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A cash-strapped Athlon system at $500

J

jyox

Junior Member
Im this cash-strapped soul who has a budget of $500
for an AMD ATHLON system, not for me the hi-fi AMD 64
latest releases!After sticking faithful to a pentium system
for the past 7 years (yeah! I feel old and dilapidated!)
my bogged down mind has finally decided to rebel and get
out of the rut, sadly the pockets have not become deeper!

my present wishlist is :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU: AMD ATHLON XP 1700 +

Motherboard:MSI K7N2 Delta-L dual channel motherboard with the
NVidia nforce2 ultra400 with soundstormsound with
dolby digital encoding with an ethernet adaptor

Memory : KINGSTON HYPER-X PC3200 DDR400 2 X 256MB(dual channel) =512

Hard Disk: WESTERN DIGITAL 7200rpm,8MB BUFFER,80-120GB depending on price

CASE: ATX CASE full tower/midtower with :1. 2-3 5.25" bays
2. 3-4 3.5" bays
3. with =550 Watts ANTEC POWER SUPPLY
with as many fans / cooling systems as can be accomodated/price will allow

VIDEO CARD: ATI Radeon 9000, 64 MB

Optical drive :Lite-On BURNER 52x32x52x (model LTR-52327S) drive
(52x write, 32x rewrite, and 52x read).

Speakers: A good pair of very good dolby-compatible
surround headphones. dont want standalone speakers

MODEM : Internal US Robotics PRO 56.6 kbps

Retaining my old monitor, keyboard ,printer and mouse
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Want to ask you , is the above config feasible?
does it look as if it might run into compatibility issues?
will it ever fit in my measly pocket?
or probably you can suggest some alternate/better config
(ofcourse keeping in mind the $500 limit)
Apart from the fact that it should be an athlon
system (the seven-year-itch against pentium is inflamed now!)
please feel free to change anything and everything

 
Feasible YES...Ridiculous Maybe...

1)Are you ocing??? If so I would get the 1800+ chip as there is astepping floating around that may do 2.4ghz and I am pretty sure the 1700+ is no longer in production to even get this stepping.

2) The ram is ridiculous unless you plan on ocing so revert to question #1...Otherwise get (2) sticks of pc2100 to pc2700 and you will be fine. Hyper X is Kingston performance line so it is expensive. Even so I don't you would want to run this thing anything past 200fsb so even then get good quality 400mhz ddr.

3)An 80gb 8mb cache is a great deal of 65.00 dollars at newegg.com so check it out...Otherwise look for those rebate specials in the Sunday papers.

4) POwer supply is frekkin overkill. I have an amd 2100+ chip running 2700+ with as much if not more stuff here and it is doing iton a 300 watt power supply. Even if you were trying to overclock the heck out of this thing I wouldn't see more then a 430watt antec needed. You arenot running enough drives, power hungry vid card to need this waste. I oc a p4 system with 2x more stuff and a 2.4@3.2ghz and I only need a 430watt.

5) With that system get one 80mm low audible intake and 1 exhaust fan. The power supply will come with one and ofcoure the fan on the cpu heatsink and that is plenty...

6) Look at if the 9100 radeon would be better bye since I believe it may give you more support for direct x versions...

7) US Robotic is so early 90's....Many modems for cheaper that are as fast do some research here. I have a creative modem blaster that is faster then my work USRobotic IMO...

 
What is this machine for? Gaming?

I agree, the PSU is waaaay overkill. You could run this machine on a 300 watt if you wanted. Also look at the Buffalo Winbond PC3200...cheaper than HyperX...good memory. Seems to me you could do better with CPU and video card if you've got $500.
 
What is this machine for? Gaming?

I agree, the PSU is waaaay overkill. You could run this machine on a 300 watt if you wanted. Also look at the Buffalo Winbond PC3200...cheaper than HyperX...good memory. Seems to me you could do better with CPU and video card if you've got $500.
 
I think you should consider going with refurbs from Newegg on some of the parts. I just finished my first computer-building project (the AMD system in my sig) and used a refurb CPU (AMD 2500+ w/hsf for $66), system memory (1GB Kingston Hyper-X PC3200 for $187), case (Thermaltake Xaser V2000A for $119) and video card (XFX Ti4200 for $85) to save money. Have had no problems, knock on wood, with any of the parts.

I agree the PSU is overkill. I agree you can do much better than a Radeon 9000 with your budget. Newegg has the refurb of your selected MSI motherboard for $50: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&type=Refurbish&submit=Go&description=N82E16813130419R&mark=Catalog
 
Soltek NV400-L64 motherboard $75
AMD XP 2500+ retail $85
512mb Buffalo PC3200, 1 stick $85
Decent case w/ quality 300-350w PS $60

Granted that comes to a little less than $300 already, but with that you can VERY likely change the fsb and have a 2.2ghz right there. The Soltek and single channel is an awesome value.

Look for Hot deals for the hard drive and cd-rw.

You don't need a bunch of fans. Find a cheap 56k modem, maybe fs/ft? Not sure on the speakers...

Spend any remaining on the video card. Obviously if you're budget permits, go for a 9100 over a 9000np/pro (or a used 8500), but 9600Pro is much much better if you got the $ for it.
 
That's nothing. My friend's dad wants me to upgrade their Pentium 120 system for $70! It's an AT too so he'll need a new case. I checked just chip upgrades on their board and it'll go to a 133, lol. Lucky for them I've got an old slot A board they can have. So all they need is case, psu, chip, heatsink, ram and keyboard. I came close but the best I could do was around $81.

Case
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/str8buy/bowtebeatxmi.html
$19 + $8 shipping = $27
Athlon 700
http://www.starmicro.net/detail.aspx?ID=434
$21 free shipping = $21
PC133 128mb
http://www.pcboost.com/store/listmemory.asp?IDCategory=94
$12 + $5 shipping = $17
Heatsink
Can't find one online for cheap but ebay should have some inexpensive ones
approximately $10
Keyboard
http://www.z-buy.com/product.asp?item=KB-SK1688AB
$6 + free shipping = $6


not bad eh?
 
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