Uber tiny budget...need suggestions...

A

Aelfgeft

2[H]4U
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Jun 8, 2005
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Just finished the first couple months of my college internship and convinced them to give me roughly double my previous wage :D

Finally, it looks like I might be able to squeeze out an upgrade from my signature below. I've played with options and watched mobos and cpus for a couple months now, and I'm looking in this direction, in roughly this order(would like to stay AMD)

Antec 400-430W PSU
Thermalright XP-90/XP-90C with Vantec monster fan (may go with all copper if budget allows)
DFI LanParty NF3 250GB
Athlon (non-64) 2800+ Sempron Skt754 (2800 instead of 2600 because of 2x L2 cache)
Corsair ValueSelect 2x512 PC3200

Now, I may go a piece at a time depending on how my bills will go in the next month. Assuming I'm going for maximum performance per dollar, and am going for absolute minimum dollar possible, are there any better paths I could take? The PC is used for gaming, downloading, encoding, and general multitasking, in that order. I play mostly older games like BF1942, Jedi Academy, Diablo II, etc. Some of the earlier mentioned games aren't worth playing on my current setup.

Edit: Oh, and I may do some overclocking, but nothing challenging, as I don't know if I would be in a good position to replace anything later on.

All suggestions appreciated :)
 
What was the price that you costed out for that setup? Is there a dollar value you have in mind?
 
There's no dollar value in mind. I'm looking for "try this. It's just as good and cheaper" comments, primarily. Substitutions, as it were. :)
 
Okay...I didn't see a video card listed....need one of those too? I'll come up with some suggestions in a bit.
 
Actually no. I've got a GeCube 9550XT already in there, and the reviews I've seen have indicated that with the right CPU and RAM, I can run the games I want just beautifully. The card is probably the best thing in my system right now so I'm leaving that, especially since a decent vid card upgrade would be out of my price range. I guess I'm roughly trying to spend less than $100 at a time for parts.

edit: I'm also going to be buying a Lian-Li PC65 off a buddy for 30 bucks. That's the first part I'll be getting. My goal is to get parts that I can apply to my current setup as I go with minimal parts lying around doing nothing, and then hopefully selling off the old parts to slowly make up portions of what I spend.
 
If you aren't overclocking then dump the DFI and XP-90. Those are geared toward the overclocker crowd. You can overclock to a small level with many cheaper boards and still use the stock cooler. However if you want low noise and high heat dissipation the XP-90 is a good cooler. I would suggest you save some money and get a different power supply. While Antec does make a good PSU they are proud of them.
My suggestions:
Motherboard
The reason I picked this one is because Gigabyte makes solid boards. I have used them in the past and have zero complaints about them. They are solid boards that run like they are supposed to. Hell I have a Gigabyte board with 4-5 swollen caps that is running as good as the day I got it.

Power Supply
This is a Fortron Source 400 Watt supply. While I have never used a Fortron I have read excellent reviews by both sites and people.

Lastly, since the socket 754 processors and Semprons in general don't have an integrated memory controller I would pick up another stick of 512MB of RAM. If you get the cheaper motherboard and pass on a XP-90 you will have enough right there to get the stick.
 
I'm mainly thinking of Antec because I have seen several ~400W Antec power supplies used in the FS/T forum for 40-50 bucks and I figure it's a small difference in price for a little more confidence that my PC won't get toasted.

I may consider the motherboard though. Why do you suggest another half a gig of ram? And what do you mean by swollen caps?
 
I've never seen first hand a power supply blow up. I have seen pictures here on the net but never in person. I have had power supplys go out but that is different. I would rather buy a brand new Fortron over a used Antec.

Bad caps:
http://badcaps.net/

Another half gig is cheap and helps things load faster, run smoother, and help with your "general multitasking".
 
I think I will consider the alternate motherboard option in favor of extra ram. How good are the stock coolers on 754 Semprons? The last time I was building computers, the XPs had jsut come out and the HSFs were really substandard, to the point where even a hot apartment threatened the CPU.
 
Ok, well, here's a great site(I'm part of the forum), that has guides for any budget $600+, and each has an overclocking and stock speeds system. They are really good! I'll give ya the link to the $600 budget one, since that's the smallest the site does

http://sunkend.com/600.html
 
Well, I appreciate the site, but TBH I'm trying to stay even lower than that. I'm only replacing:

PSU
CPU
MOBO
RAM
and maybe a cooler

I don't want the PSU to top $50, and I'd prefer if the CPU and Mobo come to less than 180, realistically. I know I want some decent L2 cache for gaming purposes.

If I go for 1.5 gigs of RAM, I know I'm gonna go corsair value all the way, which I figure total will run me around 130 or so, and even that I'll only get a gig at first.
 
I haven't heard that. I'm just relaying the general warm fuzzy feeling I've picked up on the forum about this board. :)
 
I think I am still going to stick with an XP-90 and huge fan since my apartment in the summer heats up like a mother. No air conditioning, second floor, and the last two weeks have been a pure heat wave.

So heat from chipsets really concerns me as well.
 
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