Review of basic work/gaming rig

[heymrdj]

Looking for advice on my build for my girlfriend. Light duty gaming like Serious Sam, Joint Operations, low resolution COD4. Heavy art design, photshopping, movie production stuff. School work ect.

All parts Newegg.

AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3Ghz 95W Quad 119.00$
Seagate 7200.11 500GB 7200RPM SATA drive 69.99$
Samsung 22x DVDRW Lightscribe SATA drive 26.99$
DFI LanParty DK 790FX-M2RS motherboard 119.99$
Vista Ultimate SP1 64bit OEM 179.99$
Apevia X-Telstar-JR Red mid tower case 79.99$
Sapphire Radeon HD3850 1GB 256bit gfx 99.99$
Seasonic S12 II 500W PSU 69.99$
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB (2x2GB) kit DDR2 800 with LTS Vista/XP Media Center Infrared Remote Control with Receiver 139.99$

Total with shipping: 954$

Wish I could get it a bit cheaper..but any opinions on the build? Very little gaming, mostly art work, music, youtube, myspace ect .

 

[disports]

You could just get G.Skill DDR2-800 ram for $59 for one..
$75 for WD6400AAKS (HD)

 

[GuitarDaddy]

If your looking to spend less

Downgrade vista ultimate to home premium, ultimate doesn't offer much of anything over home premium.

And consider cheaper ram, Corsair is $45 for a 4gb ddr2-800 kit, is that remote really worth $95?

And why the overclocking SLI/crossfire mobo if your not gamiming much??? You can shave another $40-50 bucks off by getting a solid 780g board.

Those three changes would get you under $750

 

[Roguestar]

For your level of gaming, the Radeon 4670 would do great.

Change the hard drive to the WD Caviar 640GB.

Ditch the Tracer RAM for the G.Skill mentioned above.

I'd personally go with an Intel CPU for quad core but it's up to you.

 

[heymrdj]

Ill change it to the 640 drive this afternoon.

I'll look at changing the RAM.

Could someone recommend and AMD board? I'm out of the loop with AMD, and I'm not sure what a good board that can take 8GB of RAM is.

I chose the Seasonic 500W PSU.

I want Vista Ultimate because it offers two things: Dreamscene and Business Networking. Both are things she wants/needs.


Roguestar, can you, or anyone else, mention some parts to start me off on an intel version of the build? I'd imagine it'd be Q6600, but please tell me what a good setup would be.

 

[Denithor]

e8400 (2x3GHz, 6MB) $165 -or- Q6600 (4x2.4GHz, 8MB) $190
ASUS P5Q Pro $120AR
mushkin 2x2GB DDR2-800 $50AR -and- mushkin 2x2GB DDR2-800 $50AR
WD6400AAKS $75
Powercolor 3870 $70AR
LG DVD burner (Lightscribe) $27FS
Antec EA650 $65 (made by Seasonic)
Apevia case $103
Vista Ultimate x64 $180

Total:
Dual core $905
Quad core $930

Note this will have double the RAM of your build, a faster video card (gaming will be more enjoyable), more hard drive capacity, a stronger PSU and a faster processor (go for the quad if she does a lot of movie production stuff, otherwise dual is probably better).

As another option, feel free to pick & choose parts from my list along with an AMD build if you want to go that route. If you go AMD use this motherboard (Foxconn 780G $76).

EDIT: Note - there are combo deals with both motherboards listed and Vista Ultimate 64 to save $10.

 

[Blain]

I rate your rig a 7.9 out of 10, for having the nerve to jab the Intel FanBoys here.

:thumbsup::laugh::thumbsup:

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: Denithor
e8400 (2x3GHz, 6MB) $165 -or- Q6600 (4x2.4GHz, 8MB) $190
ASUS P5Q Pro $120AR
mushkin 2x2GB DDR2-800 $50AR -and- mushkin 2x2GB DDR2-800 $50AR
WD6400AAKS $75
Powercolor 3870 $70AR
LG DVD burner (Lightscribe) $27FS
Antec EA650 $65 (made by Seasonic)
Apevia case $103
Vista Ultimate x64 $180

Total:
Dual core $905
Quad core $930

Note this will have double the RAM of your build, a faster video card (gaming will be more enjoyable), more hard drive capacity, a stronger PSU and a faster processor (go for the quad if she does a lot of movie production stuff, otherwise dual is probably better).

As another option, feel free to pick & choose parts from my list along with an AMD build if you want to go that route. If you go AMD use this motherboard (Foxconn 780G $76).

EDIT: Note - there are combo deals with both motherboards listed and Vista Ultimate 64 to save $10.

Thanks ALOT!. I'm going to look into this, this looks great. This is why i never choose parts for a build and let my brother do it, I'm lousy at it lol.

And Blain, I am an Intel Fanboy . I thought though that at Intel's price premiums I could never come in at budget, but boy was I wrong.

 

[aclim]

The AMD system is just fine for what you are using the system for. I would probably get the Gskill RAM instead, Newegg has 4gb kit for $60.

Stick with that Samsung DVD drive

Look at getting an Antec PSU, save a little dollars.

Case is all personal preference. Just get a quality one.

 

[Blain]

If you buckle under the peer pressure and go "Intel", I'll have to knock my rating down to 3.75 out of 10. :roll:

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: Blain
If you buckle under the peer pressure and go "Intel", I'll have to knock my rating down to 3.75 out of 10. :roll:

If you have a better system then throw it up. So far I see alot of Q6600 > Phenom 9600. But I'm doing builds of both to compare prices. I really don't care much about the power because 70% of the time she won't be using it.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Blain
If you buckle under the peer pressure and go "Intel", I'll have to knock my rating down to 3.75 out of 10. :roll:

If he buckles under Blain-pressure I'll downgrade him .

 

[Denithor]

Hey--

Before you buy, check out this deal on a refurbished Gateway system.

Drop in one of those $50 4GB DDR2 memory kits and the $70 3870 and you're good to go for about $525.