$2K budget for a computer.. what would you do?

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dieselstation

Golden Member
Feb 20, 2001
1,388
0
0
i haven't built a computer in a while. my friend wants me to put together a computer for her for $2K budget. a 19" LCD is a must.. but what else? case, power, board, cpu, etc.. it's all open for consideration.

1. case
2. power supply
3. cpu
4. board
5. memory
6. hard drives
7. optical drives
8. heatsink/fan
10. lcd
11. video card
-----------------------
~$2000 budget.
 
D

dieselstation

Golden Member
Feb 20, 2001
1,388
0
0
i think for her video card.. i'll just go 6800gt. she's not too crazy of a gamer.. so that should keep her ok for a few years.
 
YOyoYOhowsDAjello

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
31,205
45
91
Originally posted by: dieselstation
i think for her video card.. i'll just go 6800gt. she's not too crazy of a gamer.. so that should keep her ok for a few years.
Click to expand...

If she's not much of a gamer, you could probably go with a $1500-ish system including the 19" LCD.

Something along the lines of
Antec SLK3000b
Seasonic 430
A64 3200+
Basic NF4
1 gig value ram
two big harddrives
a dvd burner and another drive (if desired for some reason)
retail HS/F
Nice $400-ish LCD (Dell etc.)
6800gt or X800XL
 
N

NetDevil

Member
Mar 6, 2005
148
0
0
Venice 3200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535
DFI Lanparty Ultra D http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...ry=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
EVGA 7800 GTX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130234
2x512 Corsair C2PT http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145450
160 GB Seagate http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...p=and&description=seagate&InnerCata=14
Nec 3520A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152049
Seasonic S12 430W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151023
Antec SLK 3000B http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129152
Dell 2005FPW http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/Prod...techspecs&sku=320-4111&c=us&l=en&cs=19


1950+shipping. But he must get win xp, keyboard, mouse, speakers.



PS: I`ve just seen she`s not a gamer. Just go with Yoyo`s rig then.
 
Ricemarine

Ricemarine

Lifer
Sep 10, 2004
10,507
0
0
1. case -> Antec SLK3000b $50 or Antec P180 $126
2. power supply -> Enermax 485w Noisetaker $89
3. cpu -> AMD 64 X2 4400+ $600 something...
4. board -> DFI Lanparty SLI-DR NF4 $170
5. memory -> Twinmos UTT ram 1 GB $80, or OCZ PC4800 EL $265
6. hard drives -> Maxtor 250 GB SATA Maxline III 16 MB $____
7. optical drives -> Nec ND-3540 DVD-RW $50
8. heatsink/fan -> Thermaltake XP-90C w/ Nexus (or your choice) $49??
10. lcd -> Samsung 910 (iunno heh) $300 if you find good deal
11. video card -> BFG, eVGA, any kind 6800gt $250 used, $300 new...

This is approximate, about $1900 or so...
 
Z

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
0
0
I'd take $1000. and spend it on a computer and take the other thou and buy some gold and silver (small bullion coins). The world economic situation could easily go to hell in a handbasket quite rapidly.

.bh.
 
P

peter79

Junior Member
Aug 9, 2004
16
0
0
I'd never buy a DFI for someone else, just get the basic ASUS A8N-E , it has a better and silent cooler then the other Asus NF4 versions. I'd get a sonata, an A64 4400+ (she'll enjoy that alot more then a GF7). IF you get that Maxline III, be shure to disable NCQ. I'd leave the stock cooler on it, My own A64 is OCed and running nicely cool with the boxed cooler. Why is a GF6200 not enough for someone who doesn't game ?
 
M

mettleh3d

Senior member
May 6, 2005
330
0
0
Originally posted by: peter79
I'd get a sonata, an A64 4400+ (she'll enjoy that alot more then a GF7).
Click to expand...

I'm not calling your friend ignorant per se, but you think she'll notice the damn high speeds of a 4400+ over a A64 2800+? Girls (those who dont care for electronics) dont care for electronics. I'd doubt they'd know/appreciate the difference.

help her shave unnecessary costs.
 
S

SrGuapo

Golden Member
Nov 27, 2004
1,035
0
0
Any chance of overclocking?

1. case
Whatever looks good (up to $100)
2. power supply
Seasonic S12 500W ($130)
3. cpu
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ ($600)
4. board
Chaintech vnf4 Ultra (if not Ocing) ($90)
DFI ultra-D (if overclocking) ($130)
5. memory
Corsair value RAM (2x512MB) ($80)
6. hard drives
Depends how much space you need
7. optical drives
NEC 3450A ($50)
8. heatsink/fan
stock (if not OCing)
xp-90 and panaflo 92mm L1A (if OCing) ($40)
10. lcd
Hyundai L90D+ ($350)
11. video card
x800xl ($250)

Total: ~$1600-1700 without a HDD.

