Computer Died Make a New Budget Build Thread

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pc1x1

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 1, 2008
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Well the good old Pentium IV Dual Core 3.8 ghz Extreme Edition that I gave Dad finally died.

Time for a new BUDGET Build. I want it as cheap as possible, 200 dollars would be ideal, but I can stretch to $500, but let's keep it as low as possible. No graphics card, but I will drop a Geforce 560 Ti or 570 card iin it around Christmas.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Web Browsing and Light Gaming.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Low as possible $500 max.

3) Where do you live?
Florida

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
This is a fix it build so I have many of the parts. Cooler, I have a Zalman CPS9500 LGA775, I may need adapters if it goes to a different socket. The computer just needs to be faster than the P4 EE Dual Core at 3.8 ghz. I am thinking AMD for budget reasons. Mobo just needs 1 PCIE for graphics card, thats it. All onboard is fine.

We need the following.
A) CPU
B) Motherboard I want full ATX
C) If Mobo is DDR3 then we need RAM, 4-8 gigs, otherwise we have 4 gigs of DDR2.
D) Cheapest SSD 64 Gigs or bigger.
E) Powersupply powerful enough for a overclock and a single high performance graphics card, ie. 570 GTX, etc.
F) Case Fans, all are 80mms, need good SILENT cheapies.
G) Possible CPU cooler if Zalman CPS9500 doesn't work.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Case is a Cooler Master Wave Master, Monitor, Keyboard, etc everything will be reaused, minus Motherboard, CPU. I can reuse the ram, or get new DDR3. I have a DVD-RW drive, and a Radeon X300, I will be reusing as well.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes, if possible.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Monitor 24, 1080p

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

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Standard 2 Sata, and IDE, Onboard Sound. At least 4 USB ports. Thats it.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
 
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Time for an AMD Athlon II X4 630 build

Hmm.....I guess you can bump it up a bit.
 
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Which "light games" will you play on this machine?

Did you have an SSD in your old build? Omitting that, for now, will help keep this build under budget.
 
Light games, are Flight Simulator X, and StarCraft II, Plants vs Zombies, things like that.

No don't have an SSD, would like one, as I think that will make one of the biggest differences, the machine has one 7k 80 gig HDD.
 
AMD Solution (Overclocking expected)

CPU
$130 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
$90 - AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (You might be able to unlock more cores on this. It's a gamble though.)
$100 - AMD Phenom II X4 820 (This chip does not come with a stock cooler. You'll need to get some other advice on a good cooler because I'm not very knowledgeable in that area.)

Motherboard (I would recommend a mATX because if all you're using is a single PCIe x16 slot, you're wasting money.)

mATX
$60 - ASRock 880GM-LE AM3 AMD 880G Micro ATX
$70 - BIOSTAR A880G+ AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX

ATX
$90 - ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX​

Intel Solution (Can't overclock with this setup.)

CPU
$125 - Intel Core i3-2100 Sandy Bridge

Motherboard
$70 - MSI H61M-E33 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI Micro ATX
$65 - BIOSTAR H61MH LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI Micro ATX​

HDD (The SSD will take up almost 25% of your $500 budget. Newer harddrives are noticeably faster than your old 80 GB and I would suggest putting your money toward a different component. If a SSD is a must have, there's room in the budget, but I'm trying to keep it as low as possible while still providing a great experience.)
$40 - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

PSU
$50 (after $30 MIR and $10 promo code that expires today) - XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W
$40 (after $15 MIR) - CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 (CMPSU-500CX) 500W

Case (I'm suggesting a new case because the Wave Master only takes 80mm fans, which are generally considered inadequate for a modern machine. You can try using your existing case and seeing how it suits you for temperatures and noise.)
$45 (after $10 MIR) - Antec Three Hundred
$60 - COOLER MASTER HAF 912

DVD (IDE is hard to come by on a new motherboard. Here's a SATA drive if needed.)
$18 - ASUS Black DVD Burner

Subtotal (before any taxes or shipping costs -- though both should be close to $0)
$325 (if you chose the AMD route with the 955 and the 880GM-LE and use your old IDE drive.)
$348 (if you need the DVD drive and chose the Intel route with the MSI motherboard.)

Both setups have enough money left over for an AMD 6850 or 6870 if you catch the right sale. If you go the Intel route, you can use the integrated graphics in the Sandy Bridge chip, which is quite potent for an integrated GPU and would likely out perform an X300. Or you can wait until Christmas to put the 560 in it (or all of the above.) Personally I'd go with the Intel i3-2100 setup. From what I've seen so far, a dual core Sandy Bridge system can beat an AMD hex core system in gaming. If you wanted to keep your upgrade paths open, you could get a P67 based motherboard for Intel so you could get a k series chip later on to overclock with. Or with AMD, you could get an asus motherboard from this list and be able to use AM3+ chips in it.
 
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Just got the ShellShocker email. If you want to save a few more bucks:

$58 (after $10 MIR) - BIOSTAR A880GU3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX
 
If your near a microcenter get the mobo CPU there. The combo's way beat out any newegg prices.

tonytnnt said:
Just got the ShellShocker email. If you want to save a few more bucks:

$58 (after $10 MIR) - BIOSTAR A880GU3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX
Click to expand...

