Budget PC build, looking for recommendations

[David Maynard]

David Maynard wrote:




Not quite. A business system without a monitor with an Athlon XP
processor might be around $500. Adding $145 more to the price
is around a 30% increase. 30% is very significant.

Even if your numbers were realistic I again point out that the discussion
at this point was not a 'business' system but video rendering.

 

[Dave C.]

Dave, he moves from group to group, hardware groups, gaming groups and
whatnot, and trolls for the Athlon64 in every one of them. I killfiled him
weeks ago and I still see a dozen or more replies to his trolling every
day because he keeps sucking people in. He never post anything other than
the same spiel about the Athlon64. He's a troll, he's working you, you
gotta let it go.

I could buy that, easily. I mean, in one reply, he admitted he's never even
BUILT an Athlon64 system. If I just let it go though, I'm afraid people
coming to the group for good advice will be misled into believing that Intel
must be crap. -Dave

 

[Dave C.]

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040201/index.html

Very funny. That is the website which three years ago tore the heatsink off a
processor while it was running, and wrote an article about what happened. Since
then, I don't take anything they write seriously.

That's pretty funny, considering their benchmark results are almost
identical to those of anandtech. After posting anandtech about a billion
times, what kind of excuse are you going to come up with to trash the
findings of anandtech, which clearly show the P4 processors evenly matched
with the Athlon 64 processors in terms of performance? (this should be
good) -Dave

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=5
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=9

 

[Joe Ferrall]

OK, you've got a problem, as your hard drive, optical drive and 512MB RAM
will cost you about $300 minimum, maybe more. If you want a quality power
supply, then adding a case and power supply will more than max out your $400
maximum budget. Oh, and you still need CPU, HSF, Motherboard and video
card.

Set your sights lower or up your budget. This can be done for about $675,
and not much less, if at all. -Dave

Ok, the following combo gets me to just over $500 (all from newegg),
about $100 more than budgeted with a minor sacrifice on HD, but still
not bad. The question is, if I were to go Intel, I could get a P4 2.4c
with motherboard for about $78 more. Eventually I will be putting in an
additional 512mb ram, and the Intel MB would support dual channel ram,
as well as have SATA. Currently I don't have any SATA drives, but would
consider in the future. Would I be better off going with the Intel when
the increased FSB speed and future addition of more ram being able to be
used in dual channel mode is taken into consideration?


ANTEC Solution Series Mid Tower Case with 300W Power Supply, Model
"SLK2600AMB" -RETAIL
$70.99

Western Digital Special Edition 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model
WD1200JB, OEM Drive Only
$85.00

Mushkin 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
$75.00

Shuttle "AN35N-Ultra" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD
Socket A CPU -RETAIL
$56.00

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 333 FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail
$89.00

Albatron nVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit,
DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "FX5200EP" -RETAIL
$58.00

NEC 8X Beige Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive, Model ND-2...
$69.99

 

[JK]

I could buy that, easily. I mean, in one reply, he admitted he's never even
BUILT an Athlon64 system.

A male gynecologist never had a womb, yet he probably spent
plenty of time commenting about them.

If I just let it go though, I'm afraid people
coming to the group for good advice will be misled into believing that Intel
must be crap.

"Crap" is your word. My comment is that Intel processors are much too
expensive. My comments are often backed up with benchmarks and
articles about processors, so they typically aren't just my opinions.

 

[JK]

That's pretty funny, considering their benchmark results are almost
identical to those of anandtech.

That might be the case in some instances, however since their stunt
three years ago, I don't take them seriously.

After posting anandtech about a billion
times, what kind of excuse are you going to come up with to trash the
findings of anandtech, which clearly show the P4 processors evenly matched
with the Athlon 64 processors in terms of performance? (this should be
good) -Dave

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=5

It is funny that you link to a page of benchmarks that were constrained by the
video card, so that most of the results come out very close.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=9

Again with video editing benchmarks? Many people never work with video.
Those who work with video may want to see this.

http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2163&p=4

 

[JK]

Ok, the following combo gets me to just over $500 (all from newegg), about
$100 more than budgeted with a minor sacrifice on HD, but still not bad. The
question is, if I were to go Intel, I could get a P4 2.4c with motherboard for
about $78 more. Eventually I will be putting in an additional 512mb ram, and
the Intel MB would support dual channel ram, as well as have SATA. Currently
I don't have any SATA drives, but would consider in the future. Would I be
better off going with the Intel when the increased FSB speed and future
addition of more ram being able to be used in dual channel mode is taken into
consideration?


