alright, so i’ve decided with the money im making from summer job to make myself a sweet new computer
i do have more money but im going for a goal budget of 500 but i could stretch up to 700 at the most if the difference was enough
ive got only crude information as to what components i need but from my old system im trying to salvage:
a 512 mb pc2700/2100 ddr dimm stick
a 256 pc 2100 ddr dimm stick
cd rw drive
monitor(19 inch crt), keyboard, mouse, speakers(maybe)
120 gb hard drive (ultraATA/EIDE)(dont know if the ultraATA is good or not) (8mb buffer and 7200 rpm)
a yet unknown 30 gb drive that came with the computer (dell dimension 4400)
cheapo ethernet card
and so as for what im looking for in stuff is some usb 2.0 and firewire capability(front ports?)
pci express for graphics card
and a friend of mine says go 64 bit processor if i can to make it safe for future upgrading
so ive only just started looking at cases now and from my knowledge of components heres the general price guidelines im looking for stuff in
motherboard 150-200 (?)
processor 150-200 (?)
graphics card 150-200
case 15-50 (?)
fans, maybe power supply 30-50 (?)
im basically looking for a respectable gaming system
so now comes the fun part where you tell me how a lot of what i want is goign to be rough or how it will all work out awesomely for 400 dollars, any advice or comments at all are appreciated
Alright, though your budget is small I belive we can make this work, here’re my suggestions: Gigabyte Mobo 2x512 MBs ram (more on this later) Cpu Cooler Athlon 64 3200+ Venice nVidia 6600GT Cooler Master Case Thermaltake PSU Arctic Silver
Well I do believe that’s the complete list. I added the ram as what you have isn’t too bad but you’ll definately notice a big improvement by shifting towards PC3200 at a low latency, and in dual-channel to boot. Plus you don’t what to mix memory frequencies like you would be doing if you used you old ram, it won’t usually hurt anything, it’s been know to casue instability but more often then not it just bottlenecks things as it will run at the lower speed Hopefully I didn’t exceed your budget by too much. If so just order the 3000+ Venice instead of the 3200+ and look for a different case, maybe a cheaper socket 939 motherboard, it’s up to you. Good luck.
USB 2.0 and Firewire are pretty much going to be found on every motherboard out there, especially USB 2.0. While you can get by with the above RAM you have, you’ll be cheating yourself out of the complete performance.
I’m not an AMD zealot, but as far as a price: performance ratio goes, for gaming, AMD is the better choice. I doubt your current power supply is sufficient for what your going to build. Additionally, if it’s a Dell PSU, you WILL need to buy a new power supply. Dell switches around some of the wiring on the power supply connector to the motherboard. Try to use the motherboard or PSU with non-Dell motherboards or PSU’s and you will get some undesireable results.
Your drives are realistically about the only things I’d recommend trying to save.
Here’s what I came up with, all prices off Newegg.
This is more of a mid-range system, and I don’t feel comfortable cutting corners on my recommendations as they stand. Yes, you can go cheaper, but you’ll either severely limit your upgrade options and/or give a performance hit that you’d not like.
Nice picks B, yeah, yours is a more realistic estimate, though I suppose he can check out mine for a slightly more extravagant outlook at least. Though I really would recommend the 1 gig of ram as I know from experience what 512Mb’s can do, not all that much comparitively. Go with a gig if you can help it.
ok thanks for all responses and comments, but now an important question, is this even a good spending of money? can i get something better for cheaper from dell or somewhere?
From Dell? Yes, at first. But there are very bad rumours that they charge huge amounts for small upgrades, and they’re cases are modified differently than normal PCs.
Bigbs list is good, $588.50 only for a good decent computer which you can upgrade when needed. Yo cna g for a $400 PC from Dell or the like, but even cheap OEMs aren’t going to give you much. This is better in the long run.
If you want a gaming rig, this is likely going to be one of the cheaper options. Dell does have their XPS line strictly for gaming, but it will cost you, as will many other companies with a gaming system. Well, all reputable vendors. I think CyberDeals or something like that offers some pretty inexpensive packages, but their Reseller Ratings score is horrible—and I would personally not buy from a company with a poor score.
If you just want a general machine that’s not going to be running Far Cry and D00M 3, that $400 system would be fine.
If you go with a Dell, the general guideline on what to get would be this: Pentium of at least 2.8GHz, 512MB of RAM (you can go less, but you’re going to have performance issues), GeForce 6600GT or Radeon X700Pro video card.
Go ahead and use their configuration tool and see what you can come up with. They also tend to run some deals rather frequently.
If I had to buy pre-built rigs, I would go with Dell, but since I’m not in that type of position, I like to build my own. If you’re able to use a screwdriver and follow directions, you can build your own system.
yeah definately, if you dont know how to build your own computer you can always find read throughs and guidelines on the internet, it isnt all that hard, as long as care is taken it can be fun.
There are loads of nice brands you can get prebuild systems from but if your max budget is $700 than forget it, you have little chance of getting anything compairable off of Dell, or most any reseller for than price. I say try building it, it’s far easier then most would think. If you run into a snag we’ve got your back.:good:
cool, i found that when your buying something (parts for a computer especially) you find something, then for a little bit more money you can get something a little bit faster so you think ahh well that’s better so you go for that, then that happens again with everything you buy ‘a little bit more money for a little bit more performance’ and by the end of it you’re 3 times over your original budget.
[QUOTE=Matt555]
cool, i found that when your buying something (parts for a computer especially) you find something, then for a little bit more money you can get something a little bit faster so you think ahh well that’s better so you go for that, then that happens again with everything you buy ‘a little bit more money for a little bit more performance’ and by the end of it you’re 3 times over your original budget.
[/QUOTE]
I so know what you mean! My budget was about $850 or so, I was looking at getting a 6600GT, and I say this cheap proc/mobo/ram combo on TigerDirect with a sweet 3400+ socket 939 that I really wanted to buy but lo and behold when I go to order the deal expired and I end up getting my mediocre 3000+ and over shot my budget by more than $150 when you include the 6800 (but it was worth it :), except I wish I bought a X800Pro instead, more mem )
hmm, do you think that with £400 i could actually build a high end system thats lots and lots and lots and lots of times better than my current one?
my current one is like a car with a faulty gear box
ah its so sluggish too
You can’t build a massively improved system, although you can go 64-bit with AMD, apart from that your specs are pretty good, are you building a complete new system or new parts for you current computer?
Hopefully I didn’t exceed your budget by too much. If so just order the 3000+ Venice instead of the 3200+ and look for a different case, maybe a cheaper socket 939 motherboard, it’s up to you. Good luck.
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