Serious budget build

B

Billybob51106

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2002
Messages
436
To make a long story short, my ex-wife left me and our son for another man. Left me with $15K in debt and no money. I had to sell everything a year ago to pay for the attorney etc. This included my gaming computer :( My P4 3.2 isn't quite cutting it these days...

I have not been able to do any PC gaming, the last one I played was Crysis! I am now looking to build a machine. I currently have leftover a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. I am just basically looking to assemble a tower. My funds are extremely limited. I know a quad core with 6 gigs of ram and Windows 7 is no where in my sights, but something with some ooomph ;)

I would prefer to buy from Newegg, I have always purchased from them and have always had the best of service. This is what I will be needing.

OS
Case
PSU
Optical
Hard Drive
Motherboard
CPU
Video
Ram

If you got time to help me build, thanks a bunch!

-Bill
 
Sorry to hear about that man. Good luck dude.

Anyway, can you please answer the following questions so that we can help you better:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
3) Where do you live?
6) Will you be overclocking?
7) What size monitor do you have or plan to have?
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
 
What sucks is I have to pay her child support because she wont sign over full custody. This way she can collect wellfare and get child support. What a crock, but I am so much better off without her and I got a beautiful 4 year old little boy! Sorry I get to rambling about the whole thing sometimes.

1) PC Gaming
2) Around 500 or so
3) Iowa, 51106 zip
4) OS, Case, PSU, Optical, Hard Drive, Motherboard, CPU, Video, Ram
5) Monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers
6) No overclocking
7) 22 inch LCD Samsung, not very good but better than nothing!
8) Within 1 month I should have all the money.
9) I need strictly barebones, nothing fancy at all.
10) Negative on the OS

Thanks.

-Bill
 
Thats the problem, I don't play any games at the moment. I had to sell my gaming PC a year ago. I would love to play Fallout 3, Borderlands etc. I really like the shoot em up / RPG genre.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.273664 Gigabyte 785 Matx Mobo/ Athlon II x2 250 cpu combo $133.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154094 Apex case, with handle. $24.99 (not a great case, but good for the money
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008 Corsair 400cx PSU $49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148469 Barracuda.12 500GB HDD 49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289 Lite on SATA dvdrw $25.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098 Gskill DDR2 800 (2x1gb) $44.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754 Windows7 Home premium 64bit OEM $106.99 (no good reason NOT to run 64bit)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125244 Gigabyte ATI HD4670 $69.99


In the cart total is $528.92, and a lot of this stuff ships free. There is also $20 in MIR, so theoretically this could be done for $508.92. It's not a top end system, but will handle your needs well for the budget. You have room to upgrade RAM down the road (hence the 64bit OS), and depending how nuts you go a 5770/5750 upgrade for your video card won't be a problem with the PSU I picked out. You might still need some odds and ends but this system should run pretty cool, and fairly fast for you. Good luck.
 
Wow... tough budget with an OS... Hopefully someone can improve on this...

$107 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM
$100 - HIS H485FM512H Radeon HD 4850 512MB [FS]
$80 - GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX [FS] ($10MIR)
$60 - AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz 2x1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 [FS]
$70 - G.SKILL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1333 F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT [FS]
$55 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA300 16MB Cache [FS]
$52 - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower (Free Shipping Promo: EMCMLNV44)
$50 - Corsair CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified [FS] ($10MIR)
$22 - LITE-ON DVD±R Burner Black SATA iHAS124-04 OEM [FS]($4 Promo Code: EMCMLNX53)
===============
$596 shipped
 
I'll take a stab at this by aiming below the $500 mark, with OS.

$120 - AMD Athlon II X2 240 2.8GHz with GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+ micro ATX motherboard
$45 - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800
$70 - Gigabyte HD 4670 1GB ($10 MIR)
$55 - Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA 7200
$50 - Corsair 400W PSU ($10 MIR)
$40 - HEC 6C28BB8S Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
$26 - LITE-ON Black SATA CD/DVD Burner
$107 - Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM

Total: $513 - $10 MIR - $10 MIR = $493 + ship & tax (if applicable).

The system should be decent enough to hold you over until you have more money on hand to upgrade later.

Or perhaps have you tried the FS/FT forum for used parts? You'll likely be able to get more for your money.
 
SOSTrooper said:
Or perhaps have you tried the FS/FT forum for used parts? You'll likely be able to get more for your money.
Click to expand...

QFT. I set out on my last build to hit this are minus peripherals. I was figuring dual core, 2-4gb ram etc. I ended up with a quad core Phenom II, 8 GB of ram and a much better build because I could afford to splurge on some better parts (GPU, Case) than I would have afforded in my set budget. It also didn't hurt that my wife was a-ok with me going over budget by $250.;)
 
$50 - Corsair 400W PSU ($10 MIR)
$40 - HEC 6C28BB8S Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Click to expand...
I'd pay the extra $5 (and do away with the stupid MIR) and get Antec NSK4480 instead. Much nicer case.

Otherwise almost exactly what I was thinking to recommend. Nice.
 
I know you said you prefer newegg, but with this budget, I would go used with the following parts:

Forget about windows 7. Get someone to sell you an xp or vista license for >25 and spend the other $80 towards hardware.

Go used on the PSU and GPU, something ~500 watts and a 4850/4870 from someone who is upgrading should set you back about $125 total.

Good luck and sorry about your situation.
 
Thank you for the ideas and kind words. I got a lot of reading about these parts to do now. I like to read up on what I am going to buy. I will hit the FS/FT to look for some deals...
 
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