ANTEC Solution Series Mid Tower Case with 300W Power Supply, Model
"SLK2600AMB" -RETAIL
$70.99

Western Digital Special Edition 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model WD1200JB,
OEM Drive Only
$85.00

Mushkin 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
$75.00

Shuttle "AN35N-Ultra" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A
CPU -RETAIL
$56.00

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 333 FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail

$89.00

Those prices seem high. I saw an XP2600+ with a decent motherboard and heatsink
selling for $100 at www.pricewatch.com. Why do you want the 2500+Barton? Do you
plan to overclock?

 

[Joe Ferrall]

JK Wrote:

(snip)

Those prices seem high. I saw an XP2600+ with a decent motherboard and heatsink
selling for $100 at www.pricewatch.com. Why do you want the 2500+Barton? Do you
plan to overclock?

Per the my original post, no not planning on overclocking. Took prices
from newegg as I've been overall happy with their in the past. If going
with AMD, what are some good motherboards with the NFORCE chipset?
Again, would like to avoid VIA at all cost, had bad luck with their
chipsets in the past.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

My comment is that Intel processors are much too
expensive.

I concur. In fact, my only complaint about Intel products is the
price. If every penny counts, AMD gives excellent value.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

NEC 8X Beige Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive, Model ND-2...
$69.99

I have that drive and it's great, but mine was an OEM that came without
software. I bought the OEM version of the Nero suite for twenty bucks
USD, FYI.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

Those prices seem high.

That's normal for the retail pack.

I saw an XP2600+ with a decent motherboard and heatsink
selling for $100 at www.pricewatch.com.

Mobo and cpu with heatsink? Can you be more specific?

 

[JK]

I thought I saw a Biostar motherboard, 2600+ and heatsink for $100
the other day. Now I see it on pricewatch at $111, with the combos
under $100 being with ECS and PC Chips motherboards. Oh well.
$111 still isn't so bad though.

 

[JK]

JK Wrote:

(snip)

Per the my original post, no not planning on overclocking. Took prices from
newegg as I've been overall happy with their in the past. If going with AMD,
what are some good motherboards with the NFORCE chipset?

You mean nForce2.
There are many.

What features do you want? What price?

The BIOSTAR M7NCD at under $50 looks like an interesting low priced option.
If you like Asus, the A7N8X-X at $64 looks interesting. There are more
expensive motherboards with more features.

Again, would like to avoid VIA at all cost, had bad luck with their chipsets
in the past.

The more recent Via chipsets are good. NForce 2 is very nice.

 

[Dave C.]

I concur. In fact, my only complaint about Intel products is the
price. If every penny counts, AMD gives excellent value.

Now see, I don't understand that comment. I've built a couple of Intel P4
systems recently, and Athlon 64 processors in the same performance range
were only 30-40 bucks cheaper. Meanwhile, well equipped motherboards for
the P4 started about thirty bucks cheaper. So if you are comparing P4 to
Athlon 64, the performance is identical and the price is equal to build
either way. You can build an Athlon XP system for less money, but it won't
perform as well as either the Athlon 64 or P4 processors, either.

So the only way you could conclude that Intel processors are much too
expensive is if you are working on a really really TIGHT budget. For an
average mid-range system at the moment, you can build either AMD or Intel
for the same price. -Dave

 

[Charles]

Going to be building a new PC soon on a tight budget. PC use will be
primarily programming, graphics design, typical office apps, as well as
some video editing. Gaming is not a major concern, might be nice to
play the occasional game but realistically, I doubt there will be any
gaming done on the machine. Will NOT be overclocking.

I've looked at the low end Dell's as that's the price range I'd like to
be at (around $400 without monitor), but have a Dell at work and am not
all that impressed with its flexibility. I am not partial to AMD or
Intel, as I've used both in builds before. Would like to avoid VIA
chipset on MB, so if AMD NFORCE appears to be the way to go.

I already have a firewire and video capture card I would be reusing from
another machine. Any suggestions for the following?

Case/PS - Beige box fine, quality PS.
CPU/Sink/Fan - Either P4 Northwood or comparable AMD?
MB - Onboard LAN/sound fine, might also consider onboard video.
Video (if not onboard) - Image quality more important than 3d speed.
RAM - Minimum 512mb, prefer 1gb (dual-channel? worth it?)
HD - 200gb + drive for video and image storage.
Optical drives - DVDRW, will reuse other current drives.

Suggestions and ideas?
Thanks

If you want to use an AMD Athlon XP I can think of two good
motherboards: Asus A7N8X Ultra 400 which is the standard A7N8X.
Another version, Asus A7N8X-X is about the same except it does not
have the Dual DDR speed capability. There is some small advantage in
speed with Dual DDR when you use 2 DDR Memory Modules, However the
speed advantage is not too much. I think the main advantage for the
Nforce2 chipset is its stability and dependability.

