Advice on building my own computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andy in NJ
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A

Andy in NJ

I am in the market to do a little upgrading of my computer and I was
wondering if I could get some advice. A reply directly to my email would be
prefered, but you can reply here if you want.

I have $500 to spend. I want to get a new case, motherboard, CPU and memory
(1 gig). Everything else is ok and doesn't need to be replaced. I don't know
exactly what I want at this point, but what would you recommend based on
that budget and knowing which items I need to buy?
 
You say
I don't know exactly what I want at this point, but what would you
recommend based on that budget and knowing which items I need to buy?
Click to expand...

Can you give some more information to your needs? Are you a gamer? Will you
be doing video editing, DVD burning, general computing, RAID, need a
firewire port, etc? The more folks understand those needs the better they
can give you solid and specific advice. Do you have a preference for AMD or
Intel? What speed CPU were you thinking of in either of these two
categories?
 
Jan Alter said:
Can you give some more information to your needs? Are you a gamer? Will
you be doing video editing, DVD burning, general computing, RAID, need a
firewire port, etc? The more folks understand those needs the better they
can give you solid and specific advice. Do you have a preference for AMD
or Intel? What speed CPU were you thinking of in either of these two
categories?
Click to expand...

I mostly play games and surf the net. I am looking for the fastest, most
stable MB/CPU/Memory combination for the money. I have no preference between
AMD or Intel, although AMD is what I've been using for years, mainly because
of price. I'd like something at least 2 gigs+.
 
I mostly play games and surf the net. I am looking for the fastest, most
stable MB/CPU/Memory combination for the money. I have no preference between
AMD or Intel, although AMD is what I've been using for years, mainly because
of price. I'd like something at least 2 gigs+.
Click to expand...

Surfing/office/email/etc is easily done with anything
semi-modern. Since you made no mention of the video card,
which will typically be the largest performance difference
for gaming, shall we presume you already have a suitable
card? If so, you must take it's interface into
consideration. That is, if it's AGP based then you'll want
a motherboard with AGP too.

$500 might be cutting it tight for a 2GHz CPU, unless you
meant only a P4, which will be substantially slower than an
Athlon @ 2GHz. You might be able to get something like,

$150 Athlon64 3000+ 939 (1.8GHz)
$100 nForce3 or Via K8T800 based m'board (pick features)
$150 2 x 512MB PC3200 (name-brand budget-grade)
$70 Case, power (subject to taste, Antec is often good)
 
lol...you won't get anything much good for $500, maybe add another $200 to
that and you'll have something just about ok.
 
lol...you won't get anything much good for $500, maybe add another $200 to
that and you'll have something just about ok.
Click to expand...


If all you are doing is email, internet browsing and audio multimedia
a midrange machine is fine. You don't need more than 256MB of memory
unless you can name the software application you use, to justify it.

A year ago I priced the parts for business-grade white box systems on
newegg.com. All the parts came to $300. All name-brand good parts.
Here's what it included;

Midrange AMD CPU
ASUS mobo with on-board video/LAN/sound
Case/PSU
256MB memory
Good 40GB disk
Floppy
CD burner & burning software

NO OS (add $90 for XP/Home)

You already have monitor/kbd/mouse. You _may_ have OS software.
 
Richard said:
lol...you won't get anything much good for $500, maybe add another $200 to
that and you'll have something just about ok.
Click to expand...
And what exactly is wrong with the recommendation in the post just
before yours?

Surfing/office/email/etc is easily done with anything
semi-modern. Since you made no mention of the video card,
which will typically be the largest performance difference
for gaming, shall we presume you already have a suitable
card? If so, you must take it's interface into
consideration. That is, if it's AGP based then you'll want
a motherboard with AGP too.

$500 might be cutting it tight for a 2GHz CPU, unless you
meant only a P4, which will be substantially slower than an
Athlon @ 2GHz. You might be able to get something like,

$150 Athlon64 3000+ 939 (1.8GHz)
$100 nForce3 or Via K8T800 based m'board (pick features)
$150 2 x 512MB PC3200 (name-brand budget-grade)
$70 Case, power (subject to taste, Antec is often good)
 
Andy in NJ:
I am in the market to do a little upgrading of my computer and I was
wondering if I could get some advice. A reply directly to my email
would be prefered, but you can reply here if you want.

I have $500 to spend. I want to get a ....
Click to expand...

new case
$91 Antec Black with 350W PS
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=140033

motherboard
$129 Epox 9NDA3+
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?DEPA=0&description=13-123-
222

CPU
$146 Athlon 64 3000+
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80699-R

memory (1 gig)
$142 Mushkin PC3200
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-299

TOTAL $508 shipped
It's so easy to spend other people's money ;)
 
Andy said:
I am in the market to do a little upgrading of my computer and I was
wondering if I could get some advice. A reply directly to my email would be
prefered, but you can reply here if you want.

