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Budget build help

C

ciggwin

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
May 30, 2006
Messages
4,861
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$650 total
3) Where do you live?
Boston
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
MB, CPU, RAM, GPU, possibly HD
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Can I reuse PSU? ENERMAX Liberty ELT500AWT 500W
I have optical drive
Also have case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW
Thought about reusing my GeForce 8800 GT but I would like to be able to play newer FPS games like Black Ops and such without lagging.
I have a Western Digital Raptor WD740GD as my boot drive and a 500 GB slave so I am not sure I need another HD but I also know that games are becoming more and more GB hogs.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
24" Dell
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
October 2010
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
None of these
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
64bit Windows 7 Professional

Thanks!
 
Since your budget is low, I would definitely reuse your raptor for boot drive and games, then the 500 for just storage.

I would stick with around 4GB of ram and put more money into cpu/gpu. Especially considering your resolution.

I would not reuse an 8800GT.
 
Thanks - RAM I can pick out, but any suggestions on CPU/MB and GPU?
 
$360 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU + Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard Combo
$70 - G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$219 - GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

$651 shipped.

Although you might as well wait another week and see what happens to the GPU scene.
 
sugosugita said:
$360 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU + Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard Combo
$70 - G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$219 - GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

$651 shipped.

Although you might as well wait another week and see what happens to the GPU scene.
Click to expand...

While browsing that RAM Newegg showed me this combo - would you steer away from this Gigabyte MB? For $30 more I would think it's a faster combo, but AFAIK Asus > Gigabyte.

Intel Core i7-930
GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3 AM3 AMD 870
 
that's a ridiculous combo since the CPU is incompatible with the board....

but as a general rule, gigabyte boards are perfectly fine.
 
ciggwin said:
While browsing that RAM Newegg showed me this combo - would you steer away from this Gigabyte MB? For $30 more I would think it's a faster combo, but AFAIK Asus > Gigabyte.

Intel Core i7-930
GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3 AM3 AMD 870
Click to expand...

Yeah that board is an amd am3 board combo'd with an intel chip. Useless together. But for gaming i5's are just about equal to i7's anyway. You might wanna consider this combo if you want to spend less and don't plan to crossfire or sli:

ASUS P7P55D-E + I5 760 = $314 -$13.50 with code: MBTEN7 - $10 rebate = 290.50.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.526549
 
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tosgamer said:
Yeah that board is an amd am3 board combo'd with an intel chip. Useless together. But for gaming i5's are just about equal to i7's anyway. You might wanna consider this combo if you want to spend less and don't plan to crossfire or sli:

ASUS P7P55D-E + I5 760 if you want an atx board over a matx board. Also the base clock for the i5 is slightly higher since you don't plan to overclock. Also has sata 3 and usb 3.0 = $314 -$13.50 with code: MBTEN7 - $10 rebate = 290.50.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.526549
Click to expand...

I'd say that's a better combo. The 760 is clocked slightly higher and you still get a board with Sata 6 (faster SATA drives in the future) and USB 3.0 (faster usb speeds). Not to mention you are saving $60.

Agreed on the i7 vs i5 deal. Within your price range there's absolutely no reason to go i7 with a gaming rig.
 
Thanks guys.

I am also considering buying the MB + CPU + RAM now and holding off for a week or so on the GPU.. but from another thread I saw that it's AMD releasing cards, not nVidia? I am an nVidia guy :p Therefore would there really be that much price difference, especially on a not-so-expensive card that I'll be purchasing due to my budget? I'm not going top of the line here, obviously.
 
When AMD (ati) releases their new cards, retailers will lower the prices of the older cards (5XXX series). Since those are Nvidia's competition, Nvidia will lower their prices to stay competitive. Might not be insane (like maybe a 20% drop over a month or two), but could be worth waiting. So yeah I'd say wait, even though you are looking at the 460.

On the other hand, if it's no big deal to you, just order the 460 now and be happy.
 
sugosugita said:
OCZ makes a second-rate PSU, and that one especially is way overpriced.
Click to expand...

Even though I'm a vocal critic of most OCZ PSUs, in this case, I have to disagree that the OCZ Z-Series 850W PSU is a second-rate PSU. It's a good quality PSU, even if it's an OCZ.

