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Ok, a friend of mine has asked me to snoop around and design him a new system (cpu only). I've been out of the loop for a good while, anyone care to give me a few opinions?
He didn't give me an exact price range, but maybe something 2-gigish (a little lower would probably work) and maybe 512MB of ram. Decent vid card. Sound shouldn't be an issue if its onboard. I guess what he's looking for is a low to mid end system. He has kids that play all of those kiddie games on it, so it doesn't need to be awe-inspiring.
Ideas on components?
Motherboard? Video Card? Ram? Case? Power Supply? DVD Burner? Audio? (if not onboard)
That's pretty much what I'm looking at at this point in the way of necessary hardware. I'd like to keep it well under $700 or $800, which shouldn't be too hard. As low as possible without sacrificing too much performance would be ideal.
Check out FRY's. They currently have a 2.66Ghz Dual Core P4 and motherboard for $160. Add in 1GB of RAM (somewhere around $75) an average case and PSU (~80), and a 6800GS or something (~190) along with a 300GB HDD (again, FRY's $80 AR).
Adds up to under $600 before shipping and after rebates.
**Well, I guess Fry's is a bit far from Bloomington. But if you're up in the area...**
Last edited by Greg M. on Sat Apr 01, 2006 5:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
But still, that's not a bad deal at all. Might be a bit much for him though, powerwise.
Power consumption-wise or performance-wise?
As far as I'd say, the Pentium D 805 is the best value processor mankind has ever seen. If he doesn't the graphics card, that's understandable, but MAN. I wouldn't forego that dual-core, he'd be happy. :)
Ok, I've got him to narrow down his available funds for me.
Let's see who can design the best tower for $500. Thats what he's got to work with, I know it isn't much, but I'm pretty sure it's enough to get him past the 800mhz 128MB monolith he's running on right now. Intel or AMD works. He'll need the complete system, not barebones (Motherboard, video, audio [if not onboard] RAM, case with power supply, and a DVD burner.
Ideas?
Last edited by ChrisMG on Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
Alrighty... if you'd like me to e-mail you the wish lists, just tell me. If he doesn't mind spending a hair over $500 for a bloody good computer, here's the one I came up with.
System 1: $559.91 $133.00 - Intel Pentium D 805 $74.99 - ASRock i945G Motherboard $79.98 - 1 GB (2 x 512 MB) Crucial DDR2-533 $78.00 - SAPPHIRE Radeon X1300 256 MB $51.00 - Seagate 80 GB SATAII (3.0 GB/sec) HDD $38.99 - NEC 16x DVD+/-RW Burner $57.99 - Antec Solution SLK1650B Case $32.99 - COOLER MASTER 92 x 25mm CPU Heatsink/Fan $5.99 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound $1.99 - MASSCOOL 80mm 2500 RPM 3/4-pin Case Fan $4.99 - MASSCOOL 120mm 1500 RPM 3/4-pin Case Fan
If your friend can only do $500, I've come up with the system below, which is the exact same thing as the system above with the exception of a CPU change. As a result of that CPU change, however, motherboard, memory and the heatsink/fan combo were also changed.
System 2: $499.92 $121.00 - AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $59.99 - MSI Nvidia Geforce 6100 Motherboard $79.98 - 1 GB (2 x 512 MB) Crucial DDR-400 $78.00 - SAPPHIRE Radeon X1300 256 MB $51.00 - Seagate 80 GB SATAII (3.0 GB/sec) HDD $38.99 - NEC 16x DVD+/-RW Burner $57.99 - Antec Solution SLK1650B Case $5.99 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound $1.99 - MASSCOOL 80mm 2500 RPM 3/4-pin Case Fan $4.99 - MASSCOOL 120mm 1500 RPM 3/4-pin Case Fan