Help me build cheap system please!

[MegaVovaN]

Hello all!
I got rusty building computers (last one I built was when socket 939 was new), and budget is tight. A friend asked me to build him a computer. He said $500-600, but I can probably get him to agree on $700.

Here's what I need to buy:
-cpu
-ram
-mobo
-video card (middle end gaming card - 7600GS maybe?...)
-case with PSU

Here's what I have:
-kb/mouse/monitor (CRT one with VGA jack, plan to upgrade later to 22" LCD)
-two IDE HDDs
-two IDE DVD Drives


I am thinking about Intel Core Duo 2? Everyone seems to build Intel these days.
I am in USA, and would like to order stuff from 'egg.

Thank you very much!

cliffs:
1. $600
2. light gaming (CS:Source) No Overclocking
3. have IDE optical/hard drives/ CRTmonitor/mouse+kb
4. rusty builder
5. NO profit this time.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
I am thinking about Intel Core Duo 2? Everyone seems to build Intel these days.

They do indeed, and that's because they have the best processors by a considerable margin these days.

But.

For that money a C2D will be severely bottlenecked by other components - I personally would go with a mid range AM2 setup and spend the savings on a graphics card and memory.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Could you please tell approximate set-up with AM2? And how much would a non-bottlenecked C2D system would cost?

 

[F1N3ST]

Well a E4300, a 945 or 965 chipset board, a decewnt used video card, 1-2GB of dual-channel RAM

Shop around in the for sale/trade and buy parts used for a lot cheaper.

 

[moosey]

With all those IDE devices, I think anything on the P965 chipset would be ruled out b/c most have only 1 IDE connector on the board.

Is buying one from a place like Dell out of the question?

 

[moosey]

After looking, you could maybe swing something like this...
Biostar MB $105
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138037
Antec Case w/ PSU $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129155
C2D Allendale $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115013
1GB Corsair RAM $90 (chose 1 stick incase he will upgrade in the future with another to get dual channel)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146580
or Geil
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144038
200GB SATA HDD (will free up an IDE device) $63
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144416
TOTAL is $538

Can get a 7600GT for $95 after rebate (should be fine for CS)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062
The 7600GS is about the same price so I don't see a reason not to go with this...

TOTAL: $633

Note: just make sure he knows about the one IDE channel and see what he wants to do with his drives.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Thanks moosey, I'll check your build out; what do you mean, to buy from Dell? A pre-built PC? Then yeah, out of question, we hate pre-built. If parts, why not? We live in Houston - there are definitely couple Dell outlets here.

His IDE devices, he can connect via PCI card.
Used parts - after I tell him whats the price advantage, he may agree with it

 

[tcG]

Moosey's build looks good, but I would spent the extra $50 on 2GB of RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820134384

 

[moosey]

Originally posted by: tcG
Moosey's build looks good, but I would spent the extra $50 on 2GB of RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820134384

I agree as well, now that he'll be using a PCI card and won't need the SATA HDD.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Good suggestion, too

BTW - noob question - what is the difference b/w c2d 4300 and 6300?

 

[moosey]

The e4300 runs at an 800FSB with a multi of x9. The e6300 runs at 1066FSB with multi x7.

 

[BladeVenom]

To save a few bucks I'd probably get a cheaper case.

If you're not building right away and just looking for ideas, the E4300 is going to get a $50 price drop next quarter.

 

[MegaVovaN]

I am building right away

For cases, how would I know which PSU that comes with cheaper case, will be enought to power video card, 2x HDD, 2x DVD drives?

 

[xwgpx55]

IDE is pointless, especially if you want to go C2D -- There are no boards out there that support C2D and have a ton of IDE ports that I know of. Everything is SATA now-a-days.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: xwgpx55
IDE is pointless, especially if you want to go C2D -- There are no boards out there that support C2D and have a ton of IDE ports that I know of. Everything is SATA now-a-days.

he has all that IDE gear already. what do I do, throw it away? will use IDE card for now...then maybe buy SATA DVD and HDD

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
I am building right away

For cases, how would I know which PSU that comes with cheaper case, will be enough to power video card, 2x HDD, 2x DVD drives?

If you buy a cheap case, you might want to buy the power supply separately.

 

[moosey]

If you're looking for a cheaper case, to get a decent PSU and keep you in price range, you're looking at spending at least $40 for the PSU alone, if you need to keep new case costs in mind.
400W FSP
450W FSP (antec case has 450W included)
400W Sparkle

 

[magreen]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
cliffs:
1. $600
2. light gaming (CS:Source) No Overclocking
3. have IDE optical/hard drives/ CRTmonitor/mouse+kb
4. rusty builder
5. NO profit this time.

