Need mobo, cpu, ram... $350

Negative Decibel

Negative Decibel

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Dec 13, 2005
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Ok. Like the title says I my brother is asking me to finish building his girl friends computer. Strict $350 budget! All I need is the motherboard, CPU and RAM. Best bang for the buck. All suggestions are welcome.

I'll go ahead and answer the basic questions anyway...
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Light gaming is the heaviest task that will be going on.

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

$350 total after shipping

3) Where do you live?

South Carolina

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

Just motherboard, cpu, and ram. possibly good hsf

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

She has a Corsair 620 HX nib. Also a 9800GT for now, mid tower (cheep antec?)

6) Will you be overclocking?

Probably a mild OC

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

22" LCD @ 1680*1050

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

ordering within the next couple days. lol

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.

Nothing too fancy. Just one pci-x16 slot will suffice. , onboard sound is ok. She might want a few extra USB ports would be nice.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?

She will be running windows 7 soon. Don't need to buy it right now.
 
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Above is really decent. You could come closer to your budget by dropping in an AMD phenom II quad, instead of the 720.
 
Question was WHEN... not build or buy. :p

HG's build is good.

What HDD(s) will you be using?
 
the above looks ok. I have been sort of an Intel kind of guy for some time now, so I'm kind of clueless as to whats going on with AMD right now. This is what I kind of threw together earlier...

Intel C2D e7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz...................................$119.99


Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L.................................................$89.99

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066......$99.99

----------------------------
Total ........$309.97
---------------------------

So, would HG's build spank my Intel build? Like I said, I have been out of the AMD loop for a while....

Oh, as far as HDDs are concerned, I have a spare one of these laying around:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB
 
The AMD build is better, but only just on all accounts.

Mobo is slightly better, and proc is a triple core vs the dual. Both are 45nm but the AMD is SOI, which matters to some people.

I'd just go with the AMD, a little more future proof. Plus, it's cheaper.
 
n3g471v3 d3c1b3l said:
the above looks ok. I have been sort of an Intel kind of guy for some time now, so I'm kind of clueless as to whats going on with AMD right now. This is what I kind of threw together earlier...

Intel C2D e7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz...................................$119.99


Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L.................................................$89.99

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066......$99.99

----------------------------
Total ........$309.97
---------------------------

So, would HG's build spank my Intel build? Like I said, I have been out of the AMD loop for a while....

Oh, as far as HDDs are concerned, I have a spare one of these laying around:
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB
Click to expand...

The E7500 actually holds its own very well against the tri-core and quadcore CPUs. It typically only loses out whenever its something extremely multi-threaded, like video encoding. However, for the price, the AMD build gives you better bang for buck.

Also, paying that price for DDR2 right now is just not worth it, IMO, despite no performance improvement with DDR3. DDR2-1066 isn't even needed for the E7500. DDR3 prices will continue to fall, and DDR2 will either go higher or become even harder to get as manufacturing switches all to DDR3.
 
enginurd said:
The E7500 actually holds its own very well against the tri-core and quadcore CPUs. It typically only loses out whenever its something extremely multi-threaded, like video encoding. However, for the price, the AMD build gives you better bang for buck.

Also, paying that price for DDR2 right now is just not worth it, IMO, despite no performance improvement with DDR3. DDR2-1066 isn't even needed for the E7500. DDR3 prices will continue to fall, and DDR2 will either go higher or become even harder to get as manufacturing switches all to DDR3.
Click to expand...
Sounds reasonable to me. I read a few reviews, and this sounds like a winner to me.
Thanks to all!
 
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