Building a gaming PC to last

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TimboAA

Member
Feb 15, 2004
118
0
0
Don't worry JBDan, i picked up on it ;-) , i was thinking of the principle behind it rather than the fact that it was a PCI-E video card. I like newegg, but I still need to go browse through other sites to find the best price (like www.pricewatch.com)

One thing I always wonder about is..."How much power do we really need?"

Granted, if I took the time to browse through my physics notes and looked to see what kind of amperage everything took I could figure it out...

What kind of wattage do you need to run:

-Motherboard, CPU, HSF
-1 Optical Drive
-HDD (IDE, SCSI, SATA, or PATA)
-Floppy
-1 case fan
-Video card
-1 PCI card

 
B

Bonesdad

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 2002
2,213
0
76
lose the floppy and put the $10 somewhere else...who really needs a floppy anymore?
 
K

KoolDrew

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
10,226
7
81
Originally posted by: Bonesdad
lose the floppy and put the $10 somewhere else...who really needs a floppy anymore?
Click to expand...

I do and a floppy comes in handy often. I suggest spending the $10 on a floppy. I have ran into plenty of people who are having problems with their PC and then I reccomend something for them to do and then they say they can't because they don't have a floppy.

Spend the $10 on a floppy evene if you barely ecver use it. It may come in handy one day.
 
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TimboAA

Member
Feb 15, 2004
118
0
0
Thanks mike. The person I'm building it for does want a floppy, the reason for this I believe is because he still plays old games...and when I mean old games...I mean Pre-Windows 95. So He may want to transfer saved game files back and forth between computers for backup or whatever.

That looks like a pretty good combo you got there.
 
M

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
I would also recomend looking at liteon for an optical drive, good quality at a good orice, though they can be a little bit louder in my expirience.
 
F

FuZoR

Diamond Member
Sep 22, 2001
4,422
1
0
i just upgraded

$192.99 Chaintech Geforce 6600 GT PCI-e
$229.99 Kingston 2x512mb DDR2-533
$102.98 Lian-Li PC60 ATX Case
$36.00 Terhmaltake Silent Purepower 420W PS

$220.92 Intel P4 550 3.4GHz , Intel D915PBL, Win XP from intel retailedge

 
C

coejus

Member
Dec 27, 2004
157
0
0
Originally posted by: miketheidiot
chaintech mobo $76.00
2800+ $129.00
Antec case w/o psu $59.00
Fortron 350 watt $42.49
Mushkin 2x512 $130.00
Samsung 120GB Hardrive $77.00
leadtek 6600gt $219.00
panaflow 120mm fan $14.49x2

Shipping & Handling: $ 41.37
Total (Before tax): $672.84

then you just need to find a floppy (waste of money) and an optical drive
Click to expand...

BG Micro sells 80mm Panaflos for $3.19 each. It's $2 and change if you get more than 10.

Edit: Link To tail these, just cut off the little plastic part on the red wire's side of the connector, and it'll plug straight into a 3-pin motherboard header.
 
E

Excelsior

Lifer
May 30, 2002
19,047
18
81
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: Amol
gaming . . . . ALWAYS go with an athlon64

and if you're looking for a 6600GT, PCI-E is cheaper than AGP
Click to expand...

6600! can't you read, he does not play fps and 6600 costs as much as his whole budget!
 
A

amol

Lifer
Jul 8, 2001
11,680
3
81
Originally posted by: Googer
Originally posted by: Amol
gaming . . . . ALWAYS go with an athlon64

and if you're looking for a 6600GT, PCI-E is cheaper than AGP
Click to expand...

6600! can't you read, he does not play fps and 6600 costs as much as his whole budget!
Click to expand...

what ya expect me to read all that??
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: Amol
Originally posted by: Googer
Originally posted by: Amol
gaming . . . . ALWAYS go with an athlon64

and if you're looking for a 6600GT, PCI-E is cheaper than AGP
Click to expand...

6600! can't you read, he does not play fps and 6600 costs as much as his whole budget!
Click to expand...

what ya expect me to read all that??
Click to expand...



Haa ha!



Believe it or not there are other GFX cards out there other than 6600/x700-x800 that can play games! Try somthing that is $125 or less (geForce 6200)
I can easily play Medal of Honor (all) using intergrated Graphics (i815) and get 45-100fps @svga 800x600. With that in mind I would recomend somthing like an ATI or Nvidia chipset.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: dguy6789
Socket 754 with Athlon 64 2800+ is THE way to go for a budget, period.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%, but all that is avalable right now for 754 is AGP, PCI-e may or may never make it to 754. The problem with is that AGP cards are MORE expensive than their PCI-e counterparts and are getting hard to find in high speed versions. Unless you love fx5x00 and I don't know many who do, get a current gen 754 because PCI-e is strictly a 939 and Celeron Specialty.
 
D

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
Are the 6800 Ultra and GT agp versions that hard to find nowadays? Because if he plays games that are a few years old anyway, if he had like a 9800 pro now, by the time he played games that pushed it, he could get a 6800gt or so off ebay or the fs/ft forums for ~$100.

