Roomate needs comp, Havent been studying socket 754 stuff.

[bostesseger69]

As the title says my roomate in college needs to build a computer so he can play games with me. His budget is $400-500 (lower better), he needs cpu, vid card, mobo, case...i will be giving him power supply and ram (sacrificing 1gig for him) and possibly case. Also some overclocking would be nice, but not really important as long as he can play cs:s, bf2, and doom3. He would also prefer case to be black if at all possible to match all the rest of his stuff. Thanks a lot guys any help appreciated.

 

[ChingChang]

Well I would say a socket 939 board that supports SLI for upgrading options for the future (adding another card and getting a dual core processor), but for $500 socket 754 is better.

note: secure.newegg.com is down atm I think... so the link might not work until it's back up again.
http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion...=HISTORY&ID=1639052&WishListTitle=bostesseger
That's what I came up with.
6800 - should run those games with high settings fine, and can OC if you want.
Sempron 64 3000+ - should be high enough not to be a bottleneck, and good price/performance for socket 754.
case - I usually get this one from comp usa, since I don't have to pay shipping very light and a good case overall. (their site is down atm, I'll edit when it is up. but the case is like $30 and black)
80GB hard drive - for under $60, can't go wrong.
no OS, didn't know if he had one already
VNF3-250 - not the best, but good for budget systems. I've built a few comps using this board and have seen no problems so far.
dvd burner - not sure what type of optical drive he wants... but this is good and inexpensive.

$428 shipped with 6% tax
$405 without tax
just put it together quickly with newegg, but you could look for cheaper prices on zipzoomfly or pricewatch if you want to bring the price down a bit.

edit: that price doesn't include the $30 case. You could make a cardboard box case if you wanted to save a few bucks though

 

[AMDXP]

$47.000 SAMSUNG SpinPoint P80SD Series HD040GJ 40GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD


$189.00 eVGA 128-A8-N343-AX Geforce 6800 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail

$115.00 AMD Athlon 64 2800+ Newcastle Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 754

$112.00 ASUS K8N-E DELUXE Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb ATX AMD Motherboard


$39.99 LITE-ON Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 4X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner - OEM




You'll need a heatsink for the AMD 2800+ Socket 754


I don't know if you need an OS though...

Total

$ 502.99 I'm sure you can spring it.

 

[heero884]

i second the 3000+ sempron 64, it runs at the same clock speed as the 2800+ newcastle.. you lose half the cache but you gain a 90nm process vs a 130nm process so it should overclock nicely (and cheaper too) i would pair this processor up with the dfi 250gb (though the vnf3 would do just fine if the dfi is too expensive for you).

as for the hard drive, try to pick one up on sale like the 80gb seagate hdd for $30 after rebate at circuit city this week.

the anetc 3000b (not very flashy but a very good case, though ill warn you some find the front door flimsy but i think its fine) is $50 with free shipping this week at amazon http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006OCZMQ/ref=nosim/bensbargaicenter/002-7719951-8606419

a black nec/lite-on dvd burner should fit the bill for ~$40 at newegg

i also recommend the sapphire x800pro graphics card for $225 at newegg, better bang for the buck.

what kind of psu are you giving him btw?