If you really want, you can get more expensive RAM, but I see no reason if you are not OCing.

Edit: you seem to have skipped 9...
 
P

peter79

Junior Member
Aug 9, 2004
16
0
0
Originally posted by: mettleh3d
Originally posted by: peter79
I'd get a sonata, an A64 4400+ (she'll enjoy that alot more then a GF7).
Click to expand...

I'm not calling your friend ignorant per se, but you think she'll notice the damn high speeds of a 4400+ over a A64 2800+? Girls (those who dont care for electronics) dont care for electronics. I'd doubt they'd know/appreciate the difference.

help her shave unnecessary costs.
Click to expand...

I think anyone would benefit from dual core. Especially people who don't know a lot about computers. She can have one core for windows + ALL the spyware , the other core for whatever she is running
 
D

dheffer

Senior member
May 26, 2004
736
0
0
Originally posted by: NetDevil
Venice 3200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535
DFI Lanparty Ultra D http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...ry=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
EVGA 7800 GTX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130234
2x512 Corsair C2PT http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145450
160 GB Seagate http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...p=and&description=seagate&InnerCata=14
Nec 3520A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152049
Seasonic S12 430W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151023
Antec SLK 3000B http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129152
Dell 2005FPW http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/Prod...techspecs&sku=320-4111&c=us&l=en&cs=19


1950+shipping. But he must get win xp, keyboard, mouse, speakers.



PS: I`ve just seen she`s not a gamer. Just go with Yoyo`s rig then.
Click to expand...



If she's got $2k to drop, that's an awesome config. I might spend a little more on a bigger HD though.
 
F

FlyingPenguin

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2000
1,793
0
0
$2K budget? I'd save $500 and still build a kick ass system.

But seriously, if this is not going to be a gaming system and she's got that kind of budget, why build (unless you plan on making money on the deal)?

A Dell Dimension 8400 would make a nice powerful workstation. Team it up with one of those Dell 21" wide screen LCDs.

Do you REALLY want to build it and then have stupid issues with BSODs because of some hardware or driver compatibility issue and have her nagging you to fix it every 5 days?

I don't do builds for friends and family anymore. I steer them to a good deal on an OEM system. Only custom builds I do are servers and gaming systems and that's for clients willing to pay top dollar for custom work.

"No good turn goes unpunished."
 
W

WdnUlik2no

Member
May 5, 2005
169
0
0
Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
$2K budget? I'd save $500 and still build a kick ass system.

But seriously, if this is not going to be a gaming system and she's got that kind of budget, why build (unless you plan on making money on the deal)?

A Dell Dimension 8400 would make a nice powerful workstation. Team it up with one of those Dell 21" wide screen LCDs.

Do you REALLY want to build it and then have stupid issues with BSODs because of some hardware or driver compatibility issue and have her nagging you to fix it every 5 days?

I don't do builds for friends and family anymore. I steer them to a good deal on an OEM system. Only custom builds I do are servers and gaming systems and that's for clients willing to pay top dollar for custom work.

"No good turn goes unpunished."
Click to expand...



agree
 
C

Cheesetogo

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2005
3,824
10
81
If she's not gaming, there's no reason to spend more than 1000 on the computer itself. Then get a nice 24" lcd with the saved money.
 
G

gf4200isdabest

Senior member
Jul 1, 2002
565
0
0
Buy her the absolute nicest monitor and speakers you can find. Figure out the other parts after that. Unless you game all the damn time, encode video, or have a penchant for extracting 10gb compressed files (or, if you're like me, all three at once) then there is NO REASON to spend 2000 on actual computing power.

Get her a value AMD64 3000+...maybe a 6600 or a 6600GT. But I really doubt that anyone except real power users will appreciate these sorts of things more than they would a nice monitor or a nice sound system.

Look at it this way, despite doing all these things I just bought myself a 21inch LCD and am fundamentally satisfied with getting that versus an upgrade on my 3200+, 1gb RAM, 6600gt comp.
 
S

Suspicious-Teach8788

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
20,155
23
81
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Diego Core)
DFI LanParty UT NForce4 Ultra
1 GB DDR OCZ Dual CHannel Gold VX
Seagate 7200.8 250 GB
Antec Performance One
Antec True Power II 430 PSU
Gigabyte X800XL
Logitech Elite Keyboard
Logitech MX510
Samsung 930B 19" LCD
NEC 3520 Dual Layer DVD Burner
Logitech Z-2300 2.1 Speakers
Zalman 5.1 Headphones
 
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