Budget build advice needed

W

Wizardhawk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 11, 2005
Messages
257
I am going to be getting a computer to play WoW and then Warhammer when it comes out, as well as some strategy games most likely. Unfortunately at the moment I can only afford about $800 after tax/shipping/etc. I will most likely have to buy an OS along with everything else.

Is this do-able? If the graphics card is going to be the major issue pricewise, a mediocre card now that can run WoW nicely would be alright. Once Warhammer comes out I could probably afford to buy the new top-o-the-line card at that time.

A 19" monitor is all I care for. Don't have a whole lot of space at the moment (sharing a house with 5 others doesn't leave much :D)

Also, considering my budget and the fact that I would need everything + an OS would it be easier/better to just buy a dell or something? I really would prefer to build it tho, so if it can be done for maybe $1000 I might say F' it and hold out til I can save a lil bit more.

Thanks in advance!
 
Does that $800 include a monitor?

Before tax and shipping, it would be around $700 for a complete system? The monitor would eat about $180, leaving $620 for the system. Good thing WoW isn't very demanding, especially on a 19" monitor...

This is just to show you what's possible...

$160 - 19" Widescreen LCD
$105 - Vista Home Premium 32-bit OEM
$113 - X1950GT
$120 - E4500
$86 - IP35-E
$57 - 2GB DDR2-800
$50 - 160GB
$50 - 500W Goodpower
$35 - Elite 330 Case
$30 - DVDRW SATA
==========
$805

Did you need a keyboard and mouse, too? lol... someone can shave more off of that... I gotta go. I'll be back later to revise it if nobody else takes a stab. An easy way to save money is to go with the E2160 instead, or go AMD. If you can, hold out and save a bit more.
 
Ok I spent some time making a list on newegg and doing a lil' bit of research. So far i've come up with this:

EVGA 512-P2-N757-TR GeForce 8600GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 - $149.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814130290

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $94.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813128059

Rosewill TU-155 Black Steel ATX Black 0.8mm SGCC Steel Mid Tower Computer Case 400W(20+4 pin) Power Supply - Retail - $54.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811147001

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail - $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115030

Crucial 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820148144

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $49.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136075

Hanns·G JW-199DPB Black 19" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 700:1 Built in Speakers - Retail
Windows Vista Certified - $169.99
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16824254001

This comes to $789.83 subtotal, but there is atleast $50 worth of mail-in rebates on those items if not closer to $100. I don't know what all I missed tho, if anything. Keyboard and mouse are not a big deal they're 20 bucks at wal-mart. Will the power supply on the case be enough? If not, maybe another $100 for case fans/PSU? If with these parts and a couple twinks it can still cost me no more than like $1100 then I can probably splurge and do it. Also it will probably be about 7-8 days before I order it. I know that a lot can change pricewise/salewise so i'll probably see if I can do any lastminute tweaks before ordering as well. Also, should I go with Vista home premium or xp pro?
 
I dunno, I'd order something like an E4300 processor instead of the 6550, and give it a tiny overclock. I've yet to see a conroe that can't do 3.0 on stock cooling with a P35 board:p

Then, save about another 20$ and use some different RAM... You're paying extra for the black heatspreader on the RAM you chose: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227030

Take that extra 60$, and put it towards a better graphics card, ala 8800GT... Really, if you can afford an extra 99$, and you pick up an eVGA 8800GT, you'll get around 3x the graphical performance of that 8600... Closer, if not better, to the GTX level.

GPU>CPU and RAM... always!
 
First of all, don't bother with any Rosewill PSU. They're not worth the money nor the risk to your system. In other words, they're crap. For a gaming PC, a Rosewill will not simply do. In fact, don't trust power supplies that come with the case. There are a few exceptions like with Antec cases but generally, don't trust power supplies that come with the case, especially for a gaming build.

Second, you missed a DVD burner and OS.