In addition, that combo deal drops the price of that OCZ PSU down to $140, which is reasonable for a modular 850W PSU.
 
Good to see what this money buys you - I'm looking to build a gaming PC for a friend (converting him from OSX!, my second conversion) and money will be tight.
 
Got the parts yesterday (a day early, woot!) and installed last night.

I spent an hour troubleshooting because I had tucked the ATX + 12 lead away when pushing everything aside to install the MB... then didn't plug it in. I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't POST! So I read through the manual and I noticed I was missing that 12V lead... found it in the front of the case tucked in under the DVDROM. It's been a few years since I swapped cases, so I had forgotten what was what.

Plugged in the 12V lead and bingo... the snap of a few sparks, a quick whiff of ozone, and the box blazed forth in unparalleled glory!

Now to see how well it folds once I get home tonight :)

 
bigdogchris said:
Since your budget is low, I would definitely reuse your raptor for boot drive and games, then the 500 for just storage.

I would stick with around 4GB of ram and put more money into cpu/gpu. Especially considering your resolution.

I would not reuse an 8800GT.
Click to expand...

Actually, I would not have reused that early 74GB Raptor in a modern system. That's due to its astonishingly slow sequential transfer speed by current standards. The slow sequential transfer speed more than offsets its quick random access and seek speeds. That early Raptor is less than half as fast sequentially as the latest 7200 rpm hard drives. In addition, it is likely that the 500GB hard drive that's being used as a storage drive would have been significantly faster than that early Raptor in sequential transfers.
 
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So I currently have the following setup:
BOOT: Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10000 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s
STORAGE: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

I found this in [H]ot Deals and I am considering the purchase, but am not sure how I would set up my drives:
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Is the Raptor really that much slower? I never realized this... guess I just assumed it was fast :p Should I eliminate it completely and boot off the 500GB WD that I currently have, and use the new Samsung for storage? Or vise versa?

 
I say use the Western Digital for the OS and the Samsung for data.
 
ciggwin said:
So I currently have the following setup:
BOOT: Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10000 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s
STORAGE: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

I found this in [H]ot Deals and I am considering the purchase, but am not sure how I would set up my drives:
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Is the Raptor really that much slower? I never realized this... guess I just assumed it was fast :p Should I eliminate it completely and boot off the 500GB WD that I currently have, and use the new Samsung for storage? Or vise versa?

Click to expand...

Yes, that early Raptor was fast when it was first introduced - back in 2004 or 2005 when the fastest 7200 rpm hard drives barely approached 60 MB/s sequentially on the outer tracks. The 74GB Raptor, when I tested it, attained about 71 MB/s on the outer tracks and about 50 MB/s on the inner tracks. But that drive is now seriously outdated, if not totally obsolete, especially since today's 7200 rpm hard drives average more than 100 MB/s sequentially (and this is the average sequential transfer speed, not just on the outer tracks).

The other Raptors, including the Velociraptors, are totally not worth their going prices, for that matter. In fact, the only Raptor hard drive that surpasses the maximum sequential transfer speed of the Samsung F3 on the outer tracks is the $280 600GB Velociraptor - and even then, the difference in sequential performance between the 600GB Velociraptor and the 1TB F3 is much too small to justify the nearly eight-fold increase in cost per GB. The older 300GB and 150GB Velociraptors barely outperform the early 1TB WD Blacks sequentially.
 
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Danny Bui said:
I say use the Western Digital for the OS and the Samsung for data.
Click to expand...

I was thinking that as well - I wasn't sure if I would really notice a difference in the 16MB cache on the WD vs. the 32MB cache on the Samsung if used as a boot/gaming drive. That is their only difference other than size.

What drive do you suggest installing games on, normally? Boot drive?
 
Just ordered the SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s from Microcenter for $63.74 and picking it up tonight :)

Will boot with and install games on the Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s and use the SAMSUNG for storage.

The Raptor goes into the box of hard drives that I will eventually annihilate with my AR-15 :D

 
ciggwin said:
The Raptor goes into the box of hard drives that I will eventually annihilate with my AR-15 :D
Click to expand...

Well, that's one way of disposing of a formerly "fast" hard drive that's now way past its prime... :p
 
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