OP says he wants FULL atx
 
215 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition + BIOSTAR TA870U3+ AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0
75 G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ($25 off w/ promo code EMCKGJE69, ends 3/21)
115 A-DATA S599 AS599S-64GM-C 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (sandforce based)
30 XIGMATEK HDT-S1284F 120mm HYPRO Bearing CPU Cooler
80 XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W ($10 off w/ promo code EMCKGJE53, ends 3/21)

522.27 shipped

Some notes about it..
Comparing the biostar board I posted to the asrock 870 board above, The biostar has a 3 year warranty instead of a 1 year warranty.
Ram is limited time wise so order as soon as you can.
SSD is sandforced based so its pretty fast, though if you can spot the difference I would look for the c300 65gb thats normally about 135 on newegg though out of stock atm.
Cooler may not be necessarry. If you have the AM3 mounting hardware for your zhalman & that would put you back below 500.
 
You can also e-mail Zalman tech support for a new bracket. I had two out of warranty and they still ship me a couple of AMD brackets for free and it arrived within a few days.
 
Thanks guys, this evening, I'll be back to configure it, but looks good :)
 
Hey Guys quick update on the build, and I value your opinions,

First I made two changes, because looking at it, it seemed to make sense. I been using a temporary mid tower, while I been waiting to save money to build my next high end system. However sitting on my Core 2 Quad with a Radeon 3870x2, has been limiting me a bit, so I decided to stop gap, before I go high end again. And I figured my Dad's pc going, gives me an excuse to build the stop gap. I use a hardware raid controller on my build but my motherboard only has 2 x16 slots. I use 4-6 monitors, so thats a problem, because I been limited to using cards that support at least 4 monitors per slot, due to space.

So what did I do in this case? I upped my budget to its absolute maximum of $1000 dollars give or take. And decided to give my Dad my Core 2 Quad, and I go for the AMD Platform. I do video and graphic editing, and development. So I opted for an 1090T BE X6 for myself. And I decided to not get graphics cards now, I'll be giving my Dad the 3870x2. and I'll be buying myself 2x 6970's or whatever next gen comes out, I just hope I am not CPU limited with the X6. I can prob go Bulldozer, but don't intend to, etc for the near future.


Here's what I did, and I am curious and hope that 1090T BE can be a decent upgrade over my Core 2 Quad, I hope at least. In practical terms, not benchmarks.

I got..

DAD:
1. LG DVD±RW SuperMulti Drive (Sata) (Replaces Pioneer IDE)
2. A-DATA S599 AS599S-64GM-C 2.5" 64GB (SSD)
3. CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 (CMPSU-600CX) 600W ATX12V (sale and on rebate!)
4. 3x SilenX IXP-54-14 80mm Case Fan (expensive! but only way to keep the Wave Master quiet it seems)
5. G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

ME:
1. COOLER MASTER HAF 932 AMD Limited Edition
(First case thats not Lian Li in a long time, big and cheap compared to LL, loved my Wave Master though that dad now has so that influenced my decision, I needed a case to fit new graphics cards up to 13 inches, This will be my current temporary case before buying a Lian Li LIAN LI PC-V2120B, I already have a PC-343B, hehehe, then its off to another family member, or friend. Mom likes little cases, and dad refuses to part with the Wave Master heh!)

2. AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
3. ASUS Crosshair IV Formula
4. XIGMATEK HDT-S1284F (for the 1090T)

And then we'll do the appropriate switch and mix, and both of us solved our problems. I now don't have to buy cards with 4 Monitor support on a single config, and can buy basically any 2x sets. And I believe I am helping out dad a little giving him that SSD. Mom is definitely saying what the heck are you doing, all he does is browse and watch youtube movies, haha, but he was emo when in this very forum, I had build a Phenom I X4 for mom. Hes was @%#$% ever since, that I like Mom better hahahahaha... and gave her X4, and left him with a P4 EE. And unfortunately parents know CPUs, because I talk about them all the time, heh! Sorry for the long winded post, but wanted to provide some context in the build.

Thanks guys! And hopefully I picked a good configuration! Ended up a little bit under $1000, going to buy a USB hub and Red Lights for the HAF.

Looking at everything the only thing I lost a little was the ram, that I missed the $75 1600, everything else worked out perfectly it seems, picked up a Dlink hub, 12inch Red or Pink (Reviews) CCFL kit, and a Wireless 12v On and Off Kit, as I won't ever be able to get to the back of the HAF, haha.
 
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So you already purchased the above items? If so, thank goodness you got that motherboard. You've kept your upgrade path open for future AM3+ CPUs (Asus announced this board will support AM3+ CPUs via a BIOS update.)
 
tonytnnt said:
So you already purchased the above items? If so, thank goodness you got that motherboard. You've kept your upgrade path open for future AM3+ CPUs (Asus announced this board will support AM3+ CPUs via a BIOS update.)
Click to expand...

Yea, I bought this one because I did research and read on that bios update and a reviewer mentioned on Newegg. :D. But if I get Bulldozer it will be in a year or so from now, so wanted to get something good for today as well.

Think the X6 is decent enough, I should match a i5 I hope, I am planning on OCing it to 3.8 ghz, if that Xigmatek cooler can take it.
 
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