The $$$ you save on the motherboards for socket 754 is too much to pass up imo. Were talkin sub $50 boards sometimes, that are still quite good. Gigabyte and Chaintech make some completely killer nf3 250 boards for the 50-60 price range.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Still, a plain old non gt non ultra with lower clock speed is about $112-125 for PCI-e agp cards cost more and offer less performance, so making them more expensive (price/performance rato) and they wont last as long and reduce his ROI (return on investment). This is the kind of stuff the enterprise market is all about (ROI).

If I am not mistaken he and you are concerned about ROI? Aren't you?
 
meltdown75

meltdown75

Lifer
Nov 17, 2004
37,548
7
81
If you want to save even more $ you could even pick up an nforce2 board. i can't complain about the system I built, I love it. I had to envoke so many budget limitations and really wanted to splurge but I just didn't do it. built specifically for HL2 and runs so great @ 1024x768, medium settings.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Go with 939, the differance between 939 and 754 is $22 on newegg.com and motherboard prices for the two chips are almost identical. SKT 939 will provide him a better ROI than 754.

Here are some of the bargains I have found

Video Card $112 GeFORCE 6600- (FX5700 AGP is the same price with less performance and no future upgradeablity.)
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-170-084&depa=1

Motherboard 939 -$129 -with nforce4 PCI-e x16
http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=13-152-049&depa=1


RAM- Crucial.com 512mb x1- no dual channel because, too much$$$ and the 754 option you were going with only offerd single channel so here you wont be missing anything. You can always add more later when the price comes down.
http://www.crucial.com/store/P...CT6464Z40B&cat=RAM

CASE
$54 one day sale with a big 350w PSU
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=11-129-122&depa=1

option #2
$57
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=11-129-149&depa=1

Hard Drive $63 8mb Cache 7200rpm 80gb Maxtor
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=22-144-205&depa=1

Total Cost $538 with the PCI-e Motherboard excluding windows home.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Originally posted by: meltdown75
If you want to save even more $ you could even pick up an nforce2 board. i can't complain about the system I built, I love it. I had to envoke so many budget limitations and really wanted to splurge but I just didn't do it. built specifically for HL2 and runs so great @ 1024x768, medium settings.
Click to expand...


NF2 at this point has a poor ROI.
 
Googer

Googer

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
12,576
7
81
Remeber always SHOP AROUND. Only a fool would purchase from one single retailer with out shoping around.

i forogot the optical drive you can get a sony 52-32-52 cdrw for around 30 bucks, and no games at this point are on DVD so little need for it right now. CD's have enough space for most uses.
 
H

housecat

Banned
Oct 20, 2004
1,426
0
0
Originally posted by: Googer
Go with 939, the differance between 939 and 754 is $22 on newegg.com and motherboard prices for the two chips are almost identical. SKT 939 will provide him a better ROI than 754.

Here are some of the bargains I have found

Video Card $112 GeFORCE 6600- (FX5700 AGP is the same price with less performance and no future upgradeablity.)
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-170-084&depa=1

Motherboard 939 -$129 -with nforce4 PCI-e x16
http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=13-152-049&depa=1


RAM- Crucial.com 512mb x1- no dual channel because, too much$$$ and the 754 option you were going with only offerd single channel so here you wont be missing anything. You can always add more later when the price comes down.
http://www.crucial.com/store/P...CT6464Z40B&cat=RAM

CASE
$54 one day sale with a big 350w PSU
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=11-129-122&depa=1

option #2
$57
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=11-129-149&depa=1

Hard Drive $63 8mb Cache 7200rpm 80gb Maxtor
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=22-144-205&depa=1

Total Cost $538 with the PCI-e Motherboard excluding windows home.
Click to expand...

 
T

TimboAA

Member
Feb 15, 2004
118
0
0
Hey, so I finally ordered everything. It came to $755 shipped. I went with this particular setup because of the type of user he is. He isn't the type to upgrade unless something isn't working, he probably won't get around to playing HL2 or anything else like that for atleast a year and isn't much of a FPS gamer. So since he does mostly strategy and RPG games I didn't think he would the most powerful video card. With that said, that is also the reason I opted not to go with a MB that had PCI-Express. It wasn't worth the extra $40 in the mb and cpu to do that since he won't upgrade anyway. One thing I wasn't happy with was that because I went with the s754 Athlon, I didn't get dual channel memory support. Since he'll be coming from a 1ghz computer, I don't think it'll matter to him.


Case: Rosewill Black ATX Mid Tower Case with 400W Power Supply, Model "R114A Black" -RETAIL $49


MB: EPoX "EP-8KDA3J" nForce3-250Gb Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL $69


CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail $146


RAM: Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail $137


Video Card:
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600PRO Video Card, 256MB DDR, 128-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "100562L" -Retail $111


Optical Drives: Sony Black 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive, Model CRX320E Black, OEM $40

Sony Internal 16X DVD+/-RW / Double Layer Drive Black, Model DW-D22A-B2, OEM $62


HDD: Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, MODEL 6Y080M0, OEM Drive Only $68


Input devices: Lite-On black/silver keyboard $5.25


Logitech optical wheel mouse $9

Other: Coolmax Aluminum 80mm filter $3



About $707 total before shipping costs and this system should work very nicely for him.

Thanks for all of your help guys. I did have a couple of conversations with him prior to ordering this setup to figure out if he is the type that upgrades or what... And after talking with him...he's not going to OC, nor open his case unless its to dust the thing out or replace something...but if something needs to be replaced, I'll be the one that does it.
 
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