Best $900 Build

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Lugztaz

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Messages
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Im going to be helping a friend build a comp. Im sorry if this has been posted but i want some help. I have done this before but i just want to see what you guys would pick out for parts. I want EVERYTHING

Case (Black)
HDD (120Gig for now)
MOBO
Proc ( INT or AMD!)
Mem (1 Gig)
Video (!* NO ATI *!)(Source Capeable
DVD/CD Burner
Speakers (Cheap, Don't Need Help)
Onboard Sound and NIC will do for now!


I will post what i find and please tell me honestly what you think! :)

oh and i'd rather do this threw newegg or all at one place!

Please let me know if this should be somewhere else :D
 
I assume his comp is mainly for gaming?

Looking good so far, but pick different RAM. You picked a DDR2 DIMM - you need regular DDR (184 pin)
 
Good Catch. Fixed

And yes gaming, music maby some movie editing . Oh and Forget the Flat Pannel for now.
 
Lugztaz said:
oh and i'd rather do this threw newegg or all at one place!

Please let me know if this should be somewhere else :D
Click to expand...

Pleases reconsider. Using multiple e-tailers is perfectly ok, and you can get much better prices/components.

For example, Newegg.com has a very shoddy HDD shipping policy. They ship their HDDs in bubblewrap, which allows the drives to be damaged en route. Bubblewrap in an RMA means instant rejection by any major HDD manufac. www.ZipZoomFly.com, for example, ships their HDDs very securly. I HIGHLY reccomend gettinga HDD from there. Thy also have better prices and free shipping. $80 for 120gb? Look into this HDD for $97.50:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100713-3

It is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200gb 7K drive. That doesn't seem that unusual, but the Cache is 16mb! No other manufac offers this, and Maxtor does with NO price hit. Look at their 8mb cache drives and drives of comparable size from other manufacs. You won't find much difference, except that the Maxtor is by far the fastest of them all!

An even better deal is this 250gb Maxtor 7K.16 for $114 (but that is a lot above your initial price, you might want to stick with 200):
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100718-5

I would get a Maxtor 16mb cache drive over ANY other, even a raptor. The Raptors are NOT that much faster, despite their higher rpm, AND the $ per GB is almost 4x as high!

---
I'll come back to your other parts later, but I will say that I think a San Diego is a waste of money right now. Either get a X2 4200+ (or a 3800+ X2 when they come out) or a Venice 3000+ or 3200+.
 
Will Consider :D THo i have never had a problem with the HDD shipping in the bubbles :cool:

Video is something i need to learn more about. So help alot there.
 
I'd go for a 3400 Newcastle, instead of your original 3700 and use the price difference to buy a quality PSU. PSU's are critical to stable performance in modern systems. I would _never_ trust a PSU that comes with a case unless its an Antec (and only if it were a true-power or true-control series PSU).

Other than that, quite a respectable build.

I am doing something quite similar, but my budget is about $500. I'm using a 3400 Newcastle and a shuttle I picked up for $150 back in March. I'm not using a high-end vid-card, this is going to be an encoding/htpc box only.

edit: I see you went with s939. N/m my suggestions about the 3400 newcastle... but GET A NON-GENERIC PSU!! :D Visit the PSU forum and read the first sticky :D
 
source=hl2=tends to run better on ati...not that a 6600gt won't run it fine, just sayin. Why no ATI anyway? I tend to buy the best card for the price, screw nvidia vs. ati bs.


Edit: You need a SATA optical drive? Just curious as you could save ~$20 if it didn't matter.


Edit2: why AGP?
 
Phranq said:
source=hl2=tends to run better on ati...not that a 6600gt won't run it fine, just sayin. Why no ATI anyway?


?
Click to expand...


"source=hl2=tends to run better on ati" That's a bouch of crap. Ill tell you why Ati suck. Plain and simple.....
 
I personally go for whatevers better for the price, in this case its a 6600gt, but still, going "no ati, becuase I'm mainly gonna play source games" IS an oxymoran, because ATi is better at source games, just like nVidia is better at Doom3 (whatever the engines called) games, sorry buddy, We'll help you, but you can't go around saying a company sucks, or use oxy morans, just go "No ATi, I perfer nVidia" instead of setting your self up with an ignorant post like "no ati, I need a card good at SOURCE" Anyways sorry a little rant, [H] aswell as many other sites are very VERY anti !!!!!!, just learn for next time not to go around saying random unfound things like for example "intel sucks for many reasons", at least at bare minimum say something like "intel sucks because they try to push the mhz myth(not anymore but its just an example) while an amd at 2GHz kills an intel at 3GHz" :p Sorry thats my little rant on fan boys

//Elimi'Xed
 
Bad Experiance with ATI=HATE :mad: My card sucks, My Friends Card Sucks we have both gone threw MANY of the same card...i mean this POS 9600 can barly handle 1.6!

put the video card on hold right now

how dose the rest of the system work?

why agp? why NOT? it's not like im gona be buying a 500dollar card , i mean will spending more money on a diff mobo and more money on a diff video card make my play OMG more better? pry not but i guess i don't konw thats' why i came to you guys :D

and the SATA opti may not be nessicairy i guess just it was a nice drive i seen, what model do you guys prefer :)

Im tryin to get this ready for a friends brother so he can lear and lan with us on August 12-13 In Omaha Nebraska

Now the Proc i chose? i want to see what people think...

YAY OR NAY? and if NAY what would you use for staying arround this price range? like really close to it!
 