I suggest you look at the PC Building guides at www.anandtech.com
They have guide for Low-end, Midrange, Gaming, and Overclocking
computer builds. They are more of a suggestion. Some of the Athlon
64 processors are down to about $159.00, and the new 64 bit Sempron
is about $125.00. You get better throughput with the Athlon 64.

 

[JK]

Now see, I don't understand that comment. I've built a couple of Intel P4
systems recently, and Athlon 64 processors in the same performance range

What chips were you comparing?

were only 30-40 bucks cheaper.

I doubt that.

Meanwhile, well equipped motherboards for
the P4 started about thirty bucks cheaper.

$30? Not quite. Another poster mentioned the A64 motherboards are around
$10 more than comparable P4 motherboards.

So if you are comparing P4 to
Athlon 64, the performance is identical and the price is equal to build
either way.

Which chips are you talking about? Let's discuss specific examples.

You can build an Athlon XP system for less money, but it won't
perform as well as either the Athlon 64 or P4 processors, either.

It would perform almost as well(Athlon XP 3200+ compared to A64 3000+)
for business applications.

So the only way you could conclude that Intel processors are much too
expensive is if you are working on a really really TIGHT budget.

Not really.

For an
average mid-range system at the moment, you can build either AMD or Intel
for the same price.

You keep saying that, but it really isn't true. To get similar performance
in Business Winstone 2004 as the Athlon 64 3000+ delivers would
take a P4 3.2 ghz which costs around $260 vs $160 for the A64 3000+.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6

To get similar performance to the $210 Athlon 64 3200+ in Business
Winstone 2004 would take a P4 3.4 ghz EE at around $1,000.

 

[Dave C.]

Which chips are you talking about? Let's discuss specific examples.

You keep saying that, but it really isn't true. To get similar performance
in Business Winstone 2004 as the Athlon 64 3000+ delivers would
take a P4 3.2 ghz which costs around $260 vs $160 for the A64 3000+.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6

To get similar performance to the $210 Athlon 64 3200+ in Business
Winstone 2004 would take a P4 3.4 ghz EE at around $1,000.

You can't look at ONE benchmark and say that similar performance will cost
five times as much. The Athlon 64 and P4 Prescotts in the 3 - 3.2GHz range
(3000+ - 3200+) are IDENTICAL in performance, though both chips (amd/intel)
are clear winners in some specific benchmarks. If two athletes play 10
rounds of golf, each wins exactly 5 rounds, and they both average 72 strokes
per round, you would say that one of them is a better athlete because he won
a single round by five strokes.

Right now the Intel chip will cost about forty bucks more than the AMD chip.
A decent name-brand motherboard with good features for the AMD chip will
start around $75 whereas a decent name-brand P4 mainboard with good features
will start around $50.

So you are looking at a ~$20 difference in price to build between Intel and
AMD at the same performance point. That's price TO BUILD, and there is
virtually NO difference, when figured into the overall cost of a computer
system. The difference would have to be much greater than a hundred bucks
before you could declare that one is a significantly better value than the
other. -Dave

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=5
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=9

 

[ToolPackinMama]

I thought I saw a Biostar motherboard, 2600+ and heatsink for $100
the other day. Now I see it on pricewatch at $111, with the combos
under $100 being with ECS and PC Chips motherboards. Oh well.
$111 still isn't so bad though.

Biostar has got to be better than those others.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

JK Wrote:

(snip)

Per the my original post, no not planning on overclocking. Took
prices from newegg as I've been overall happy with their in the past.
If going with AMD, what are some good motherboards with the NFORCE
chipset? Again, would like to avoid VIA at all cost, had bad luck
with their chipsets in the past.

I agree about almost everything you said. I never overclock. IMHO
that's for cheap-asses who can't afford a faster CPU. Thank GOD I don't
have that problem.

I like New Egg too.

I'm not sure what you mean by "good motherboard". How do you define
good?

I agree that VIA has been a disappointment, at least in the past.

NVIDIA rocks! I'm now a big NVIDIA motherboard fan.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

Now see, I don't understand that comment. I've built a couple of Intel P4
systems recently, and Athlon 64 processors in the same performance range
were only 30-40 bucks cheaper. Meanwhile, well equipped motherboards for
the P4 started about thirty bucks cheaper. So if you are comparing P4 to
Athlon 64, the performance is identical and the price is equal to build
either way.

Hmm. Interesting point.

You can build an Athlon XP system for less money, but it won't
perform as well as either the Athlon 64 or P4 processors, either.

No argument, but the question everybody should ask themselves is how
much do they need to spend to get the performance that they need?

So the only way you could conclude that Intel processors are much too
expensive is if you are working on a really really TIGHT budget.

Well, *I* always am.