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Budget Build

H

hawk16

Member
My current PC build is a P4 with a 6600GT AGP card in it. I really want to replace it, especially with DX10 games coming out and even in games like BF2 and such it can tend to be a bit sluggish sometimes.

I have the budget of $600 + shipping. Nothing more. I am trying to piece together a build for this cost, I already have a 550 watt power supply (has PCI Express connections), and a 160GB SATA Hardrive, and a cd-rom drive. Everything else needs to be new, including a new case.

I want this PC to run DX10 games like bioshock at a good rate, and also to be a good media PC. I will be running Windows XP Pro on this.

I've been out of the loop on hardware since I built my last computer, so im not really sure in what I should get, AMD or Intel? Nvidia or ATI? Please help me out and show me some type of parts or build I should use.
 
I was fiddling around on newegg and tell me how this looks.

-CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - Retail

-Intel BOXDP35DPM LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6750 - Retail

-XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

This comes out to about $560, all I need to find is a cheap case.

Is there anyway I could get a better bang for my buck by going with AMD or scaling down stuff. Should I get a cheap CPU instead of the E6750 and get a expensive video card? Also, I will upgrade this system in the future as well. Also, I do not know what AMD proccessors are good, all I knew was core 2 duo because of a friends help.
 
Couldn't you get a cheaper case like in the $50 range and a 6300 c2d and upgrade to an 8800gts for around the same price?
 
cheap cases suck. I've had them, and I've had nice ones. I'll never go back to the cheap stuff. Also, a case should last you through an indefinite number of upgrades, so you just buy a really good one once.
 
Nice build! Interesting point on the video card upgrade. Does anyone have an opinion on the quality of that upgrade? How does the 8600 stack up? Is it a piece of poo? It's about half the price of a 8800gts 320... is there a card in between? Should we still consider the 7000 series?

To answer my own question: the 8600 is half the price because it is about half the performance... no big shocker there. So use your budget to decide🙂
8600 vs 8800
 
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