PC help

[Archdragon24]

hiya all, was wondering if anyone would be willing to help me for a few. My friend is looking to build a new computer, and i've been out of the computer buying market for a while.

Was wondering if anyone has a good build plan for a computer that comes in around 1000 dollars (just computer hardware, no monitor, speakers or any of that needed).

Were looking at going with a Core 2 Duo 2 E6300-E6600, depending on what the other components cost. What I'm looking for is a good stable motherboard (wont be over clocking), preferably an ASUS, one that can support 2+ gigs of ram. Any suggestions on ram (if not i can find out, just easier to ask, lol). And of course a Graphics card, right now im looking at a DIAMOND X1950PRO 512PCIE Radeon . Are there any better graphics cards to look at for around 250 dollars, or cheaper?

Thanks all, appreciate it. ill be checking back

 

[mitcity22]

E6600 $313
ASUS P5B $123
Patriot 1GB DDR2 800 $71 x 2 = $142
eVGA 320mb 8800gts $280
Corsair 520w PSU $120
Samsung SATA DVD-RW Drive $40
Seagate 320gb SATA HD $90
Case is subjective (I'd get the coolermaster centurion 534, all black) $50

Comes to $1153 (these prices were taken from Newegg, there are about $50 in rebate to be had, lower prices can be found on the net and there are plenty of places to skimp to bring the price down, if I were to skimp I would get a slower CPU probably the E6300 since you don't plan on overclocking or the HD if you don't need that much space, I would get a 8800gts GPU b/c then you will be set for Dx10 games when they come out and it isn't really that much more $)

 

[Icidic]

I like mitcity22's build, however, if you're planning on getting Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate on that, I suggest AT LEAST 2GB of RAM. Recent reports have said that Vista's RAM sweetspot is 4GB, so even 2GB is quite under-par.

Then again, I don't use Vista a lot at all, so, that's only my humble opinion.

Also, please make a MORE DESCRIPTIVE thread subject line next time - 'PC Help' doesn't tell anyone very much at all...

 

[crashthenet44]

I like mitcity22's build, however, if you're planning on getting Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate on that, I suggest AT LEAST 2GB of RAM. Recent reports have said that Vista's RAM sweetspot is 4GB, so even 2GB is quite under-par.

Then again, I don't use Vista a lot at all, so, that's only my humble opinion.

Also, please make a MORE DESCRIPTIVE thread subject line next time - 'PC Help' doesn't tell anyone very much at all...

Where'd you read those reports man. 1GB runs fine for me even while I'm photoshoping and encoding at the same time. 4 is overkill, 2 looks to be Vista's sweet spot.

 

[zone_86]

Where'd you read those reports man. 1GB runs fine for me even while I'm photoshoping and encoding at the same time. 4 is overkill, 2 looks to be Vista's sweet spot.

He's probably basing that on what's been posted on certain sites, including Dell's own gaming site, but what it is IMO is just a 'quick take' if you will that's really just about Vista's general initial stability and compatibility before the service packs are released. The real sweet spot is going to be 2 gigs for around two years, with the very-high end being 4, but 64 bit Vista is the only version of the OS that will take full advantage of 4 gigs of memory anyway.

When XP was first released there was a flood of worrying (if you remember) about memory usage and the specs people were touting were overblown for the most part with people recommending 1 gig of memory for general usage -- which at that time was overblown for any game out there much less general usage -- then after more intensive games were released like Far Cry and HL2 (but it was much later in the XP life cycle) then 1 gig of memory was truly standard issue recommendation for a gaming system. Same thing applies with Vista -- initially 4 gigs will be recommended (overstated) but 2 gigs will be fine for 2 years into the Vista life cycle, and more than likely 4 gigs will finally become standard when the very intensive games are released around 2009-2010.

 

[AndonSage]

I tried configuring a system at AVA Direct for your $1000 price, but this came in at $1250:

CUSTOM COMPUTER, Core™ 2 Duo DDR2-800 Value Series System $1250.12 $1250.12
THERMALTAKE, Mambo Black Mid-Tower Case, 400W PSU, ATX
ASUS, P5B-VM, LGA775, Intel G965, 1066MHz FSB, DDR2-800 8GB/4, PCIe x16, SATA 3Gb/s /5, VGA, HD Audio, GbLAN, 2x FW, mATX, Retail
INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E6300 Dual-Core, 1.86GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache, 65nm, 65W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
CORSAIR, 2GB (2 x 1GB) XMS2 PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL5 (5-5-5-12) SDRAM 240-pin DIMM, Non-ECC
eVGA, e-GeForce 8800 GTS Superclocked 576MHz, 320MB DDR3 1700MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI, HDTV/S-Video Out, Retail
WESTERN DIGITAL, 160GB WD Caviar® SE, SATA II 300MB/s, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache
RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
LITE-ON, SOHC-5236K Black CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive, 52x32x52x16
MITSUMI, Black Internal 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 32-bit, OEM
WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)

You could play around at their site, see if you can configure something less expensive.

Gary