Barebones recommendations???

[jflail2]

Hi all:

I'm looking for some recommendations for a Christmas gift. I'm helping a friend out that has a rapidly dying box, but I don't have a ton of $$ to spend so I could use some of your suggestions.

Basically, what I'm looking for is a mobo/cpu/ram combo for (hopefully) around 200$ or so. I'd like for him to be able to keep it/upgrade it for more than 6 months.....so does anyone have any combo ideas that might be close to 200$ and would provide the backbone to a "new" system?

Thanks.

 

[engiNURD]

whats his current system? $200 for mobo/cpu/ram? thats stretching it.

Unfortunately, for $200, you're best bet is a s939 system. The bad part is, that socket will reach end of life at the end of this year (discontinued). The good news is, it has onboard video and is under budget.

$95 - COMBO: AMD A64 3400+ w/ ASUS A8R-MX/SI s939 ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Micro ATX
$50 - WINTEC AMPO 512MB DDR-400 35145588-P
$17 - Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
========
$162 + tax and shipping

AM2 will run you slightly higher, but I think its worth it for the upgradability. This also has onboard video:

$89 - AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz Socket AM2
$75 - BIOSTAR TForce 6100 AM2 Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX
$50 - WINTEC AMPO 512MB DDR2-800 3AMD2800-512M1-R
=========
$215 + tax and shipping

This one is upgradable to conroe, and is dual core for around $200, but no onboard video:

$100 - Intel Pentium D 820 Smithfield 2.8GHz
$57 - ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Socket T (LGA 775) VIA PT880 PRO
$50 - WINTEC AMPO 512MB DDR2-800 3AMD2800-512M1-R
=========
$207 + tax and shipping

 

[jflail2]

Excellent, thanks for your response. And if I did just a mobo/cpu??? Anything that could offer a little more longevity for the same price?

I'd prefer to leave onboard video out entirely, as his brother is going to chip in a vid card...

His current system is some ancient AMD 1800+ build with a 9600xt agp vid card and (I think on board sound.

We would prefer to use nothing out of his current build except for his case (and even then we'll need a new psu.)

Any other recommendations/adjustments would be greatly appreciated...

 

[engiNURD]

$100 - Intel Pentium D 820 Smithfield 2.8GHz
$100 - Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express (review)

Its already dual core, performs pretty good, and can be upgraded to a Core CPU (Core2Duo/Core2Quad/Core2Extreme). Also, the board OC's nicely.

Give us an overall budget and we'll start to have more fun.