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Need some advice about large computer purchase!

R

RobTheEnchanter

Junior Member
Okay, here's the deal. I volunteer at a non-profit youth coffeehouse / hangout, and we've recently been awarded a sum of money for new equipment, renovations, etc. From that money, the committee budgeted about $3000 for new computers. We're looking to get as many _good_ computers from this money as we can -- they're going to be used almost solely for gaming. We can either buy the systems pre-built, or buy all the parts separately and put them together ourselves. We're hoping to get at least 7 computers.

So, we have $3000 to work with.

They should be able to run Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Serious Sam, Half-Life, etc smoothly. These will also be networked (we already have the networking gear.)

Ideally, they'll have a PIII or higher CPU, a decent case and ps, 128mb ram, ATA-100/7200rpm 40gb harddrive, a decent soundcard (we'd like to stay away from on-board sound), 32x or higher CDrom (don't need CD-R or CDRW), at least a 32mb video card (PCI or AGP), and either a 10/100 NIC or built-in 10/100 adapter. The problem here is coming up with a good, stable combination of parts that will both last us a while, and not go over our budget (a little is okay). Shipping will have to be figured in too, more than likely. We do _not_ need monitors, which should give us a little more money to work with to make the systems even better.

Please, PLEASE if you can help us come up with a good combination, post it here or email me. The sooner we get these things built, the sooner we can relax. 🙂

Thanks!!

robert moore
 
Well, you should built it yourself, but make sure you got a copy of Ghost close to you 🙂

anyway, you can't go wrong with ECS mobos and the Kyro II. Cheap and good performers.
 
id go with a duron 800mhz processor, geforce2 mx vid card, 256mb crucial DDR ram, EPOX 8KHA mobo, Sony 52x cdrom, as for HD i dont think you will need 40gigs, a 20 gig maxtor should do fine, a Creative Lab Sound Blaster 16 sound card should do good. an ENLIGHT EN-72370X3C4 and a linksys network card.


duron processor 1st one
geforce 2 mx 1st one
Crucial DDR ram 256mb
Epox Mobo 1st one
sony CD-rom 1st one
Maxtor HD 1st one
Sound Blaster 16 1st one
enlight case 4th one
Linksys nic only one

Duron-$39
Geforce-$45
Crucial Ram-$71
Epox mobo-$73
Cd-Rom-$28
HD-$62
Sound-$17
case-$46
Nic-$15
_________

total $396

396*7=$2772

under 3000 but with no shipping.


Im really bored....

Edit change vid card.
 
I like bigfatcows setup...

The only changes i would consider:
-ECS K7S5A mainboard, built-on LAN and sound, easier on the budget $58 -vs- $73+17+15 =save $47 per system
-SDRAM instead of DDR, save a few more dollars that way.
If the budget allows use 256mb rather than 128mb, makes MS operating systems much more forgiving.

Friend just put together an ECS/Duron system for his father last week, runs sweet.

Sounds like a fun project Good Luck!


 
Break Apart's suggestions sound good. I might also suggest using a Seagate Baracuda IV HD instead of the maxtors. The maxtors are pretty loud.
 
uh...if at all possible, AVOID the MX series...definitely get KyroII over MX--mx's are dying out now...they can barely run most of today's games at halfway decent framerates/resolutions.

If u can get a gf2ti or gf2 pro...tho they will run you around 100
 


<< id go with a duron 800mhz processor, geforce2 mx vid card, 256mb crucial DDR ram, EPOX 8KHA mobo, Sony 52x cdrom, as for HD i dont think you will need 40gigs, a 20 gig maxtor should do fine, a Creative Lab Sound Blaster 16 sound card should do good. an ENLIGHT EN-72370X3C4 and a linksys network card.

total $396

396*7=$2772

under 3000 but with no shipping.


Im really bored....

Edit change vid card. >>



Wow! I wasn't expecting such a quick response, much less a response at all! :Q Actually, with shipping, the total comes to around $3000 or barely over. Awesome!

We also budgeted another $1000 for software, which includes 7x copies of Windows 98 (or XP, if all the games would still run under it), plus 7x copies of each game. I think we can get each game (recommendations?) for $25 or less, unless it just came out recently. We should come out with a couple hundred left over from this $1000, so we can probably get the keyboards and mice with that, and maybe a monitor or two.

