Good build?

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Guitarrasdeamor

2[H]4U
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Apr 5, 2008
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Well, my mom needs a new PC badly, and so she wants to get one, but not spend too much. Is this a good build? Never really dealt with AMD so I don't know. I thought the video card was a great price though...
Only things that are staying (that I know I am keeping so don't try to persuade me different :)) are the DVD Drive, floppy drive, and probably video card.
The 500W PSU looks good to me, as I don't think this system will need much power. She has a 120gb IDE HDD in her old PC we can throw in there...(I know, IDE BLEH!).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147074 Rosewill R220-P-BK Black 0.5mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $26.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131022 ASUS M2N-E AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP ATX AMD Motherboard $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171018 COOLER MASTER eXtreme RP-500-PCAR ATX from factor 12V V2.01 500W Power Supply 110 - 115V/220 - 230V Nemko, TUV, cUL, CE, BSMI, FCC, CCC $49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098 G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory $44.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103194 AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Black Edition Processor $85.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16821103203 SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model SFD321B/LBL1 $6.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151154 SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe $34.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161098 HIS Hightech H260PRQT512DDN-R Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card $49.99 ($20 MIR)

$399.92 is the SUBTOTAL before shipping and the $20 MIR.
 
Could you please list out the parts and their prices instead of just linking them individually?
 
What will your mom be doing with the computer?

You could easily get a 780G chipset for the same price and drop the video card if she's not doing anything resource intensive with graphics...

Does she need lightscribe? If not, get the $29.99 Samsung DVD Burner

I would switch to the Antec Earthwatts 380W - its $10 more initially but has a $25 MIR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371005

I don't know about cooling solutions for the 5000+ BE...

Also you could go with A-DATA for the Ram, it's a few dollars cheaper...

I would also get a cheap 120GB or 160GB SATA from WD...
 
Well, primarily she will be browsing the web, a lot of Word/Excel (and printing). A lot of pictures and such also.

I want the video card in there because it is cheap and this computer will be here for a about 5 years or more, just as the other one was.

Lightscribe would be ideal for my little sister as she likes to make "pretty discs" lol. I mean, it is $5 lol. A useful feature for $5 extra if you ask me.

Well, CM is a good brand, and that is $10 more+120W less? I'll stick with the CM, thanks though! Don't know if Antec is better, but I want at least a 500 in there....thats just how I am bro!! Lol

No I won't need an OS. I will put one of my copies of Vista Ultimate on there (x32 or x64) or we will put the existing copy of XP we have on there.
 
Your computer would never eat up more than 380W - though I don't know how power hungry that video card is... but if you went without one, it would never go past 380W - probably not even reach past 200W. Also PSU's are most efficient when you run them at about 50%. The antec is also more efficient than the CM. That saves you money in the long run. And their rebate does process. Albeit it takes a while, they are just sending mine in the mail for $30 for the same power supply.

I would still go with the 780G and drop the graphics card if you are set with going AMD. Plus the board supports Phenoms in case you ever wanted to move up to quad core.

Will you be overclocking this machine?
 
Guitarrasdeamor said:
Well, CM is a good brand, and that is $10 more+120W less? I'll stick with the CM, thanks though! Don't know if Antec is better, but I want at least a 500 in there....thats just how I am bro!! Lol
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Click to expand...
CM is a good brand when it comes to cases. PSUs on the other hand, it's mixed. For instance, that CM PSU you chose is actually a Seventeem 450W PSU that CM just called a 500W PSU. There is no way that PSU is capable of providing 500W of power.

Remember that wattage doesn't mean as much these days. What matters most is where those watts are being delivered. For current rigs, it's all about how much amps are on the +12V rail since most PC parts draw their power from there. The more amps you have, the more upgrades (hard drives, video cards, PCI cards, etc) you can add. You determine the amperage on the +12V rails by first finding out what's the total combined, max load, combined or max wattage aside for the +12V rails/section alone. Then divide that total by 12 and you get how much amps the PSU has on the +12V rail.

That's the correct way to find out how much amps a power supply has. Don't add up the amps on the +12V rail to figure out the amperage. Doesn't work that way. If the total combined or max wattage can't be found on the power suppply, check the manufacturer's page for that PSU for that info. If the manufacturer doesn't provide that information, it's generally a good sign for you to drop that power supply from consideration.

In this case, there is no info whatsoever about how much amps that CM PSU has on the +12V rail. As such, I highly recommend going with this PSU instead:
Antec Earthwatts 430W PSU - $50

Same price but I guarantee that Ante PSU will provide more power on the +12V rail than that CM PSU.

Also I concur about going with a mobo based on the 780G chipset. There is absolutely no reason, at least from what you have told us, that your mom's new PC requires a separate video card. The onboard video on 780G mobos is more than enough for your mom's needs.
 
Pick up the Antec NSK4480 case. It comes with the EarthWatts 380W (which, I agree, is really all you need for this build), and is cheaper than getting the case and PSU in your OP separately.

The CPU cooler for your AMD setup: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro

If you plan on overclocking, an Intel-based setup would be better:

$90 - Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
$78 - Intel E2180 (free shipping)
$25 - XIGMATEK HDT-S963 CPU cooler

The above setup could be overclocked to speeds around 3.0GHz (YMMV), where the Intel setup would outperform most AMD setups.

With your budget, you may also want to look at some prebuilt systems. Or, a motherboard with onboard video.
 
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