Budget PC build, looking for recommendations

[ToolPackinMama]

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

Good idea!

 

[ToolPackinMama]

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.

Please be specific. What do you mean by "good features"? To be fair we
should compare mobo/cpu combos that are in every way equivalent.

In my experience, the AMD/NFORCE2 combo has the bet bang/buck ratio for
the budget builder. If I am incorrect, fine. I need only be convinced.

 

[Dave C.]

Please be specific. What do you mean by "good features"? To be fair we
should compare mobo/cpu combos that are in every way equivalent.

In my experience, the AMD/NFORCE2 combo has the bet bang/buck ratio for
the budget builder. If I am incorrect, fine. I need only be convinced.

NO, you are right on that. AMD XP / Nforce2 is a great deal for a budget
build. Building right now (budget to mid range), I would ignore any
motherboard that doesn't meet the minimum specs of:

- Three or four DDR RAM slots (bonus if four dual channel)
- Five or more PCI slots
- 8X AGP slot (kinda goes without saying, but)
- 6 or more USB 2.0 with four rear
- SATA ***and*** IDE hard drive support
- built in 10/100 and/or gigabit LAN (bonus if two LAN ports built in)
- Good name brand (ie, no PCChips/ECS, etc)

Two good *current* examples from www.newegg.com

Athlon 64:
Chaintech VNF3-250, $75, Athlon 64 3000+ retail, $175
Total: $250

Pentium 4:
Abit VT7, $53, Intel P4 3.0E retail, $216
Total: $269

These two processors are identical in performance, if you bother to read
more than one benchmark. (!) All other components for this system would be
identical. So total cost to build would be exactly 19 bucks more if you
went the P4 route. That's nothing if you are building a complete mid-range
computer system. My most recent build, Newegg (and a few other vendors I
checked) were sold out of the Athlon64 mainboard I chose. The next least
expensive A64 board I could find that met all my criteria above would have
made the A64 system actually MORE expensive to build than the P4, AT THE
TIME. As I was working on a tight budget (not my system), I went with the
P4. No regrets. It wasn't my first Intel build and won't be my last. It's
a kick-ass gamer, too, which is what I was aiming for. On a tight budget,
that's TOUGH. I usually prefer AMD, but know there is nothing wrong
with Intel. For a gamer, you can make a good system out of either Intel or
AMD as long as your video card is good and your processor is fast enough to
keep up with it. The first benchmarks we ran with the P4 system I made got
13,666 on 3DMark 2001. I don't doubt an Athlon64 system would have similar
numbers, if I had built that. If anyone is curious, I used a Chaintech
brand FX5900XT for a video card. Not cutting edge, but not a slouch,
either. -Dave