Building a box for my son for a Christmas present

Green Man

Golden Member
Jan 21, 2001
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One of the uses will be for gaming. The budget is $500

I already have 2 x 256MB of corsair, but it's DDR333
I already have a TT 430 watt PSU, Logitec speakers, and a Viewsonic flat panel monitor.

He's 9, so looks of the case will be important to him.
We play Call of Duty, Far Cry, Prince of Persia 3D, we may get Civ4.

I like the RAIDMAX Samurai Case $80

I think the video card will be most important, This MSI X800 128MB is $137

A AMD Sempron 64 2800+ is $75.5

A BIOSTAR NF4 4X-A7 Socket 754 MB is $63

A Maxtor 200GB SATA150 Hard Drive is $84

add a black floppy for $7.75 and a keyboard & mouse for $18 and the total is $465 + $40 shipping.

What about the video card? 12 pipes + 256bit memory should be a step or two above the 6600GTs for the same price. comments?
Is the Sempr0n enough CPU? I don't plan to overclock.
 

GuitarDaddy

Lifer
Nov 9, 2004
11,465
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I built my son a rig using that same case. It's a nice case, great airflow and quiet, but it's big, really big. The latch on the door doesn't work very well on ours, but other than that I love the case.

Your first upgrade should be the ram, in gaming 1gb is a big performance increase over 512mb
 

GuitarDaddy

Lifer
Nov 9, 2004
11,465
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0
This is the video card I put in my sons rig, but I got in when it first came out at $199:) the demand has driven the price up since. But it's still a great value because it unlocks to 16pipes and most will clock to X850XTPE speed.

Sapphire X800GTO2
 

phr0m

Senior member
Dec 25, 2004
384
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you might want to get something a little better, if you were willing to spend a little more you could get this
which would blow the x800 out of the water, or look on ebay for an x800 gto2, they will come pre-unlocked to 16 pipes and you might beable to get one for 150 if you look hard enough, i got my x800 gto2 for 180
 

Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
2
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I would suggest the COnnect3d x800GTO. This card has a chance of unlocking but it looks like not a very good chance now that Connect 3D has caught on. Despite that , it can overclock past x850 pro levels.
 

Green Man

Golden Member
Jan 21, 2001
1,110
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Thanks for the input.

I ended up going with an x800gto and upgrading the cpu to a64 2800+

came to $600 with shipping, but oh well.
 

leigh6

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2004
3,011
0
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9 years old? Just built a system for my friends 9 year old.

Athlon 1.33
Abit-VA-10
Radeon 9200
2x256 Value Ram
40gb Maxtor HD
Lite-On cdrw
Floppy
Windows 2000

YOU ARE A NICE DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!