Thanks a lot guys 🙂

robtheenchanter
 
I wish I had 3,000 dollars. You could build a really nice dual-processor server with that kind of money.

24x CD Burner
16x Pioneer DVD ROM
DVD Burner (one that you see fit as there are many formats out right now)
Alpha 8045 Heatsink
Quiet Panasonic Panaflo M1A x5
Antec SX1040 w/ 400 watt PSU
ATI 8500 or 8900 (when it comes out)
AMD Athlon XP (anyone, probably the 2000+ since you have gobbs of cash!)
EPoX 8KHA+ or 8KHA2 (wait for the 8kha2, it will be much better)
1.5 gigs of crucial ram
120gb IBM Deskstar

EDIT: OOPS I DIDN'T SEE THAT YOU NEEDED 7!!! SORRY, MY BAD!

Look for the 'ol AMD Athlon Thunderbird line or a low Athlon XP line (1500+) ($100)
EPoX 8KHAL ($80)
256mb crucial RAM ($75)
16x LiteOn DVD drive ($60)
ATI Radeon 7500 ($115)
Antec SX650 ($70)

around $500 per pc but this is with GOOD quality components.
Could bump down to $400, but keep quality in mind!!!
e-mail me at slawskcomputers@wi.rr.comfor any other assistance!
 
I would suggest an nforce based motherboard, at $150, it would give you onboard lan, sound, and enough graphics to meet your requirements, then either a duron or cheap athlon, case and hardrive, plus cd, figure about $200 for motherboard (with graphics, lan and sound) / proc, 50$ for a case and a 300watt power supply, 40$ for the cd or dvd, or you could just buy one optical drive and use the network for installs to save money, that leaves you with $150 for ram and hardrive, I would recommend newegg for everything but the ram (to save on shipping costs), and get the memory from crucial and you could probably pull it off for 450$ per machine before tax and shipping (if tax applies), which is within your budget.
 
I like some of the suggestions here, but there's the cheap way to do it.
Check new egg for the prices, i'm not totally sure

Duron 1GHZ or whatever.. for those games you don't need such a powerful CPU. 50$

Shuttle AK31 Kt266A version I assume around 75$

128MB of crucial DDR 45$

GTS-V (Anyone forget about that one? Beats the hell out of an MX *ANY* day with lifetime warranty) 50$

40 gig baracuda ATAIV (Whisper silent!) 100$

I suggest you buy all your cases locally as shipping can get killer if you live a far way away from a local distributor.
Decent CDROM. But my suggestion would just to be just to use virtual drive, buy one CDROM, install copies from network, distribute a .VCD file to all the comptuers. It's not illegal if you buy liscenscesed copies of the game. You save money on CDROMs.

As for sound.. it's really up to you. You could just use an SB-Live value as they go for around 35$.

Generic LAN card. 10$

I assume a decent case is around 40$ locally
Addin 20$ shipping and the total is 430$ per seat. no CDROM, by the way. Use virtudal drive and distribute VCD files over LAN
 


<< I like some of the suggestions here, but there's the cheap way to do it.
....
I suggest you buy all your cases locally as shipping can get killer if you live a far way away from a local distributor.
Decent CDROM. But my suggestion would just to be just to use virtual drive, buy one CDROM, install copies from network, distribute a .VCD file to all the comptuers. It's not illegal if you buy liscenscesed copies of the game. You save money on CDROMs. >>




What about copy protection? Would the virtual cd software be able to take care of that too? We have software to let the kids choose which game they want to play, and anything that would keep us from having to run and change cds for them (so they don't get stolen or scratched) would be a big help.

Speaking of software, where could we get 7 copies of Windows 98 or XP from? Is it worth the extra money to go up to XP?

My email address is visible now too 🙂

thanks again!

rm
 
as for the OS checkout 9software.com. I just ordered 4 copies of WinXP Pro full for $150 each. You can get WinXP Home for $94/each. or Win98SE for $69 each. As for the games, checkout the OEM no box/manual versions. You can get them pretty cheap if you search around.
 
I say you get,
7 ECS K7S5A boards 350$
7 Duron 1ghz 350$
7 cases 350$
7 kYRO 2 64MEG 4500 532$
7 128 meg crucial pc2100 315$
onboard sound
onboard lan
7 17inch monitors 1078$

total 2975$

I dont think you can do any much better!
 
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