$500 Budget Build

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l0lz0rss

n00b
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
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3
Hey I have a friend who's interested in building his own PC

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Schoolwork and games, mostly Steam games.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Around $500 with shipping and handling and tax

3) Where do you live?
Southern California

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, RAM, PSU, Case, CD/DVD drive, HDD (at least 150 gb or so), Motherboard, and video card (I'm thinking the 4830? I heard it's on par with the 9800 and it's at a cheaper price.)

No need for: monitor, mouse, keyboard, and speakers at the moment.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
none

6) Will you be overclocking?
Possibly. I'm thinking the e5200 because I heard it's easy to overclock it.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
He currently owns a 15" dell flat panel monitor.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next 3 months

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
None.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Nope but looking for Windows Vista Home.

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated :D
 
 
Windows Vista Home costs around $90 at NewEgg, but Vista Home Premium is only $10 more. It doesn't matter whether you get the 32-bit version or the 64-bit version, the prices are the same. However, it would either bust your budget (since you also have to pay CA state taxes for any and all NewEgg purchases) or force you to "compromise" with weaker parts.

hossdaddy made an excellent build for you, but in order to accommodate an OEM OS license as well, you'll have to cut a few more corners. Keep the motherboard, processor, RAM, and HDD from hossdaddy's build, but also go with:

$100 - Antec NSK4480 case with Earthwatts EA380 380W PSU (free shipping)
$70 - Asus HD4670 ($10 mail-in rebate)
$24 - Samsung SH-S222L SATA DVD burner with LightScribe (free shipping)

The price drops down to about $405 before shipping, taxes, and the cost of an OS come into play. But without any more price-cutting, which would mean a weaker processor and/or less of everything, you won't be able to obtain a decent gaming machine plus an OS license for under $500.
 
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I appreciate it guys. You saved us some time in researching being the noobs we are. Thanks. :)
 
woops my bad mis-reading the os question. One thing I would be worried about is but if he goes to an 19" lcd or bigger that 4670 will suffer no? How about this build instead,

Antec earthwatts EA430 430W + SAPPHIRE 100265HDMI Radeon HD 4830 512MB combo deal $124.98 - $10 mir + fs on psu
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP3 $89.99 + fs
AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition $58.99 + fs
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $42.99 + fs
GIGABYTE GA-M61PME-S2P AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX $49.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB $54.99 + fs
HEC 6C28BB8S Black Steel ATX Mid Tower $34.99 + fs
SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA $24.99 + fs
Total: $481.91 - $10 mir + a little shipping.

Notes: I know you said you liked the e5200 but the 7750 is faster non-clocked and can take an ok oc on the stock cooler. Just to show you the other side. I have the X2 7750 and it rips through all my steam based games like L4D, DOD:S, CS:S, HL2, TF2 etc as well as COD4, COD:WaW.
 
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