Budget Build Critique

[G_K]

Hi folks,

I recently had my P4 Dual Core go up in smoke and I am at the moment forced to rely on my backup P3 Server to use as a workstation so a new build is in order. Unfortunately as luck would have it, I have to replace the engine in my car and that took a large chunk of my budget away. So in the meantime I am pondering a bearable temporary rig until I can cut loose some spare funds for an upgrade. The real fun part is I need to come in under $500 and while I have done that, I am not entirely sure my choices are going to be appropriate since I haven't been tracking hardware for awhile. So before I pull the trigger and spend my money, and before I spend too much time wanting to curse my auto mechanic over what should have been I am asking here for a review.

Usage, mostly as a workstation with several Virtual box VMs running programming tools, web servers and SQL servers of differing times. I do mild ancient games for the most part. Civ 4, RTCW: Enemy Territory.

I would like to do Battlefield 2, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Ghost Recon 2: Advanced Warfighter at a reasonable fps on this machine. I don't expect 1900x1600 16AAF on this box but I would like a reasonable 1024x768 or perhaps my default res of 1280x1024 for games (Actually since I have a dual monitor setup I run 2560x1024 most of the time.

A few considerations to explain my choices. First I want at least 4gb of ram that I can expand later to 8 or 16gb, mostly because of the VM's I run since there are times I really may need to run 3 of them plus my host system for testing on my usual workload. I want a dual core processor since I have had them since running dual P3-866's in 2000. I have some rendering apps that do use it when I do the family video and it would be nice to keep. My usual preference has been Intel, but in this price I know AMD rules usually. As for Video I have had and enjoyed both NVidia and ATI over the years and usually upgrade every other year if I can to whichever is holding the sweet spot, one crevat this will be my first PCIe video card (yes I ran a P4 with AGP, I was stubborn).

Answers for the Offical FAQ Questions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Mostly as a workstation, mild Photoshop, modest gaming.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? $500- with shipping and taxes. I can likely pick up my parts at either Fry's, mWave or the Egg depending on the deals
3) Where do you live? SoCal
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU,MB,Ram,Video,Case,SATA Drives (HDD & DVD Burner)
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Keyboard, Mouse
6) Will you be overclocking? No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? Dual 21" CRT
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Next two weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID 0/1/10, Firewire, Built in LAN
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? Yes

Here's what I picked out:

ASUS M3A78-EM - $78.99
The layout for an mATX seems alright and it will support 8gigs of ram if I choose to slap that much into it. Not a lot of expansion slots but then I doubt I need many, I tend to use a USB Headset most of the time so I don't really need better audio card but there should be room for one if I choose to not use either the on board or my headset options.

AMD Athlon X2 4850e - $59.99
I have read that this is a nice low wattage dual core processor and while I know there are some faster ones for just a few bucks more, is that extra clock speed worth the higher power draw given how limited I know this machine will be?

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 - $49.99
Nothing particularly special about this, but I have always personally had good luck with Kingston warranty wise over the years and unless there is a good reason to switch I tend to buy their ram.

HIS Hightech Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512MB - $79.99
Yes it's a Crossfire enabled card, which I doubt I will ever use but it seems in a reasonable price point, yet of all the parts this is the stickler for how it would preform that I would love an opinion on. Part of me wonders if I would be better off going with an ATI 38xx card yet with the on board ATI 3200 I do want something better. Ideally I would love to find out the sweet spot in the $75-100 Video card list now.

HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD - $69.99
I have a mix of Maxtor, Seagate and Hitachi IDE drives now I use in other boxes. Unless someone tells me this makes tank like noise levels, it seems to be an average model these days for it's size.

LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA - $24.99
I do have an IDE burner but I would prefer to keep it in the box it's in and I've had LG, HP and Sony drives before. This just looked reasonable.

Rosewill R804BK ATX Mid Tower Case 350W PSU - $46.99
Yes I noticed only 1 SATA connector but I have a few spare molex to SATA power ones I can use. I do have a large tower case I picked up awhile back but if there are real objections for this case/psu I could use a psu recommendation in this price point.

I am reusing my existing 21" Sony Flat screen CRT's and I have my MSDN copy of XP64 bit for this box ready to go. So minus shipping taxes etc that leads me to around $411 or so which is under what my target was.

Am I better of going for the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 3.1GHz at $89 instead of the 4850e? Should I do a different graphics card? Would throwing in another 4 gigs of ram make a difference given the budget nature here?

I do appreciate all comments and while I have nothing against an Intel build I really couldn't fit a decent c2d system for under $650.

Thanks

 

[Dangman]

The PSU in that Rosewill case is a POS and probably won't last that long even with the relatively low power of that system. Generally, most PSU/Case combos have really shitty PSUs. I recommend this PSU:
Antec Earthwatts 430W PSU - $50

You can choose your own case. Though this case comes with free shipping and is a pretty decent case for the money:
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235799784&sr=1-23

Definitely go with the X2 7750 since it's only a few dollars more but is significantly faster. I think it's worth the twice the power usage than your current choice of X2 4850e. In fact, the X2 7750 is faster than the X2 6000+ yet is $25 cheaper. Get this combo to save an additional $20:
AMD Athlon64 X2 7750 CPU and HIS Radeon HD4670 512MB PCI-E Video card - $129

You can save an additional $9 by going with this RAM:
Kingston KVR800D2K2/4GR 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 RAM - $41

 

[lowteckh]

1) Frys has Antec 300 for $43.
2) Pumped the 4670 to a 4830.
3) WD6400AAKS, WD6401AALS. Reciting this is getting old..