I don't mean to be pushy, but overclocking with Core 2 Duo isn't like what you might remember. Intel made these chips underclocked at stock, imho, in order to have them beat the AMD Athlon X2 on power consumption and speed at the same time. That's why there's such a ridiculous amount of headroom to overclock them... a 1.86 GHz chip consistently doing 3.5 GHz on air cooling (88% overclock), and 3 GHz on the stock cooler?! No manufacturer ever created a product with that much headroom just to have a margin of safety. There never was an E6300 chip that wouldn't do 2.8 GHz stable on the stock cooler. Meaning Intel could have packaged it as a 2.33 GHz chip with 333 FSB, with plenty of margin of error up to 2.8 GHZ, if they weren't trying to beat out AMD on power consumption also.

So imho, running an E6300 at "stock" at 1.86 is underclocking it and not getting your money's worth. Running it at 2.33 is stock, and the easiest overclock to achieve imaginable. And above 2.33 is overclocking. Same goes for the other Core 2 Duos also (different numbers).

Just my two cents.

 

[DEredita]

I recently configured a system on Dell:

Dimension E521
Date & Time: February 01,2007 11:06 PM CST
Catalog Number: 23 R4801F3

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+
Microsoft Windows Vista? Home Premium
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache?
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
56K PCI Data Fax Modem
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Adobe(r) Acrobat(r) Reader 7.0
1Yr Ltd Warranty and At-Home Service
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sub-total: $786.24
Free Shipping

 

[engiNURD]

How about this?

$163 - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache
$105 - Biostar TForce965PT LGA 775 Intel P965 Express
$185 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
$100 - eVGA 256-P2-N550-T2 GeForce 7600GT 256MB ($120 - $20MIR)
$38 - XClio 450BL ATX 450W
$11 - Rosewill RC-200 PCI IDE Silicon Image RAID (0/1/0+1) Host Controller Card
$10 - Ultra Wizard Black Mid Tower Case ($40 - $40MIR + ~$10 shipping)
===========
$672 + tax and shipping - $60MIRs = ~$700 (depending on tax and shipping)

You could also go with the P5N-E SLI board instead, which supports 4 IDE devices. But that route would be mor expensive: $140 - Asus P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI

 

[MegaVovaN]

Thanks for suggestions! I combined them, and this is what I plan on getting:
(won't buy a SATA HDD, will use old HDDs)

$90 - 7600GT (110-20MIR)
$185 - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
$140 - ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI
$38 - XClio 450BL ATX 450W Power Supply
Four items above, shipped, no tax in TX: $462.70 ($482.70-$20 MIR on video card)
(shipped price) $167 - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache

I will let my friend choose a case without power supply for the remaining money. Or, if he chooses case with decent PSU, this total will be $46.47 cheaper.
==============
$630 TOTAL shipped (no taxes here) w/o case

That leaves him $70 (incl. shipping) to choose a case without PSU or about $120 (incl. shipping) to choose case with PSU.
_____________________________________________

What you guys think?




edit: in case E4300 won't work with Asus board (nVidia chipset), the shipped price for E6300 is $187, $20 more.

 

[moosey]

Don't know how big you are on rebates but check this Corsair

Also, if you still needed to shave a few bucks, the S3 is a good choice (since it seems you didn't like the Biostar). Either way, the Asus you chose will be fine too.

Good luck

 

[MegaVovaN]

moosey - I don't really badly need to shave few bucks - it isn't my money Budget is extended to $700.

I have nothing against Biostar. I chose Asus because it has enough IDE ports (friend has 2 IDE DVD burners and 2 IDE hard drives), has onboard firewire, and is SLI compatible When DX10 cards will come out, he'll be able to buy 7600GT for dirt cheap and add a little boost to his PC For same reason (IDE ports) I don't want S3. And I don't want to run both HDDs off PCI...

For Corsair, rebate only applies if I buy stuff today or tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I'll buy tomorrow. I thought something like on weekend...

 

[moosey]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
moosey - I don't really badly need to shave few bucks - it isn't my money Budget is extended to $700.

I have nothing against Biostar. I chose Asus because it has enough IDE ports (friend has 2 IDE DVD burners and 2 IDE hard drives), has onboard firewire, and is SLI compatible When DX10 cards will come out, he'll be able to buy 7600GT for dirt cheap and add a little boost to his PC For same reason (IDE ports) I don't want S3. And I don't want to run both HDDs off PCI...

For Corsair, rebate only applies if I buy stuff today or tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I'll buy tomorrow. I thought something like on weekend...

Cool, just didn't know how the budget was. Good reason for the Asus then also.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Yeah, and I save like $15 by not buying PCI card for IDE.


A question. Will E4300 work on that Asus motherboard? mobo's specs are:
FSB 1333/1066MHz

And E4300 has only 800FSB...do I overclock E4300 to 1066mhz? Or is there something I don't understand?


EDIT: According to H Enthuasist, it does support 800mhz! Woot!