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Is this OK for a budget build?

W

WildHorse

Diamond Member
This will be for a young sort-of-relative on a budget. They’re not hardcore, just for general home email, web and maybe light school work by their young kids (too young to be gamers). They have a wired cable modem, no wireless necessary:

 1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
General home use, email, web surf, light school work.
​
2. What YOUR budget is.
For a young family on tight budget.
​
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
California edge of USA.
​
4. IF YOU have a brand preference.
Intel cpu
​
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Will re-use power supply, hard drive(s), monitor ,mouse , speaker
​
Need to buy Case, Motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, DVD±RW drive, keyboard
​
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Yes.
​
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
No OC, will run defaults.
​
8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
I don’t know. They’ll just use stock settings, say maybe 1280 X 720 (is a guess).
​
9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
I plan to visit them and build with them by mid-November.
​
HOW WOULD YOU REDUCE THIS, IF AT ALL?

CASE TBD, est $100
PSU Reuse FSP Group (Fortron Source) FX700-GLN ATX12V V2.2/EPS12V 700W, Newegg Item N82E16817104015, $0
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 Z68 mATX, $100
CPU Intel Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed, $180
RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws, 8GB (whichever model matches the mobo), est $80
Hard Drives & SATA cables Reuse, $0
DVD±RW drive TBD, est $30
GPU SAPPHIRE 100314-3L Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 Newegg Item N82E16814102948, $180
Monitor Reuse Asus VW226T-TAA 22" 1680x1050 WideScreen LCD with Built-in Speakers 50000 :1 250 cd/m2, Newegg Item N82E16824236096, $0
Keyboard TBD, est $75
Mouse Reuse Logitech MX 518, $0
OS MS Windows 7 Home, $120
Other MS Office Home & Student, $150
Tax est $91

TOTAL $1,096

P.S., is there some Anandtech secret for posting a formatted table so columns align?
 
A budget build for general home use, you say? And you're estimating the cost at $1100, even with all the reused components? That's a serious incompatibility... In short, you could easily get away with $300-400.

Example:
case $40
mobo $60
cpu $70
ram $40
dvd $20
windows $100
keyboard $20
gpu - integrated
ms office not necessary (use open office)

total = $350 before tax+shipping

I don’t know. They’ll just use stock settings, say maybe 1280 X 720 (is a guess).
Click to expand...
Monitor Reuse Asus VW226T-TAA 22" 1680x1050 WideScreen LCD with Built-in Speakers 50000 :1 250 cd/m2, Newegg Item N82E16824236096, $0
Click to expand...
 
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Well, since we're not looking at a gaming rig, you can immediately drop the graphics card - we'll be sticking with an integrated solution.

I'm not sure why you picked the i5-2500k... but you can cut CPU cost almost in half by going with the i3-2100 instead, or maybe even go with a Sandy Bridge Pentium, like the G620 for $73?

Here's a DVD burner for $20.

8GB DDR3 memory will only cost you $42.

I don't have any particular keyboard to recommend, but a basic one shouldn't cost $75.
$12 example

$35 Rosewill mATX case.
 
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What you specced out, OP, is basically a gaming rig, yet you say no games. Are you secretly hoping to build a gaming rig so that when you visit, you can play games on it, all the while building it on their budget, not yours?
 
VirtualLarry said:
What you specced out, OP, is basically a gaming rig, yet you say no games. Are you secretly hoping to build a gaming rig so that when you visit, you can play games on it, all the while building it on their budget, not yours?
Click to expand...

No, they're 400 miles away. I was thinking I'd help spec it out, and drive up there to help put it together in mid-November.
 
Jeez $1100 for a internet/office machine. Now that's overkill. For machines like this I would hardly even recommend building a machine from scratch. You are better off getting a basic $300 Dell/HP/Whatever PC because then they will at least have warranty, and you won't be on the hook for support.
 
WildHorse said:
No, they're 400 miles away. I was thinking I'd help spec it out, and drive up there to help put it together in mid-November.
Click to expand...

Well, your heart is in the right place, but would you really want to make another 400 mile trip every time they have hardware problems? For this situation, I would definitely buy, rather than build.

Btw, that machine at OM is in the weekly flyer.
 
dpodblood said:
Jeez $1100 for a internet/office machine. Now that's overkill. For machines like this I would hardly even recommend building a machine from scratch. You are better off getting a basic $300 Dell/HP/Whatever PC because then they will at least have warranty, and you won't be on the hook for support.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: To this. They certainly don't need a $1100 machine for office tasks. If you want to get them something reliable and reasonably priced, consider a refurbished Optiplex from the Dell Outlet.

For example, You can get an Optiplex 990 with an i3 2100, 4GB of RAM, RAID 1-able HDDs, Windows 7, and a 3-year NBD business-grade warranty for less than $500.
 
mfenn said:
:thumbsup: To this. They certainly don't need a $1100 machine for office tasks. If you want to get them something reliable and reasonably priced, consider a refurbished Optiplex from the Dell Outlet.

For example, You can get an Optiplex 990 with an i3 2100, 4GB of RAM, RAID 1-able HDDs, Windows 7, and a 3-year NBD business-grade warranty for less than $500.
Click to expand...

VirtualLarry said:
Well, your heart is in the right place, but would you really want to make another 400 mile trip every time they have hardware problems? For this situation, I would definitely buy, rather than build.

Btw, that machine at OM is in the weekly flyer.
Click to expand...

Thank you both!

The used Dell is a great idea. Maybe I'll look at that, and also the build suggested in the other thread by LOL_Wut_Axel, "Budget System Builders: $400 Gaming PC "
 
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