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Build advice $850 budget

K

Kalnos

n00b
Joined
Aug 3, 2010
Messages
13
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming/web browsing.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$850

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

Louisville, Kentucky. United States.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.

CPU, Mobo, RAM, GPU, Case, PSU, SSD

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?

HDD

6) Will you be overclocking?

No.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

1920x1080. 23"

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

ASAP.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

SATA 6Gb/s.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Windows 7 professional 64 bit.

What I came up with:

Case: $50 NZXT Source
PSU: $65 Antec BP550
GPU: $140 Gigabyte GTX 460
Mobo: $85 ASRock Z75
CPU: $210 Intel i5-2500
RAM: $47 G.Skill 2x4 GB
SSD: $204 Crucial m4 256GB
HDD: $0 Existing.
---------------------------
Total: $801

Does anything look off? Any recommendations/deals?
 
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Drop the SSD and invest in a better GPU. You can get a Radeon 7950 for $350 from Newegg. And what are you going to use as a CPU cooler?
 
Was going to use the stock CPU cooler, the person i'm building this for will never overclock.
 
Go with the following instead:

$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite
$75 - Antec NEO ECO 620C
$253 - Intel Core i5-3450 and ASRock B75M combo deal
$40 - G.Skill F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT 2x4GB DDR3 1333
$115 - Crucial M4 128GB SSD (no mounting bracket/adapter)
$240 - MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC HD 7850
=====
$773 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates)

In short:
- Case was cheaper at Amazon
- Went with 128GB version of M4 SSD (to free up money for...)
- A much better video card (the bare minimum I'd recommend for gaming at 1920x1080)
- Better PSU (the Basiq series isn't good)
- A cheaper yet equally capable processor and motherboard combination
- Cheaper RAM (you don't need DDR3 1600 RAM if you aren't overclocking)
 
Last edited:
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I didn't realize that your budget was $850; I was shooting for under $800.

The "extra" money would be better suited for a video card upgrade. The HD 7950 is a better choice if you're serious about gaming, you you'd probably have to omit the SSD altogether if you go that route.
 
Salanmon said:
If you try hard enough you might be able to find a 1tb drive for $50
Click to expand...

Not new, and not from a well-known, reputable online retailer.

Considering that the OP already has a hard drive on hand, this is really a moot point.
 
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