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About to buy this budget PC for a friend, any suggestions?

R

Rapamatic

Member
Here's what I've put together so far, all from newegg:

INWIN 300W CASE $56.00
SUNON 80x80x25mm Case Fan, Ballbearing $5.00
24 Inch. IDE ATA-33 Flat Cable $.99
MSI PLE 133 (MS-6368) Micro-ATX w/LAN - Retail VIA® VT8601T chipset. $57.00
CELERON900 FCPGA RETAIL BOX $52.00
Teac 1.44MB 3.5 Inch Floppy Drive $9.00
WeSTERN DIGITAL 20GB 7200 CAVIAR $68.00
Logitech Keyboard $14.00
NEC AS70 17" AccuSync CRT MONITOR $135.00
Aceex V.90 Full Duplex FaxModem $15.00
LOGITECH CORDED OPTICAL MOUSE $12.00
LITE-ON 24x10x40 CDRW $80.00
ALTEC LANSING 3 Piece Speaker $25.00
Shipping $101.93
Crucial 256mb $34.19

TOTAL: $676.11

I need to keep it under $700. Is there anything I'm overlooking or any places where I should cut more corners to get better hardware in some other area? Thanks for your help!
 
Is your friend willing to get an AMD system? For about the same (or lower price) you can build a Duron system instead of a Celeron system (Duron 900 or 950mhz). I'm not sure about mATX Socket A boards, however.

Also, is there an integrated video and audio on the PLE133? I'm quite sure that the PLE133 does have video and sound. But if not, I don't see a video and sound card in the list of components.
 
I have a MSI 6368 mother board and in all honesty it?s not that good, poor memory, video and hard drive scores and it?s very unstable at anything but stock speeds. I have a celeron 500 that will do 560 and an 800 that does 896 on any other motherboard I?ve run them but only stock speed with this board, I chalk it up to the PLE33 chip set. On the other hand if your going for a cheap intel platform then the MSI 815 ET for $98 is good but you?ll have to shell out another $10 for a cheap nic.

$101 shipping seems kinda high, I'd see you could get a monitor localy and maybe save alittle on the shipping bill to off set the slighty higher cost.
 
I'd get an AMD system but newegg doesn't have any AMD mATX boards, and going with seperate sound card and vid card knocks the price up at least $100....
 
the MOB comes with 80 conductor cable

slapstick - I don't intend to overclock it at all. Is the poor performance going to noticable by someone just running IE/AIM/MS Word? The shipping is for 2nd day fedex, since I need to get this done before xmas. I imagine that sales tax on a local monitor, plus higher prices would cancel any shipping savings, but I'll look into that.

Thakns for all your help!
 
The short answer is yes it?s that noticeable even in basic office apps and Internet use. I built a couple of PC?s out of parts I collected mainly for RC5, one is based on the MSI 6368 and other on the FIC FR33, (both use the PLE33 chip set and have the same basic features) The FIC had the 500 in it and the MSI the 800 and the FIC felt just as fast if not a little faster than the MSI when browsing the internet. Needless to say I put the 800 in the FIC and it?s not too bad for basic apps, (use it mainly as a download box now and FTP server). The MIS box is just doing RC5 which is about all it?s good for. If this were going to be his only PC I?d personally scrap any board with the PLE33 chip set, in fact I?d get the midtower Inwin for $1 more and consider either the MSI 815ET or an AMD solution. The $40 more you?d spend will give a lot more expansion options in the future.
 
The MSI and Giga-Byte mATX MOB use the Via 133 chipset. They are around $30 more than MSI mATX board. This is still more affordable than getting seperate Video/Audio, but both have an AGP slot so I could upgrade in the future. I could get a duron 900, plus a $10 heatsink, and still be in budget using either of the boards above. Should the performance in these boards be better than the PLE133.

I could go with the MSI 815EP (or comparable board) with a $20 or so video card for around the same price. Would that be a better bet?

Thanks again for your help!

Ray
 
The MSI815ET has onboard video and sound. MSI 815ET specs. It sounds like I'm pushing this board but it's only because if your going to go with a cheap board for a Celeron this is most likely your best bet and all I can say is STAY AWAY FROM THE PLE CHIP SET. But I wouldn't discount checking out an AMD solution.

