Help me build a $500 box w/ newegg

[aircooled]

Need to build a $500 or less mild gaming box by placing a single order from newegg. What do you suggest?

edit: no refurb parts (I've learned my lesson)

 

[newbiepcuser]

AMD or Intel
Including OS
Mild gaming: what kind of games?
any specific components: burner, amount of RAM?
just bare minimum: no modem, no speakers, etc?

 

[dakels]

what about Dell deals? You can get a complete P4 2.4ghz machine for $450 A/R. That will be hard to do with newegg or anyone else for that matter.

Staples has a Athlon 2000+ deal for $320.

Is there any particular reason you want to build you own? If you want the best bang for your $500, I think the Dell deal is better.

If you want to build your own then you can put together a decent Athlon system at newegg.

You should state if you want a decent video card for gaming though because that can completely make or break your budget. Also what sort of optical drive youwant like DVD or CDRW or both. How much case expansion. I assume you don't need a monitor? That will severly limit your budget too.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: dakels
what about Dell deals? You can get a complete P4 2.4ghz machine for $450 A/R. That will be hard to do with newegg or anyone else for that matter.

Staples has a Athlon 2000+ deal for $320.

Is there any particular reason you want to build you own? If you want the best bang for your $500, I think the Dell deal is better.

If you want to build your own then you can put together a decent Athlon system at newegg.

You should state if you want a decent video card for gaming though because that can completely make or break your budget. Also what sort of optical drive youwant like DVD or CDRW or both. How much case expansion. I assume you don't need a monitor? That will severly limit your budget too.

is the video on that dell any good? or is it integrated intel?

personally i'd go with a k7s5a, (probably, i've never used it, but i dont know of other decent cheap mobos), a sub $100 athlon, and an ati video card (dunno which one, i'm not a gamer )

 

[human2k]

motherboard= Epox 8RDA $99 (tcwo.com has the 8RDA+ w/soundstorm for $108 shipped free)
cpu= Athlon XP2100 tbred B $100
HS=SK6 w/sunon 80mm 46CFM $25
RAM-samsung pc2700 256mb $64
video card= radeon 8500LE 64mb $72
sound-onboard
hard drive-WD 40gb 7.2krpm $80 (dell is doing 10% off all storage device, check them out)
dvd or cd-rw- $45

winXP pro kazaa = $0

total = $485

tbred b should give you atleast Athlon XP 2600 speeds in overclocking.....

 

[dakels]

The dell package comes with a 64MB DDR NVIDIA­ GeForce4 MX? Graphics Card with TV-Out

you can add a R9700 TX, which I plan to do, for $140-160 (depending on package you select)

CHANGE THAT. The Dell deal just expired today I believe. Another will come up again soon though. They always do. Keep checking the Hot Deals forum and also this site.

 

[dakels]

Originally posted by: human2k
motherboard= Epox 8RDA $99 (tcwo.com has the 8RDA+ w/soundstorm for $108 shipped free)
cpu= Athlon XP2100 tbred B $100
HS=SK6 w/sunon 80mm 46CFM $25
RAM-samsung pc2700 256mb $64
video card= radeon 8500LE 64mb $72
sound-onboard
hard drive-WD 40gb 7.2krpm $80 (dell is doing 10% off all storage device, check them out)
dvd or cd-rw- $45

winXP pro kazaa = $0

total = $485

tbred b should give you atleast Athlon XP 2600 speeds in overclocking.....

I don't see a case You can get a decent one w/PSU for about $70-100.

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: newbiepcuser
AMD or Intel
Including OS
Mild gaming: what kind of games?
any specific components: burner, amount of RAM?
just bare minimum: no modem, no speakers, etc?

No preference in processor brand.
No OS needed
No modem or speakers needed.

what about Dell deals? You can get a complete P4 2.4ghz machine for $450 A/R. That will be hard to do with newegg or anyone else for that matter.

Staples has a Athlon 2000+ deal for $320.

Is there any particular reason you want to build you own? If you want the best bang for your $500, I think the Dell deal is better.

If you want to build your own then you can put together a decent Athlon system at newegg.

You should state if you want a decent video card for gaming though because that can completely make or break your budget. Also what sort of optical drive youwant like DVD or CDRW or both. How much case expansion. I assume you don't need a monitor? That will severly limit your budget too.

Would rather have a component built system for future upgrades. No DVD/CDRW needed as this is just a secondary kids computer. The primary household computer already has a DVD burner and CDR drive.

Warcraft III is played the most on the computer but also a few FPS, but mostly RTS.

 

[dakels]

An Nforce board can run WC3. human2k's recommendation looks good to me though but you can switch to an Nforce chipset and forego the Radeon if you wanted but the R8500 would be better especially considering you will have 256mb RAM.

 

[ultimatebob]

Do you need a keyboard, mouse, monitor, or OS? If not, this system might work for you...


Shuttle SS50 Barebone XPC (Integrated Ethernet, Video, Audio, and LAN): $249
AOPEN CD-956 56X CDROM $22
Seagate 40GB 7200rpm EIDE Hard Drive $78
MICRON/MICRON ORIGINAL 256MB 16X8 PC2100 DDR RAM $50
Intel Celeron (Pentium 4 based) 1.7GHz 128K 400MHz $54
Aopen Geforce4 MX440SE 64MB DDR with TV-Out $59

Total $512

If you don't like the idea of an XPC, you could just get a normal ATX motherboard with integrated components and a cheap case for about $100 less. You could then put that money in a better CPU, memory, or video card.

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Do you need a keyboard, mouse, monitor, or OS? If not, this system might work for you...


Shuttle SS50 Barebone XPC (Integrated Ethernet, Video, Audio, and LAN): $249
AOPEN CD-956 56X CDROM $22
Seagate 40GB 7200rpm EIDE Hard Drive $78
MICRON/MICRON ORIGINAL 256MB 16X8 PC2100 DDR RAM $50
Intel Celeron (Pentium 4 based) 1.7GHz 128K 400MHz $54
Aopen Geforce4 MX440SE 64MB DDR with TV-Out $59

Total $512

If you don't like the idea of an XPC, you could just get a normal ATX motherboard with integrated components and a cheap case for about $100 less. You could then put that money in a better CPU, memory, or video card.

No keyboard, mouse, monitor or OS needed...

Probably need to stick with a standard ATX setup for this one.

Thanks for the replies.. I'm on newegg pricing it out now...

 

[Markfw]

That Shuttle barebones with Celeron and MX video is terrible bang for the buck. I don't have time right now to price all the components out, but probably a XP1700-XP2000 system with a Radeon 8500le and the other minimum items would get you in the price range with WAY more horsepower.