Originally posted by: minch
Which parts should I include in the system?
Should I go AMD or Intel?
There are so many different chipsets out there, I am utterly confused.
I've tried ordering parts for a nForce2 system, and each time, I am at $800 without monitor and speakers. Am I striving for too much?
With a budget, go for AMD, though that's a large enough budget you can do Intel if you like.
For that budget, I'd build (all prices including shipping found on
PriceWatch, not going to link each one separately, it's easy to use):
Generic case, any sort ~$30
Antec True Power 330W PSU $58
Decent HSF for OEM processor $20
Leadtek WinFast K7NCR18D-Pro nForce2 mobo $113
Sound included
LAN included
2x 256M PC2700 DDR sticks $96
Athlon XP 2000+ $71
WD800JB 80GB HD $107
16X DVD drive $35
GF4 Ti4200 64MB $109
Whatever mouse/keyboard $30
Obviously you could spend more (or less) on any of the above, depending on your needs. But that's $669 shipped and gives you plenty of headroom for a solid monitor and very nice speakers (even a lower-end 5.1 set).
I should really ask, though, what are you planning on doing with this PC? That makes a big diff on choice of items. For DVD-watching, I'd get a cheaper HD and spend more on the speakers and monitor. For just plain office type use you could get away with only spending $500 including monitor/speakers and just dropping everything down a few notches. For video editing I'd add a second WD800JB and a Promise IDE RAID card for a RAID0 array. The above is a gaming-optimized list, since as a gamer that's what I look for in building a PC. Of course, for real gaming, I'd spend extra on the mouse/keyboard and add joystick to the list, but you get the idea.
The current system I'm building I've given myself a $2500 budget on, and basically can get top of the line everything (including Z-680's, an MX700, a 3.06Ghz P4, waiting for the first GeforceFX to become available to build it... hell, I'm even throwing in a 15K.3 SCSI drive; what can I say, I want to blow my LAN peeps away
), so $1000 is plenty to get some very solid stuff.
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