Needing upgrade advice

B

Bob002

Gawd
Joined
Jul 22, 2004
Messages
884
Aren't we all? My current comp is getting dated, and I'm considering building something new.


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

Other than everyday tasks, mostly WoW. Probably play some older games, BF2 for instance, but don't really know of any games come out that are "must have" except maybe Diablo 3.

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

Nothing set in stone right now, but let's say $500.

3) Where do you live?

Missouri.

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

Pretty much everything. CPU, RAM, Vid Card. Again, everything.

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

No parts reused. I do have a PNY AGP 7600 GS 512mb card that could potentially be re-used, but more than likely not.

6) Will you be overclocking?

Probably not.

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

22 inch Acer widescreen

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

Tax season. So let's say 2-3 months.

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

Nothing in particular. Not going overboard with this build. No RAID, etc. No dual vid cards.

Will need an OS. Want to try and stay away from Vista, but will get it if I need.
 
well $500

intel is king ATM, but for $500 with everything that might be hard.

the easy:
AMD X4 9600 $119
AMD/ATI 780g MATX motherboard, $66
2GB of RAM $24
HD 4670 (video card) $74

that at $370 for RAM, CPU, Motherboard, GPU, HDD
]which leaves $130 for Case, PSU

for PSU, budget look at FSP, Sparkle and Antec (good PSUs) look at under 400w

case is personal preference, but the coolermaster centurun is nice and inexpensive

for Hard drive the best/price is the WD 640gb Black $84



this will not be the fastest, but definately way faster than your AGP, socket 939 biuld???

this is what i have in my media server, very similar and it would be a nice workstation, HTPC, mild gaming PC (good for CS:S, WOW, TF:2 and such)



i am sure someone who knows current intel stuff better could give you a list that is comparable...
 
$115 - Sapphire 100265L Radeon HD 4830 512MB
$83 - Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W
$80 - Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX
$75 - Antec NSK4480 Black/Silver ATX Mid Tower w/ Earthwatts 380W PSU
$75 - WD Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA300
$40 - G.Skill 4GB(2x2GB) 5-5-5-15 DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
$23 - Samsung 20X DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model TS-H653N
===========
$491 + tax - any MIRs (all items listed have free shipping)

Not sure that case/psu combo will have free shipping once tax season rolls around, so you might want to grab that now, while its available. Everything else can wait, and just revisit this thread a week or so before you're ready to buy, since things change fast in this industry.

That vidcard may be overkill, so if you want to save money there, you can drop down to an HD4670.
 
yeah, the intel looks nice but the amd x4 setup is similar price as a dual core intel, so depends what you are doing, what will give better performance....

the c2d is much faster mhz and will feel quicker with boot time and such, but for multicore threaded apps the x4 will out perform,

do some reseach and see which fits better,

but the 640gb WD harddrive is honestly a must for performance
 
I have no faith in the Phenom quadcores. I've seen reviews where an E7200 dual core outperforms a Phenom where it shouldn't... I'm just too lazy to find such reviews right now, lol.
 
 
So, do the black editions now come with the heatpipe HSF? or is it the aluminum block still?
 
good question enginurd, I tried to see what AMD said but I cannot find anything on their site!
 
thats what I was basing my answer on as well enginurd. Its not shipped/listed as an oem cpu so it pretty much comes with a cooler.
 
hossdaddy said:
thats what I was basing my answer on as well enginurd. Its not shipped/listed as an oem cpu so it pretty much comes with a cooler.
Click to expand...

Well, older Black Editions are retail, but they don't come with coolers. :(
 
I work in the Caribbean at Local IT company in Barbados and build a few custom PCs on the side... We get our stock mainly from Tigerdirect and Mwave.
 
 
Yah, those combos weren't around when I posted, lol. Go with HG's build if you choose intel.
 
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