I have $500 to spend. I want to get a new case, motherboard, CPU and memory
(1 gig). Everything else is ok and doesn't need to be replaced. I don't know
exactly what I want at this point, but what would you recommend based on
that budget and knowing which items I need to buy?
Click to expand...
Here's a great site that will help you to make up your mind:

http://arstechnica.com/guides.ars
 
Andy said:
I am in the market to do a little upgrading of my computer and I was
wondering if I could get some advice. A reply directly to my email would be
prefered, but you can reply here if you want.
Click to expand...
I have $500 to spend. I want to get a new case, motherboard, CPU and memory
(1 gig). Everything else is ok and doesn't need to be replaced. I don't know
exactly what I want at this point, but what would you recommend based on
that budget and knowing which items I need to buy?
Click to expand...

I got a great deal on a motherboard/CPU combo at Fry's Electronics
Outpost recently.

http://shop3.outpost.com/search?que...rom=0&to=24&sort=plu&order=desc&order_by=null

Out of online dealers I trust, I haven't seen anything else come
close to the mobo/CPU combos at Fry's.

Isaac Kuo
 
<< I mostly play games and surf the net. I am looking for the fastest,
most
<< stable MB/CPU/Memory combination for the money



the other posts say nothing of gaming......which will change the price
tag in a hefty way. What games?, pacman? no worries....SOF? well then
that's a horse of a different color.
 
I am in the market to do a little upgrading of my computer and I was
wondering if I could get some advice. A reply directly to my email would be
prefered, but you can reply here if you want.

I have $500 to spend. I want to get a new case, motherboard, CPU and memory
(1 gig). Everything else is ok and doesn't need to be replaced. I don't know
exactly what I want at this point, but what would you recommend based on
that budget and knowing which items I need to buy?
Click to expand...

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 939) $165.00
Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 $28.00
MSI K8N NEO Platinum $148.00
Corsair Value Select (Dual Pack) 184 Pin 512MBx2 DDR PC-3200 $140.00
Antec SLK3700 BQE $73.00

$554.00
All prices from www.NewEgg.com

regards

Dud
 
Asus P4P800 $70 US
Intel 3.0 800 FSB $185 US
Kingston Dual Channel Matched 512 MB PC3200 $140 US

Should be able to afford graphics card if needed for just a bit more:
Asus GeForce 4 128MB GDDR3 GT6600 about $200 US

Everything seems to be going for PCI Express, and with the Socket 775, but
I'd wait on them to perfect these things a little before forking out the
dough. The system above would be solid for years to come till you decided
for another upgrade.

For high end gaming and video apps, this would be more then enough for quite
some time.

Regards,

Doug
 
There you go. That would be the deal. I have been using the Mushkin memory
in my 1 gig builds. Nice bang for the buck. Way to shop, Max.
 
jacoby:
There you go. That would be the deal. I have been using the Mushkin
memory in my 1 gig builds. Nice bang for the buck.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried the inexpensive Mushkin stuff that Newegg sells, but their
premium stuff is as good as any and better than most. Hell of a company
too... the *best* customer service of any online company I've dealt with.

The guy mentioned gaming, hopefully he has a nice video card already or he
will have to scale back to something like an XP2500.
 
Al Dykes said:
If all you are doing is email, internet browsing and audio multimedia
a midrange machine is fine. You don't need more than 256MB of memory
unless you can name the software application you use, to justify it.

A year ago I priced the parts for business-grade white box systems on
newegg.com. All the parts came to $300. All name-brand good parts.
Here's what it included;

Midrange AMD CPU
ASUS mobo with on-board video/LAN/sound
Case/PSU
256MB memory
Good 40GB disk
Floppy
CD burner & burning software

NO OS (add $90 for XP/Home)

You already have monitor/kbd/mouse. You _may_ have OS software.
Click to expand...

Like I said, all I need is the box/power supply, mobo, cpu and memory. I
have everything else. I primarily use my computer for gaming and I want to
upgrade from my current AMD Athlon XP running at 1.15gig (can't get the bus
speed over 100mhz but that's a whole 'nuther thread) on a Biostar M7VIG Pro
mobo and 1 gig of SDRAM.
 
Mac Cool said:
new case
$91 Antec Black with 350W PS
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=140033

motherboard
$129 Epox 9NDA3+
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?DEPA=0&description=13-123-
222

CPU
$146 Athlon 64 3000+
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80699-R

memory (1 gig)
$142 Mushkin PC3200
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-299

TOTAL $508 shipped
It's so easy to spend other people's money ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I will save this one to consider.
 
JAD said:
the other posts say nothing of gaming......which will change the price
tag in a hefty way. What games?, pacman? no worries....SOF? well then
that's a horse of a different color.
Click to expand...

What I use the computer for is pretty irrelivant. Obviously, I want to get
the best bang for my $500. To me, this means the fastest mobo/cpu/memory
combination for the money. I already have the video/sound/harddrive, etc...
that I need.
 
What I use the computer for is pretty irrelivant.
Click to expand...

I see, so with your thinking I should buy a $2000 machine for email
or $400 machine to do video editing or play current games. Although
you did say you were keeping your video card you never mentioned what
it was, Its not a one size fits all world. 'Use' is hardly
irrelevant.

carry on wayward son
 
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