Best PC on a budget

[iq777]

I have around $500 dollars to spare. I wanted to get your input on what parts I should buy. I don't need a monitor. I'm not heavy on the gaming so I don't need the best video card. I've been doing some research and it seems like amd 1.8 and asus 266 VM are a good choice. Any other alternatives. Also what other parts do you suggest. I need a cd burner, hard drive, memory, sound, nic card, and etc.

Thanks alot in advance.

 

[Dacalo]

you should check hot deals forum. they occasionally have really good deals on dell

 

[merlocka]

Although somewhat dated, the Anandtech Value buyers guide is a good place to start.

 

[heartsurgeon]

i recently built a computer with my son -
i guess it was a worthy learning experience.

but between the hassles of getting the "bugs" out of it,
getting the operating system installed and running,
finding out about memory timing problems, and obscure incompatibilities...

i think your better off price wise just getting a dell when one of their "deals" pops up.
.which should be now! - heck - they are selling a complete system including the monitor (1.8 ghz pentium) for $550

i guess unless you desire the experience of building it yourself, i don't think it's worth building your own computer.

 

[BurnItDwn]

case - Find something with a 350 watt or more AMD approved power supply
motherboard - Find something with the features you want at a good price, (that nforce board you mentioned looks like a pretty good deal .. )
cpu - I have an AMD XP1800 ... and its been great for me .. I'd recommend it if the price is right
ram - Get at least 256MB of PC2100
hard drive - Personally I'd start off with a 120GB drive ... but if you dont waste space like i do Im sure you could make due with much less)
vidcard (If you get the Asus VM Nforce ... than dont get one of these ... else I like my Geforce 4 TI4200)
sound card (If you get the Asus VM Nforce ... than dont get one of these ... sometimes built in and not needed)
network card (If you get the Asus VM Nforce ... than dont get one of these ... sometimes built in and not needed)

also if you havent already ... be sure to check out newegg.com as they have geed prices and fast service.

also ... you way want to check out www.compgeeks.com for some parts, they have cheap optical mice for like 8 to 15 bucks ... (i own a couple of them, and they are just as good as my MS mouse), they also have cheap keyboards there ... Its worth a look

 

[spartacuskzm]

Here is the computer I built for my mom this x-mas (without monitor).

Cheapo @ Newegg

The thing works great (DVD's are awesome and I have no complaints about the onboard audio), however I loaded BF1942 and it lagged a little. Then again, it was definitely playable and what can you expect for an onboard video card with such a video-intensive game? HL Mods would probably run ok if you're into gaming.

The two items I forgot to add to the cart were a 3.5 floppy drive and an IDE ribbon for the DVD rom - both of which I purchased subsequently at Frys.

EDIT: By the way, I love the case. Side and Top fan and USB's in the front. I highly recommend it.

Good Luck.

 

[hackmole]

Yeah but what was the cost.

 

[spartacuskzm]

Originally posted by: hackmole
Yeah but what was the cost.

In my best New York accent...'You talkin to me?'

The price of my system should show up in the link....477.98.

Shipping at the time was very cheap as a lot of the items were free to ship with "Fedex Saver".

 

[heartsurgeon]

hard to beat this -

Dell

$399, no monitor

cele 2.0
128meg
60g 7200 HD
cdrw
win xp home

 

[Spac3d]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
hard to beat this -

Dell

$399, no monitor

cele 2.0
128meg
60g 7200 HD
cdrw
win xp home

That is a good price.

spartacuskzm, thanks for that sample. I had to give a friend an idea for a cheap machine, but you did it for me

Spac3d

 

[dpopiz]

yeah that dell is a great deal...just make sure to add another 256mb stick in there.

 

[dpopiz]

wait I don't see that deal on the dell site....all I see is $389AR with no cdrw

 

[Macro2]

Dell sucks. Wait until you need tech support and can't understand the tech.