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Old Man Budget Build

S

Scotty

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 23, 2009
Messages
72
  1. What will you be doing with this PC?
    Its for my father whose uses are web browsing and playing old video games.

  2. What's your budget?
    Around $400 (fairly flexible) the cheaper the better. Would prefer to use Amazon for all of the parts due to tax/prime/returns. Great deals elsewhere will certainly be considered.

  3. Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
    California (94560)

  4. What exact parts do you need for that budget?
    CPU, MoBo, Memory, PSU, Case, ODD, HDD (or SSD if it somehow fit the budget)

  5. If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
    I have an old GTX260 I could give him.

  6. Will you be overclocking?
    That most likely won't be necessary

  7. What is the max resolution of your monitor?
    He has an old monitor he's happy with, I think its 1280x1024.

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

  9. What features do you need in a motherboard?
    Nothing special

  10. Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
    Yes, Windows 7 Home x64

I was thinking a Llano might be suitable for him since his graphic needs fall somewhere in between my old GTX260 and Sandy's IGP.
 
Why not just buy a prebuilt? From your answers, I don't see any reason for a DIY setup for this.
 
The primary reason would be overall quality. In my experience any prebuilt system in that price range would be cutting corners in one area or another. He wants me to build him one since hes always gone prebuilt and they've always been a disappointment.
 
Scotty said:
The primary reason would be overall quality. In my experience any prebuilt system in that price range would be cutting corners in one area or another. He wants me to build him one since hes always gone prebuilt and they've always been a disappointment.
Click to expand...
Normally I'd disagree but since you already have a legit and transferable copy of Winodws 7, that does help make the case for a DIY setup.

My main issue with the Llano route is that the second you add 3rd party GPU, you've effectively negated the sole advantage of the Llano CPU, it's fast integrated GPU. Not to mention that, depending on which Llano CPU you get, it may be more cost effective to go the seperate Intel CPU + dedicated GPU route

So I recommend this:
$78 - Intel Pentium G850 CPU
$90 - MSI H77MA-G43 LGA 1155 Intel H77 mATX Motherboard
$36 - Corsair CMV8GX3M2A1333C9 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$68 - Western Digital WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$18 - LG iHAS124-04 DVD Burner
$54 - Corsair CX500 V2 500W PSU
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite White with Black Front Trim ATX Case
----
Total: $394 shipped

Fast CPU as well as a decent enough PSU capable of supporting that GTX 260 makes this a solid build.
 
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Holy shit.............this is your Dad man.............buy him a new GTX 670 or HD 7950.

Did he ever cut corners feeding you or heating the house?

He needs to rock those games.:eek:

Sort of kidding here, but I'd think a bit about getting him something newer in the way of GPUs.
 
You're close to a Fry's electronics and there's a pretty intriguing deal they have going on right now:

$188 for a 3870K, 4 gigs of DD3 1333, 60 gig SSD, 1 TB HD.

get this motherboard for $86 and the burner, PSU, and case listed above and you come in at $396 for 1TB of storage and a 60gb SSD! The only minus is 4gb of memory but I doubt your Dad will be taking advantage of 8 gigs. His computer will feel faster anyway with the ssd and I'm sure he would appreciate the additional storage more.

Another plus is if the A8 is all he really needs for gaming he could step the PSU wattage down even more and run a more energy efficient machine.
 
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That Fry's deal is pretty nice I thought. For a decent budget build, it would be great
 
He said he wants to play old games, a gtx 260 should be fine. Heck i have no problem getting by on a geforce 9800 or ATI 4850... I also recommend avoiding llano builds unless you get them dirt cheap or intend to use the integrated GPU.
 
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