Edit, Fixed link
 
check over in hotdeals for cheaper hard drives than that. think i saw a 20 gig for $30 in there somewhere. less expensive (though not as fast) cdrws in there too. use the savings to get a better board.
 
I think slapstick convinced me to get the MSI 815ET... with a cel 900 I'm within the budget.

I'll check out hot deals to try to get under budget (and maybe get more $$ for making the computer)
 
I guess I should have said earlier that I have an MSI 815 Pro (ver 1) board with a PIII700@933 that's been very stable and a good performer, (my home office sounds like a leaf blower's running with all the PC?s I have in here). If you have as good of luck with it as I?ve had your friend will be pleased.
 
Believe me, I know the feeling of building a system for a family member or good friend and being caught in the predicament of whether to build as cheaply as possible to make more money off the top or to build with better components and make less money. Being the geeky tech that you are(or at least I am, i'll speak for myself), you almost feel as though you are cheating them by going with less than optimum components, even though they will likely never know the difference.

Personally i'd go with the AMD solution but I guess it doesn't matter much, especially when the person probably will never notice what they are missing.😉 J/K, i'm not a strict AMD man, I like Intel just as much, just not at the present time as AMD just makes a better product right now in my eyes. Blah....i'm rambling.

Good Luck on the build
John-Paul
 
Get yourself a mATX SiS 735 board and throw a Duron in it. Fast, cheap, and incredibly stable. It'll run rings around that Celery and allow an upgrade path.

Chaintech makes a beauty, although it is a few dollars more than others.
 
Well here is what I came up with for an AMD solution (just something to think about) 😉

ENLIGHT EN-72370X3C4 MIDTOWER CASE with 1 Int CaseFan 300Watt PS $47.00
ECS K7S5A SiS735 SOCKET A $57.00
VISIONTEK Xtasy 5632 GEFORCE2 GTS-V 4X/2X 32MB AGP $65.00
AMD DURON 900MHz - OEM $41.00
Crucial256MB PC133 SDRAM RAM CL=3 $38.00 <-- might be cheaper at Crucial.com or go for DDR
Teac 1.44MB 3.5 Inch Floppy Drive $9.00
WESTERN DIGITAL 20GB WD200BB CAVIAR - OEM $68.00
Microsoft 114 keys Inet Keyboard PS/2 - OEM $17.00
HITACHI CM615 17 INCH MONITOR - RETAIL .24mmDP 1280x1024 $155.00
Aceex V.90 FD FaxModem 56K $15.00
LOGITECH B69 CORDED OPTICAL MOUSE $12.00
LITE-ON LTR-16102B 16x10x40 CD-RW DRIVER INT EIDE $71.00
COOLER MASTER DP5-6I11A CPU HEAT SINK&FAN $6.00
Logitech Z-340 3 Piece Speaker System $36.00

Sub-Total: $637

Shipping to CO was ~$71

Total: $708
 
Go with the system splice recommended, or tell your friend about it, but if you do decide to go with the system you listed, you might want to get a better video card cause I don't see one listed for what you have. Actually if you do decide to go with an athlon, you might want to take a look at the nforce mobos some of which can be found here but if you go with an nforce, you will need to use ddr ram. The nforce mobos can be found on pricewatch for $163 for an msi one
 


<< Go with the system slice recommended, or tell your friend about it, but if you do decide to go with the system you listed, you might want to get a better video card cause I don't see one listed for what you have. Actually if you do decide to go with an athlon, you might want to take a look at the nforce mobos some of which can be found here but if you go with an nforce, you will need to use ddr ram. The nforce mobos can be found on pricewatch for $163 for an msi one >>



Hey buddy.... you makin' fun of my nick? hehehe 😉

Anyways, I forgot all about the nForce. That's a good point.
 
Switching to the enlight case lets me get the SiS 735 Mobo, Duron 900 and coolermaster like you suggested.

I would rather not spend $60 on a vid card though... for $30 I can get an ATI Expert 2000 32MB or a MSI TNT. I'm sure for what my friend will be doing this will be more than plenty.Would you recommend one of these over the other or are they basically the same?

Also, I will be able to get DDR RAM with the above setup, that should be noticeably faster than PC133, right?

Thanks a lot guys!!

I'm spending more time configing this setup for my friend than when I built my dual AMD (of course there was only one MOB to get then, so that made things easier)
 
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