Third, I strongly suggest that you go with Enginurd's build. The x1950GT he listed outperforms the 8600GT by a large margin. Here are some shopping links:

Hanns·G HW-199DPB Black 19" DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - $170
Cooler Master Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP ATX Case - $35
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 CPU - $119
Abit IP35-E Intel P35 Motherboard - $86
A-Data ADQVE1A16K 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM - $57
Western Digital WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $50
LITE-ON LH-20A1S 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $30
Sapphire 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB PCI-E Video Card - $113
XCLIO Goodpower 500W PSU - $50
Windows Vista Home Premium OEM - $105
---
Total: $815 Plus tax and shipping.

Now if you're willing to up your budget a bit, I recommend getting the 8800GT 512MB card as soon as you can find. It offers performance that's pretty close to the 8800GTX but only costs around $200 to $250. Though right now they're selling a bit higher being newly launched parts and all. But it's still a good buy even at $260 to $280.

I also recommend upping the PSU quality a bit and getting any of these power supplies:
Enhance ENP-5150GH 500W PSU - $69
Corsair VX550 550W PSU - $91
Corsair HX520 520W PSU - $104

Oh and definitely go with Vista Home Premium. It is going to be the main OS in another year or so. So might as well get use to it now. Also, from what I've heard, game performance in Vista, at least with newer games, is about the same or little bit lower as XP.

If you need legacy ports, then go with the P35-DS3L you chose.
 
The E6550 is harder to OC than the E4500/E4400/E4300 since it has a very low mutliplier, 7x. Also, the performance difference regarding the larger cache size is negligible for your budget range. Check out this article:
http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-e2160_4.html#sect0

For dual core, you'd be best served by the E4500 or E6750. However, the E6750 is out of your price range, so go with the E4500 or E2160 instead. Whichever chip you go with, OC it to 3Ghz. They can all reach 3Ghz on the stock cooler, btw.

I strongly agree with Danny... don't bother using the bundled PSU from any case, aside from the Earthwatts or NeoHE PSUs bundled with Antec cases. The PSU could take out every component in your PC... don't cheap out on it.

If you really can't afford $815 + tax and shipping, drop down to an AMD build:

$60 - Biostar TForce 520
$66 - X2 4000+ 2.1Ghz
======
$126

$610 + $126 = $736 + tax and shipping = ~$825 total
 
Thank you for the help thus far. After an interesting past 24 hours, I think that I will be able to bump my budget up to about $1200. Doing so will probably put the date I actually order everything to mid-November, but I think it'll be worth it.

So I did some tweaking and came up with:

$280 - 8800GT 512MB vidcard (any recommendations on which actual card is best?)
$200 - E6750
$170 - 19" widescreen LCD 1440x900
$130 - Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
$110 - Vista home premium for system builders dvd
$90 - 2GB crucial ballistix DDR2 800
$50 - WD 160GB 7200rpm SATA
$35 - Coolermaster elite 330
$30 - Lite-on 20x LH-20A1S
$xxx - Should I get a different PSU for these parts than the ones already recomended?
--------------------------------------------
$835 shipped from newegg without PSU or vidcard


That puts it at around $1200 with the 8800GT and a PSU that costs about 60-80.


Sorry for jacking up the budget and whatnot after the replies :p
 
Wizardhawk said:
$280 - 8800GT 512MB vidcard (any recommendations on which actual card is best?)
Click to expand...

Any 8800GT will do. Even at stock speeds, the 8800GT is pretty good card. Though if you want good support, try getting one from EVGA, BFG, or XFX.
 
Yeah I was thinking eVGA, but they have 3 different versions. The KO, superclocked and I guess the reguler one. I dunno much about how the effective memory speeds and stuff work tho. Will the effects on performance from them be small enough that it doesn't make a difference?
 
I recommend just getting the cheapest one. You can easily get to Superclocked and KO speeds with a simple overclock.

Though if you don't want to OC, just get the fastest version you can get. The performance increase is worth the price if it's no more than $10 to $15 over a regular card.
 
Ok, so I think this Friday I will be ordering the first pieces of my new build. I will have about $750-$800 on Friday and the week after I will order the rest if possible. If I can't get it all by then it might be an additional week.

