboard sound, but if budget build allows, a sound card's fine
* Firewire port(s) for iPod
* Windows XP (with the capability to go up to 64 bit Vista, hardware wise)
* Microsoft IIS


Do-it-yourself or an AVADirect build is fine with him (although he prefers AVADirect build because of the warranty), any comments are much appreciated. Thanks guys!
 
2 gigs or 4 gigs of ram? Intel or AMD? Dual or Quad core?

If he wants intel, 4gb RAM, and dual core, I'll start with a few recommendations:

Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
If you have a microcenter near by, you can pick this processor up for $149.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299
use code: EMCAJAHAD to get this board for $119

RAM (depending on how much/if he wants to overclock the e8400):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231148
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218


Great air cooling:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835154001


That should be a decent start.
 
Here is a complete build that meets your requirements, save for Microsoft IIS (I'm not very familiar with that).

$60 - Antec Three Hundred (free shipping)
$7 - Two Yate Loon D12SM-12 120mm case fans - for Three Hundred (@ $3.60 each)
$100 - Silverstone SST-ST60F (free shipping & $20 mail-in rebate)
$120 - Asus P5Q Pro (instant rebate using promo code EMCAJAHAD & free shipping)
$195 - Intel Q6600 (free shipping)
$37 - Xigmatek HDT-S1283 ($10 mail-in rebate)
$7 - Xigmatek ACK-I7751 retention bracket - for HDT-S1283
$75 - A-DATA 2x2GB DDR2 800 (free shipping)
$30 - Rosewill RCR-FD200 combination floppy drive/card reader
$50 - Two Samsung SH-S223F SATA DVD burners (@ $25 each; free shipping)
$85 - Western Digital 640GB SATA HDD (free shipping)
$285 - VisionTek HD4870 (free shipping & $20 mail-in rebate)
$140 - Windows XP Pro OEM (32-bit or 64-bit; free shipping)
$45 - Logitech G5 mouse
$73 - Logitech G15 keyboard
$200 - Acer AL2216Wbd 22" WS monitor (free shipping)
=====
$1509 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates)

To lower prices even further, you could switch the operating system to Vista Home Premium x64 and/or go with the HD4850 instead of the HD4870. You could also omit the second DVD burner, which should cover (most, if not all of) your shipping costs.

A similar build from AVADirect would cost you several hundred dollars more, not including the warranty. The AVA build also wouldn't have the exact same parts that I've recommended here.
 
Thanks for the comments, guys. I talked to him earlier online and he had a few more details:

  • glossy 22" widescreen monitor or better
  • air cooling not quite as powerful as he earlier specified (since his wife will also be using the rig, and she's not much for noise)
  • black colored computer case and monitor

Tiraides, I'll show him your build and see what he thinks ... I'm guessing, tho, that he'd probably want something like the HP w2207h monitor; he and his wife want to watch DVD/movie clips with the rig. He also seemed to be interested in the Lian-Li cases; he saw a few on the AVADirect website and liked their look.
 
tungt88 said:
Thanks for the comments, guys. I talked to him earlier online and he had a few more details:

  • glossy 22" widescreen monitor or better
  • air cooling not quite as powerful as he earlier specified (since his wife will also be using the rig, and she's not much for noise)
  • black colored computer case and monitor

Tiraides, I'll show him your build and see what he thinks ... I'm guessing, tho, that he'd probably want something like the HP w2207h monitor; he and his wife want to watch DVD/movie clips with the rig. He also seemed to be interested in the Lian-Li cases; he saw a few on the AVADirect website and liked their look.
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of Lian-Li cases myself, and I've had (and can vouch for) the PC-7B plus II. (To make it "complete," I recommend either the BS-02 or the BS-03 side fan mount. You could also omit the Yate Loon fans, as Lian-Li provides all of the 120mm fans, even with the accessory. All that you need to purchase is an optional 80mm top-mounted fan.)

The Xigmatek HDT-S1283, IIRC, has adjustable settings and is pretty quiet at low speeds.

If you make the changes to the case and the monitor, you'll have to cut some corners to keep everything under/around $1500. You can't really drop the quad-core down any further, as the Q6600 is Intel's entry-level model (and AMD's Phenoms are a bit more expensive). A-DATA is one of the cheapest 4GB kits around (once shipipng is factored in), though you could drop down to 2GB of RAM to save yourself some cash. Aside from the video card and the operating system -- which are, right now, the two safest components to change, price-wise -- which parts are you willing to swap out?
 
tiraides said:
I'm a big fan of Lian-Li cases myself, and I've had (and can vouch for) the PC-7B plus II. (To make it "complete," I recommend either the BS-02 or the BS-03 side fan mount. You could also omit the Yate Loon fans, as Lian-Li provides all of the 120mm fans, even with the accessory. All that you need to purchase is an optional 80mm top-mounted fan.)

The Xigmatek HDT-S1283, IIRC, has adjustable settings and is pretty quiet at low speeds.

If you make the changes to the case and the monitor, you'll have to cut some corners to keep everything under/around $1500. You can't really drop the quad-core down any further, as the Q6600 is Intel's entry-level model (and AMD's Phenoms are a bit more expensive). A-DATA is one of the cheapest 4GB kits around (once shipipng is factored in), though you could drop down to 2GB of RAM to save yourself some cash. Aside from the video card and the operating system -- which are, right now, the two safest components to change, price-wise -- which parts are you willing to swap out?
Click to expand...

I haven't been able to talk to him much yet since he's a pretty busy programmer, but I'll let him know. FYI he's pretty excited about the idea of building his own rig, it's been 8 years since he last did that. He did mention a deal on Vista from his company tho ...
 
Vista x64 is stable enough (and has plenty of hardware support) for everyday use. If he can get a deal on it -- lately, Vista has been much cheaper than XP (Pro) -- it would free up money for other components.
 
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