Nay, generic PSU = trouble for any modern build. Fix the PSU and I'd have to give it a "yay"
 
Agent_F said:
I would go with a better hard drive then that crapy maxtor. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822135106

You probably don't need 200gb and you sure as hell will want that hdd to last more than a year right? so go with a western digital like the one above or a hitachi.
Click to expand...

Why do you say that? I personally was going to get the hitachi deskstar-160gig. But now i think i'm going to get the maxtor. Why do you say that it wont last more than a year?
 
Vtecaddict said:
Why do you say that? I personally was going to get the hitachi deskstar-160gig. But now i think i'm going to get the maxtor. Why do you say that it wont last more than a year?
Click to expand...


Fom my past 5 years in the field the hard drive that dies most of the time are maxtors, and they are usualy the ones put in low grade oem computers.
 
Vtecaddict said:
Why do you say that? I personally was going to get the hitachi deskstar-160gig. But now i think i'm going to get the maxtor. Why do you say that it wont last more than a year?
Click to expand...

I have the Hitachi Deskstar 160GB 7200rpm in my machine. Very fast seek times and it's VERY quiet. I can't even hear it 95% of the time. It got good reviews on Newegg so for $75 I couldn't pass it up.
 
ATI does have a few gems...and one right now is ht x800xl. $$$ per FPS it can't be beat.

The new deskstars are pretty good (no more click-o-death)

If you are stuck on the 6600GT, then go PCIe. You can get a PCIe for ~$130 and use the saved $20 (and you don't even need a rebate) and upgrade to a NF4 MB. This will provide you more flexibility if you want it.

CDROM, get a the cheapest PATA you can. SATA optical still suck and won't work right until the next gen controllers are standard.

Assuming you don't do pr0n, 120GB is more than enough for day to day stuff and even some movie editing. Worst case is you add another HDD a few months from now or so.

Get 1-1GB stick. Going to 4x512 in the future will more than likely cause some grief (especialy if they aren't matched to well). If it works...more too yah. I would rather still run on two sticks.

3700+SD + 6600GT is not a good match. You might be better off with 3000/3200venice for that pairing. Put the extra $150-$200 towards your monitor. Unless you plan on lots of video work...then go for it.

If you take the $1500 complete rig from the hocp review..it should be a really good starting point.

-tReP
 
Lugztaz said:
Then what PSU do you reccomend?
Click to expand...

It depends, but if you don't plan on going above a X800XL in terms of power, a good quality 400W PSU will do it. Go to the PSU section and look at the list. Since you don't seem to be the uber overclocker type...a reputable $50 PSU should do you just fine.

-tReP
 
don't worry about the size of HDD"s. Im building this for a friends' brother and i just put 2 more HDD's in this friends comp( 2 more 250's = 3 250 + 80)

I will change the DVD Burner!
I will look into diffrent PSU's and IM ONLY SPENDING $900 with no monitor!

and why are thos' 2 not a good match? what would be a good quality match for NO MORE MONEY! :D

If you sugest ATI then what card? this 9600 shit just SUCKS ASS and it has made me very angry with ATI peroid! Please show me a match for ~500 NO MORE
 
i mean this POS 9600 can barly handle 1.6!
Click to expand...




I found that comical...my friend played 1.6 on an fx5200 for a while.


Edit: 3700+ and a 6600gt is not a good match because your CPU is quite a bit faster than the 6600gt. Try a 3200+ venice + whatever the best graphics card you can afford with the free money.


Edit:

ATI:
x800pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102425

x800xl


Nvidia:
6800gt
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122195

6800nu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130202

I would choose one of those depending on the price your looking for. The 3200+ is $190 on newegg
 
see my above post...videlo link brokey...I would say downgrade proc to 3200+ so that you can get a graphics card that won't bottleneck your CPU.
 
ah,well that's alot of money to bring up the video card. how much preformance am i going to loose with the 3200 and that video instead of what i had and ur video?
 
Lugztaz said:
Bad Experiance with ATI=HATE :mad: My card sucks, My Friends Card Sucks we have both gone threw MANY of the same card...i mean this POS 9600 can barly handle 1.6!
Click to expand...

thats because 1.6 is opengl based (ATI's weak side) while HL2 is D3d based (ATI's strong side) and 9600np's arent meant for gaming. buying a 9600np and wondering why it sucks at opengl gaming is like me complaining my honda sucks at drag racing when obviously it's not meant for that.

on a side note.. have you tried OCing? I hear 9600's oc like made hatters.

~Adam
 
ok a good CPU VIdeo combo for uner $500
Click to expand...


I showed you up there...a 3200+ venice and one of those cards I linked to up there is what I would recommend.
 
Looking good.

Having an 8 MB buffer on a 16x dvd writer is pretty useless - at full speed, ~20 MB/s, you have fractions of a second of buffer protection.
 
BillLeeLee said:
Looking good.

Having an 8 MB buffer on a 16x dvd writer is pretty useless - at full speed, ~20 MB/s, you have fractions of a second of buffer protection.
Click to expand...


what about cd writing functions? or am i missing something there too
 
With CD writing, 52x is 7.8 MB/s, so you'd get 1 second of protection at that speed (longer if your writer is slower than 52x).

However, with current buffer underrun tech and fast systems, buffer size isn't really that important. All my writers (lite-on, NEC, Toshiba (yuck), and a TDK) are 2 MB, and most of the others I've had experience with using or installing and testing are all 2MB buffer drives. I've burned many spindles worth of CD-R and DVD discs, without a hitch yet.

The Plextor is definitely a nice drive (I'd certainly own one :D ), but I'm just saying that buffer size isn't as important these days as it was back on the slower systems of yesterday.
 
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