Budget PC

[voidstar]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Family PC. Typical family stuff + gaming.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
600,000~700,000 Won which is approximately 500-600 dollars

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
South Korea

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Don't care (family PC )

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Peripherals

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Yes

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Probably will be running at default speeds. Not very concerned since it's only a family PC.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
1920x1200

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
ASAP



Here are the parts I have so far. Some parts are not available from familiar vendors for some reason here; for example, I can't find any Corsair PSU's, only local company ones.


CPU
AMD Phenom II Deneb X4

RAM
Samsung DDR3 2G PC3-10600

Motherboard
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO ACC

GPU
XFX Radeon HD 4870 D5 512MB Xpert Rextech

HD
WD 320GB Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS (SATA2/7200/16M)

DVD/CD
Super-WriteMaster SH-S223B (cheapest thing I could find, don't use it that much but need sometimes)

Case
3Rsystem R460

PSU
Heroichi HEC-Rapter 500WP

CPU Cooler
CNPS7000C-ALCU

Total Price: Around 700,000 Won (600 dollars)

Other questions:
Do I absolutely need a CPU cooler?


I know it might be a bit hard to compare since I'm doing this in ROK, but feel free to give tips using general trends/prices etc. It'll help a lot.

Thanks.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Looks fine to me. Solid choices on a lot of that (CPU/MOBO/RAM/GPU). You do not need a CPU cooler, you're not overclocking and you're not trying to go fanless (silent PC). So stock will be fine. My only suggestion is that you get a larger HDD. 320Gb is fine, but I would not trust an OS/Games drive and all your family stuff (photos, etc) to the same drive. I'd separate them. Maybe two 500Gb drives, one for your OS/Games/Apps. One for storing photos, movies, whatever you download and want to keep, etc. That way if something goes wrong and you have to reinstall your OS, you don't have to worry about backing up your photos as they're on a separate drive. Also lets you have a place to keep a backup of your OS so that you can quickly restore it without having to reinstall the long way. Or keep that 320Gb for your main drive and grab a fat 1.5TB WD Green ($105) for all that storing. Or, get an external drive and store on that. Up to your needs.

Very best,

 

[voidstar]

Thanks for the input. We have external hard drives for data so I think we'll be OK with storage.

 

[voidstar]

I have since changed these parts:

CPU
Athlon X4 Propus 620
because it is considerably (~$50) cheaper and was necessary to keep the price under 700,000 won.

Is this an OK change?

 

[MisterDonut]

If you can get WD Caviar Black, I would shoot for those. Better performance, slightly more space (500gb or 1tb versions; more people went with the 500gb).

 

[piasabird]

They make most of the parts in China and Taiwan. You would think computers would be cheaper there in Asia.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/kr/ko/busin...=vostro-430&s=bsd&cs=krbsd1&~ck=mn&ref=homepg

 

[Spikesoldier]

i would take a trip to the Yongsan electronics market and hit up some of the parts stores, upstairs near the cd/dvd area, at the white, triangular building. they had some good stores in there every time i went.

usually you can try to make a deal with one store to get all the parts you need. i think for a family pc you are fine with a dual core, you can get athlon/phenom x2 and be fine in my opinion. 2gb is fine as well. put windows 7 32bit on there and it will be fine. pick your case that appeals to you the most.

i think that 4870 is a little too much for a family pc even for games. i think that a 4650 or 4670 is fine for a family pc. less noise and less power consumed. hard drive choice depends on if your family downloads a lot of media, or whether the pc is only used occasionally and lightly.

Yongsan electronics market was a great attraction to me when I was living in Seoul. I recall purchasing some samsung DDR memory there. after I started walking to the subway station I saw the week/year code on the chips. it was made one week prior.