Helping my cousin build his first PC

i'd really really try to get a 9600XT; he's young, he's gonna game.
period.

don't get a separate CD drive; just get the burner

see if you can dump that; dump the CCFL; dump the FD (unless he really needs it; he can just burn school projects to cdRW's); and then scrape the bottom of the piggy bank and maybe you'll have enough for a 9600XT

other than that; looks like you got a killer setup for cheap man; but whatabout monitor?
 
Yeah, id like to get him a better card, but his budget can be tough to work with. I just cant seem to work that in. Plus he really wants it to glow blue. I just figured that card will get him by for now until he can save up for something bettter. Ive already gave him a mouse, keyboard and speakers. And he got a monitor for xmas. So hes pretty much set.
 
Drop the CCFL's and Round cables. Most motherboards come with enough cables for a couple hard drives and cd burners.

Keep the floppy drive. Those come in very handy when needing to save word documents because noone wants to burn something that small to a cd.

Buy an Abit NF7-S rev 2.0 motherboard instead.

Definately get a better video card. I would go for a 9600XT or at least an Ati 9600XT or Nvidia 5700 ultra.

I just realized this but out of all of these threads about people asking us to cretique their system, yours is one of the extremely few that includes a copy of Windows XP as part of it.

I guess the others just dont use windows :p.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101

I just realized this but out of all of these threads about people asking us to cretique their system, yours is one of the extremely few that includes a copy of Windows XP as part of it.

I guess the others just dont use windows :p.
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i was about to point that out too... lol.

this is the first wishlist i've ever seen with an OS on it. props to you bro.
 
Id love to get him the abit and a better video card. Im running the nf7-s myselft and i love it. But his budget is just too strict to allow for everything id like to get. lol, not too many people include windows xp. Ive noticed that too. That would make things cheaper to ditch that, but i dont want him using warez on his first build :p
 
Originally posted by 87IROC Z
Yeah, id like to get him a better card, but his budget can be tough to work with. I just cant seem to work that in. Plus he really wants it to glow blue. I just figured that card will get him by for now until he can save up for something bettter. Ive already gave him a mouse, keyboard and speakers. And he got a monitor for xmas. So hes pretty much set.
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if he really wants it to glow blue, then power to him :p

but... if you're gonna end up upgrading him to a 9600XT then drop the GeForce4 and get him something like a TNT2 :D

then he won't have to wait as much for his 9600XT; and he'll appreciate it :D
 
Originally posted by Carnival Forces
if he really wants it to glow blue, then power to him :p

but... if you're gonna end up upgrading him to a 9600XT then drop the GeForce4 and get him something like a TNT2 :D

then he won't have to wait as much for his 9600XT; and he'll appreciate it :D
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lol, i at least want him to be able to play some games. :p Plus when he upgrades my uncle will probably get the GF4. So hes all for that. Thats kind of how it works for me and my dad now. Everytime i do some kind of upgrade, he always ends up getting my old parts. :p
 
edit: nevermind, i have no idea what i'm talking about :p
 
I agree with Carnival Forces. Dump that extra CD-Rom. Just get the CD Burner drive. You would not need the Round Cables. Just stick with regular IDE ribbon cables for now. If he saves up money and wants to update the look of his system, then he can go about doing that later.

Not sure how much money you knocked off by taking out the CD Rom and the Round Cables, but use that extra money for a better Video Card instead of the MX440.

Alex
 
Originally posted by Chelica
...Not sure how much money you knocked off by taking out the CD Rom and the Round Cables, but use that extra money for a better Video Card instead of the MX440.

Alex
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yes..yes... No.
don't get a better vid card now. if you're gonna go w/ the MX440 then stay with it and don't get anything better; money spent now = money not spent later = no 9600XT for longer.

maybe he could get a job ? w/ his dad for starters, since he's getting the old vid. card. ; or if his dad won't hehe, just get hte TNT2 and be like "happy father's day pops!" ^^
 
Well i sent him the list and he loves it. So i think we might be set. I still would like to get him a better vid card. But i would have to take off too much to make up for it. So i think this will be just fine for his 1st computer. :)
 
Ditch the separate CD drive, get a combo drive if you can.

And who uses a floppy drive? my goodness
 
Originally posted by emorphien
Ditch the separate CD drive, get a combo drive if you can.

And who uses a floppy drive? my goodness
Click to expand...


i use floppies extensively (b/c i lose 'em =\) for my school papers...all of us do. i've seen *three* projects/papers/w/e on CD total, ever. ah well...
 
Originally posted by emorphien
Ditch the separate CD drive, get a combo drive if you can.

And who uses a floppy drive? my goodness
Click to expand...
'

A better question would be who burns a 100KB file to CD?

Floppies are alot easier to erase then messing with CDRW's. I've never had good luck with re-writable media.

Floppies are only $5-$10 anways. So thats not hurting his budget.
 
Originally posted by emorphien
It's been done.
Click to expand...

Sure, its been done. But i dont think its practical at all. With how cheap floppys are why bother wasting a cd with that small of a file. Even if it is a cdrw.
 
OMG he is buying XP!!!! ur no help to ur cousin! lol, anyway, ditch that video card and the floppy, and the extra cd rom, also maybe if he is going for speed maybe get a $100 serial ata hard drive, they be fast, and my opinion in video card is the geforce fx 9000 cuz its the best video card without going super highend. My last suggestion is that he get 2, 256 modules of ram so he can run in dual mode, it will make it run just a lil faster (2-3%) but thats still sum improvement. Good luck!


P.S.
Get diskeeper, you will be amazed how much faster ur system runs once u run there defrag over MS's
 
I think he may have already ordered it all. So i think its all set. But yeah, i do have diskeeper. Ill be putting that on there.
 
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