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Does this system look good?

M

Marmot

Junior Member
I'm trying to get the best system for $900. Mainly for watching movies, browsing the internet, music, photos, and general school work (engineering). I have my own mouse and speakers. I have no desire to use Vista.
Should the optical drive be sufficient to rip and burn DVD copies, or do I need dual drives?

PROCESSOR AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
MEMORY 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
HARD DRIVE Free Upgrade!320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD+/-RW Drive
MONITOR 19 inch Ultrasharp? 1907FP Digital Flat Panel
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE TurboCache
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

I've had good service with Dell, so I dropped the warranty to 1 year. It comes to $889 before taxes.

The whole setupid needs to last 2 years until I graduate. I doubt I'll need to upgrade anything. Maybe the RAM later on....
 
General HW seems to be the correct forum. I've built my fair share of systems and I've saved a lot of money doing it. I also know when to have someone else do it. I need to do this cheap and for a basic cheap setup, it's hard to beat the value of a prebuilt.
I don't need any elitist attitude.
 
Originally posted by: Marmot
General HW seems to be the correct forum. I've built my fair share of systems and I've saved a lot of money doing it. I also know when to have someone else do it. I need to do this cheap and for a basic cheap setup, it's hard to beat the value of a prebuilt.
I don't need any elitist attitude.
Click to expand...

i agree, this isn't an enthusiast-only forum.

OP, i think you can make a system cheaper and better. all these prices are from newegg:

Motherboard: Gigabyte DS3 - $135
CPU: E6300 - $188
RAM: G.SKILL DDR2-800 w/heat spreaders 2x1gb (let's see dell do that 😛) - $205
HDD: Western Digital 7200RPM 16mb cache (250GB - $75, 320 - $90)...or Seagate 7200.10 for $5 more.
GPU: BFT 7600GT (factory overclocked) $90AR
Optical: i'm not good with these but let's say $30
OS: XP Home
Monitor: 19"...i saw a couple good viewsonics and some other monitors at $170AR or less.
Case: your preference but Antec's are the only ones i know of that come with decent PSU (remember, you're comparing to dell's PSU), and there were several under $60
Total: $1060 (with 320GB Seagate drive)

i'm not sure how strict you are to keeping your $900 budget but if you've got some flexibility, i think this looks fine. otherwise, you're getting a (much) better graphics card and twice as much FASTER ram. it'll be real easy to drop down in price:

save $20 going with WD 250gb hard drive
switch to AMD (i'm not too familiar with good AMD boards so that's why i didn't go that route..with a $135 motherboard, you save $20 going to a 4200x2, $50 to a 3800x2)
drop down to 1gb of ram (save $100+)

just the HDD and ram (especially if u go with DDR2-667 value ram) you'll be back to just over $900...still better/faster parts, and you know they're reliable
 
If your going to buy rather than build, Dell is a super place to buy. And their new AMD line is the best vavue. That seems like a good mid range system. Make sure you check both Home and Business to get the best buy.


Lou
 
Go with Intel over AMD. Also, build it yourself to get better parts:

$190 - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache
$205 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
$108 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
$156 - eVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB ($176 - $20MIR)
$80 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$32 - Samsung 18X DVD±R w/LightScribe SH-S182M/BEBN
$40 - Cooler Master Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black ATX Case ($50 - $10MIR)
$50 - Antec Neo HE 550W ($80 - $30MIR)
=========
$860 + tax and shipping (after rebates)

D'oh! I forgot, you probably need windows, huh? If so, drop to 1GB of ram, and pickup XP MCE:
$110 - G.Skill 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-1GBNQ
$110 - Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 w/SP2B w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista
$875 + tax and shipping (after rebates)
 
Originally posted by: engiNURD
Go with Intel over AMD. Also, build it yourself to get better parts:

$190 - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache
$205 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
$108 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
$156 - eVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB ($176 - $20MIR)
$80 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$32 - Samsung 18X DVD±R w/LightScribe SH-S182M/BEBN
$40 - Cooler Master Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black ATX Case ($50 - $10MIR)
$50 - Antec Neo HE 550W ($80 - $30MIR)
=========
$860 + tax and shipping (after rebates)

D'oh! I forgot, you probably need windows, huh? If so, drop to 1GB of ram, and pickup XP MCE:
$110 - G.Skill 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-1GBNQ
$110 - Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 w/SP2B w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista
$875 + tax and shipping (after rebates)
Click to expand...

not seeing a monitor in there?
 
Oh yah, a monitor, haha... stick with the dell, then. But for $200AR, you could get a nice 20" widescreen instead of a 1907fp. Hm... best system for $900 including monitor... so thats a $700 system then... lets see...

$200 - Sceptre X20WG-Naga Black 20.1" 5ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD ($240 - $40MIR)
$190 - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache
$110 - G.Skill 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-1GBNQ
$108 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
$110 - eVGA 256-P2-N615 Geforce 7600GT 256MB ($130 - $20MIR)
$80 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$32 - Samsung 18X DVD±R w/LightScribe SH-S182M/BEBN
$40 - Cooler Master Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black ATX Case ($50 - $10MIR)
$50 - Antec Neo HE 550W ($80 - $30MIR)
=========
$920 + tax and shipping (after rebates)

Damn, I forgot windows again, lol... o wellz, stick with the dell, haha!
 
Originally posted by: engiNURD
Oh yah, a monitor, haha... stick with the dell, then. But for $200AR, you could get a nice 20" widescreen instead of a 1907fp. Hm... best system for $900 including monitor... so thats a $700 system then... lets see...

$200 - Sceptre X20WG-Naga Black 20.1" 5ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD ($240 - $40MIR)
$188 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz 2MB L2 Cache
$110 - G.Skill 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-1GBNQ
$108 - Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express
$90 - BFG 256-P2-N615 Geforce 7600GT 256MB ($110 - $20MIR)
$80 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$32 - Samsung 18X DVD±R w/LightScribe SH-S182M/BEBN
$40 - Cooler Master Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP Black ATX Case ($50 - $10MIR)
$50 - Antec Neo HE 550W ($80 - $30MIR)
=========
$920 + tax and shipping (after rebates)

Damn, I forgot windows again, lol... o wellz, stick with the dell, haha!
Click to expand...

i'll edit this to get cheaper parts for windows...and engiNURD, why are you so fixed on recommending the E4300? it's worse than the E6300 and more expensive. you lose 60MHz, have a slower bus speed, and lack Virtualization Technology Support.


ok i've done some looking...unless you pay $950, the dell is a good option
 
that dell is ok, I would check some retailers too, they're getting rid of xp machines to make room for vista. saw this gateway at bb, you can upgrade to a 19" monitor for $30 and get a better video card than the 7300le and stay within budget, with a core 2 duo. just don't buy the video card from bb.
 
Originally posted by: SuperFreaky
wrong place... we build are own systems here 🙂
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself. 😉

OP, you can get a MUCH better deal. Go to ebay and look for an E521. Or even an E520. Buy the LCD separately.
 
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