Not sure if any of the specials or deals or anything have changed, but altogether I'm trying to spend under $1200. Would it be worth it to get a Q6600 and spend a little extra or just go with a E6750?

The E6750 with a 22" LCD I put together on newegg is 1212.94 before shipping and tax at the moment. The Q6600 would be an extra $100ish unless i'd have to change some other parts to go Quad?

CPU - E6750 or Q6600 G0?
GPU - 8800GT
MOBO - Gigabyte P35-DS3R
RAM - Crucial ballistix 2GB 800
Monitor - 22" acer lcd 1650x1080 or whatever native
PSU - Corsair 550VX
Case - Cooler master Centurion 534
DVDBurner - Liteon 20x DVD Burner SATA
HD - Seagate 250GB 7200.10 Sata 3.0
Cooling - Any needed? slight OC'ing probably
OS - Vista 32bit home premium

Think that's everything heheh.
 
Well if you don't plan on upgrading your CPU within a year or for a long time, then go with the quad-core. Get the G0 stepping Q6600 since it runs a bit cooler than the B3 stepping at Newegg:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping CPU - $272

Also, with the Q6600, the HSF isn't good enough for a even a light OC IMO. So any of these HSF will do a good job cooling the Q6600:
Scythe SCNJ-1100P Ninja HSF - $36
Tuniq Tower 120 HSF - $45
Thermalright Ultima-90 HSF - $46 & Panaflo FBA09A12M 92mm Fan - $3
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme HSF - $55 & Scythe S-Flex SFF21E 120MM Case Fan - $14
 
I agree, get one of those HSFs if you want to OC. If you go with the Q6600 G0 (get it from clubit, not newegg), you don't need the Ballistix RAM. So that should save you a bit of upfront money if you're willing to drop to lower priced RAM.

If you don't need raid, drop to the DS3L instead of the R.

Newegg is expensive with PSUs, so shop elsewhere. Get it from clubit.com along with your CPU.

Vista is on sale at microcenter for $85 (home premium 32-bit).
 
Yeah I don't even really know what Raid is/does heheh, so I guess I can go with the DS3L. Is the Ballistix ram worth it still if I go quad or is it really just a waste of a lil bit of money?

Also, I will probably be upgrading semi-regularly once I get the system actually built, so I might go with the 6750 for now. Will the 6750 and a 8800GT run Crysis and stuff at top settings 1680x1050? Will probably upgrade to 4GB ram after Christmas, and maybe some other stuff too. Quad for sure if I don't get it now.
 
RAID differs based on what configuration you set it in, but it does require at least two hard drives. Since you don't have a second hard drive even or have much interest in it I'd probably just forget about it. Interesting that your budget seems to keep going up heh. One thing you may want to consider is using the Cooler Master RC-690 instead, as it is a very good case with lots of room for big fans, roomy, with cable management options, and can be had at a bargain right now at 40 bucks AR from ZipZoomFly:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10006342

If you plan to upgrade reasonably often, I'd say save the cash and go E6750. I'm not sure of the exactly performance of the E6750 + 8800GT combo, but it will probably not get you max settings in Crysis. Then again, if the demo is any indication almost *nothing* will quite get you there besides extreme high end. With the E6750's multiplier I think the overclockability of the ballistix is well worth the hassle of the rebate. It's a nice deal at 50 bucks for a 2x1gb kit anyway AR so I'd say stick with them.

If you do get the case from ZZF, you can perhaps pick up the E6750 and Corsair 550VX from there as well, and get free shipping on all of them:

Corsair 550VX http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10006757
E6750 http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10005522
 
Heheh ok thanks. Gonna go with the 6750 for now. Budget kept going up cause I got real excited about maybe playing Crysis and some other higher end games so I figured it'd be worth ordering it in a couple different waves in order to get better parts. It hurts waiting another 3 weeks possibly til it's all ordered but oh well.
 
I typically save the money until I have enough to order the parts I want, unless I find a really good deal on stuff. The reason being is that prices fluctuate A LOT when it comes to PC components, and most of the time, prices are going down. The typical exception is RAM (its usually unpredictable), but lately, its just been going down.
 
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