 

[hossdaddy]

easily done my friend, fs = free shipping.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition $53.50 + fs
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD $74.99
Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $40.99 + fs I have this ram and it runs @ 4-4-4-12 @ 1.9v
Antec earthwatts EA430 430W ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified $49.99 + fs
SAPPHIRE 100265L Radeon HD 4830 512MB $89.99 - $10 mir + fs
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s $69.99 + fs
COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black SECC ATX Mid Tower $34.99
SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner Black SATA $23.99 + fs
Total: $448.43 - $ 10 mir + a little shipping

If you want an Intel build you would still be under budget, just sub in the following,

Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core $72.99 + fs
GIGABYTE GA-EP43-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P43 $79.99
the total with this build would be $462.92

 

[G_K]

Interesting options make me glad I asked.

I found I still have a Chieftec Dragon case I am going to use since it would be a shame to waste and I know I can grow into it when I build a full RAID array. I have 3 80mm fans in it for cooling, one that forces air over one of the 3.5 drive bays and two set for exhaust.

Any midrange processor coolers since I see from reviews that AMD 7750 runs on the hot side.

I was looking at the ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm and the Gigabyte board doesn't appear to have any space trouble with that I don't think.

Or am I better off with ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro.

Opinions on which would keep things cooler and quieter?

 

[lowteckh]

AC Freezer. Zalmans are not quiet.

 

[Kilos]

If you do opt for the lower power athlon x2, the 5050e ss going for the same price as the 4850e but 100MHz faster... (just found it with a 4670 card which gets you $10 off).

I'm also looking into a budget build and had no idea the 7750 was so much faster. If I don't go for the small htpc case, I might get that.

Oh, and for cooling, what about a Xigmatek? Bit cheaper than the AF, and supposedly cools well, but I have no idea about sound.

 

[Roland00]

If you go intel instead of AMD, look into the e7400 since you are not overclocking (which is a waste, you can do a minor overclock of 15-20% and it will easily be stable and simple.)

2.8 ghz, 1066 fsb, 3 mb cache for 99 dollars or so.

 

[G_K]

There is a reason I don't overclock, stability and long term use. My last two workstations were both overclocked and lasted separately about 2-3 years each. When they blew up I replaced them as one tends to. When my Pentium D died, I switched to using my ancient backup server as a workstation. Due to mortgages and the downturn with overtime for my day job, losing money in the market and a car blowing up, I've been stuck with it for 5 months.

The box in question is an old Abit VP6 dual processor board with 2 stock P3-866/1gb ram that I built in August of 2000. Over the years I've updated the video cards and twice replaced powersupplies and naturally drives twice too. That system is still a freakin' tank and runs despite the face I am worried one of these days the caps in it will simply explode out of sheer age and the fact it's run nearly 24/7 for 7 years at least (there has been some downtime and of late I've been shutting it down).

I don't think ANY overclocked system would have the longevity that this box has had. 15-20% increase in clock speed really is meaningless to me in light of that.

 

[hossdaddy]

my zalman cnps 8000 cpu cooler is very quiet and keeps my oc's e6750 20c @ idle and maxs out around 40c.

 

[engiNURD]

There is a reason I don't overclock, stability and long term use. My last two workstations were both overclocked and lasted separately about 2-3 years each. When they blew up I replaced them as one tends to. When my Pentium D died, I switched to using my ancient backup server as a workstation. Due to mortgages and the downturn with overtime for my day job, losing money in the market and a car blowing up, I've been stuck with it for 5 months.

The box in question is an old Abit VP6 dual processor board with 2 stock P3-866/1gb ram that I built in August of 2000. Over the years I've updated the video cards and twice replaced powersupplies and naturally drives twice too. That system is still a freakin' tank and runs despite the face I am worried one of these days the caps in it will simply explode out of sheer age and the fact it's run nearly 24/7 for 7 years at least (there has been some downtime and of late I've been shutting it down).

I don't think ANY overclocked system would have the longevity that this box has had. 15-20% increase in clock speed really is meaningless to me in light of that.

- 20% OC of todays chips yields far better gains than previous gen chips, and OC'ing Core2's is SO EASY, compared to older chips.
- Yields are so good that even the cheap chips OC well.
- If OC'ing, do it right: keep voltages and heat in check, and stress test for stability.
- Less voltage means less heat. Less heat means longer lasting chips.
- Make core upgrade intervals not too close, but also not too far. 2.5yrs is a good avg.
- OC'ing is up to you, but its your loss if you don't cash in on the free Ghz Intel is currently offering... though, with such low prices, AMD's are no longer bad buys if you don't plan on OC'ing.

I think ANY properly overclocked system will have the same, or longer, longevity that a dual P3 box has had. A 15-20% increase in clock speed really is worth it, since its free -- you don't lose any stability nor noticeable longevity.