$2000 of Play Money! build your system!

phaxmohdem

Golden Member
Aug 18, 2004
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I'm just curious what parts you guys would purchase on a $2000 budget for a computer system.... Here are the required parts for this little game:

CPU
Motherboard
2GB RAM
Video Card
Hard Drive(s)

What I came up with on NewEgg. is:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Mobo
AMD X2 4400+
OCZ Titanium 2GB Dual Cahnel Kit 2-3-2-5
ASUS X800XL 256MB Video Card (PCI-E)
Seagate BArracuda 7200.8 400GB Hard drives (qty. 2)

EDIT: I am not upgrading myself, just want to see what various members of this forum would purchase with $2000 as a budget.
 

bjc112

Lifer
Dec 23, 2000
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Coming from a person with some highend OCZ, save a little bit and go with some value ram.. Even if you are overclocking..


Is the rig in your sig your current machine? if so, sell that X800 buy a new board and a 7800GTX and save $1000.
 

lawrenceku

Member
Aug 3, 2005
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do you need that much storage?, otherwise, you could get 2x raptors instead. i'm sure you would have extra hard drives lying around.
 

Bona Fide

Banned
Jun 21, 2005
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Raptors really aren't all that good. They're noisy and the performance gain is minimal, compared to Seagates.

The OCZ Titanium series is for servers that require 100% stability. NOT FOR OVERCLOCKERS. Expensive doesn't always mean better ;)
 

lawrenceku

Member
Aug 3, 2005
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it is true they don't have that much performance gain over seagate barracudas. i disagree that they are noisy though, even though a lot of people say they are. My raptors at home are very quiet ;)
 

phaxmohdem

Golden Member
Aug 18, 2004
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Originally posted by: bjc112
Coming from a person with some highend OCZ, save a little bit and go with some value ram.. Even if you are overclocking..


Is the rig in your sig your current machine? if so, sell that X800 buy a new board and a 7800GTX and save $1000.



Board is a socket 940 w/ ECC RAM. Would need a new CPU + RAM as well. I'm not upgrading though for a while, I was really just curious to see what other people around here would do with a $2000 budget.
 

Lithan

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2004
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Hmm

DFI NF4 Ultra D $120
SLI adapter $20
X2 3800+ $400
2x1gb 2-3-2-6 OCZ $200
7800GTX x2 $980
2x160gb Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8meg $220

OR

P4c800e-d $180
CT479 $55
760 $310
Same ram $200
7800gtx $490
$790 to use for scsi raid.
 

Jeff7181

Lifer
Aug 21, 2002
18,368
11
81
Originally posted by: lawrenceku
it is true they don't have that much performance gain over seagate barracudas. i disagree that they are noisy though, even though a lot of people say they are. My raptors at home are very quiet ;)

The 74 GB ones are cause they use fluid bearings. The 36 GB ones used ball bearings so they're a bit louder.
 

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
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Only $2000? COME ON!! That's not even enough to buy the monitor for the rig I want to design!! (30" apple cinema), but if you insist, okay.

Two EVGA 7800GTX KO edition. That's about $1100 gone right there.
Free SLI Motherboard.
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ san deigo. Now we have about $600 left
X-FI fatal1ty because of the 64 mb of X ram. Hovering around $400.
Lian-Li pc-2000B plus case. Where did my 200 dollars go?
Samsung 160GB SATAII hard drive.
Squeeze a DVD burner, floppy drive, os, and other useful stuff out of the last $100

I think I went a bit overbudget, considering I didn't include a monitor/speakers/mouse/keyboard.

EDIT: Oops, forgot the ram :eek:

Gimme $3000, and I'll design you a computer that can REALLY do something, Gimme $5000, and I'll design you a insanely fast computer, possibly liquid cooled, and Gimme $10,000 and I'll design a phase change cooled (cpu, and slied graphic cards phase change cooled), madly overclocked, voltmodded, flashy, lanparty rig that you will need a big cart to carry around. (did I mention It will be as noisy as hell?)
 

classy

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
15,219
1
81
Ah forget the 2 gigs of ram 1 will suffice.

Cpu 4400+ $550
Abit Fatality SLI $210
Redline Mushkin $210
7800 GT BFG $425
Fujitsu SCSI 15K MAU 36GB $176
Seagate 7200.8 250 $120
Total $1621

The scsi will be my game drive and the Seagate for OS and data. I still got plenty left over for a few extras including a decent single channel scsi channel card. It will be fast, flashy, and bleed the color red.
 

phaxmohdem

Golden Member
Aug 18, 2004
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Originally posted by: Crescent13
Only $2000? COME ON!! That's not even enough to buy the monitor for the rig I want to design!! (30" apple cinema), but if you insist, okay.


Gimme $3000, and I'll design you a computer that can REALLY do something, Gimme $5000, and I'll design you a insanely fast computer, possibly liquid cooled, and Gimme $10,000 and I'll design a phase change cooled (cpu, and slied graphic cards phase change cooled), madly overclocked, voltmodded, flashy, lanparty rig that you will need a big cart to carry around. (did I mention It will be as noisy as hell?)

Yep its tough to build a kick ass system for 2K. Thats why I want to see what people can come up with... Any fool can build one heluva badass system for 5K but I'm interested to see what people would build for a more realistic budget.
 

addinator

Member
Jul 11, 2005
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p5nd2-SLI deluxe - $205
Pentium 4 660 - $412
4x512mb crucial ballistix pc 5300 ram (667 ddr2) - $256
2x BFG geforce 6800ultra- $890
2x seagate barracuda 80gb in raid 0- $104
aspire atx 500 watt power supply w/ aspire x-navigator case - $142
sanyo denki processor water cooling- $95

and that comes out to $2000. tell me what you think.
 

CheesePoofs

Diamond Member
Dec 5, 2004
3,163
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Originally posted by: Lithan
Hmm

DFI NF4 Ultra D $120
SLI adapter $20
X2 3800+ $400
2x1gb 2-3-2-6 OCZ $200
7800GTX x2 $980
2x160gb Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8meg $220

OR

P4c800e-d $180
CT479 $55
760 $310
Same ram $200
7800gtx $490
$790 to use for scsi raid.

I'd go with the first one, assuming there's still room in that budget for a nice heatsink (or watercooling).
 

Lithan

Platinum Member
Aug 2, 2004
2,919
0
0
Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
Originally posted by: Lithan
Hmm

DFI NF4 Ultra D $120
SLI adapter $20
X2 3800+ $400
2x1gb 2-3-2-6 OCZ $200
7800GTX x2 $980
2x160gb Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8meg $220

OR

P4c800e-d $180
CT479 $55
760 $310
Same ram $200
7800gtx $490
$790 to use for scsi raid.

I'd go with the first one, assuming there's still room in that budget for a nice heatsink (or watercooling).



$60 for an xp120 and fan.