Cheap Custom Build Under $300

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drpepperulz

drpepperulz

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Jan 27, 2013
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A family member has a very old PC about 10 years old and I was thinking to upgrade it. I thought about buying a PC prebuilt, but building it would be much more fun. I also thought I might get a better deal, price-wise, this route.

Here are the specs of the PC I am planning on building:

ASRock H61M-DGS Motherboard DDR3 1333 Intel - LGA 1155 - ASRock
$44.99

Diablotek DA Series 250-Watt ATX Power Supply PSDA250 - Diablotek Inc.
$14.99

Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor G640 2.8 GHz 3 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80623G640 - Intel
$65.98

Seagate Barracuda 1 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST1000DM003 - Seagate
$69.34
* All these are from my Amazon.com Cart*
(Subtotal: $195.30 )


G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK
$35.99

APEX SK-393-C Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$23.99
* All these are from my NewEgg.com Cart*
(Subtotal: $59.98 )

TOTAL: $255

The total of all the components come up to 255 dollars, and around 80-ish for Windows 7 this is well within the budget constraints.

Any feedback would be great, I want to know if this a good build for the amount of money I am spending. And to keep in mind, this computer is for 4-5 hours a day daily use of e-mail and internet. That's it. No graphics card needed, no overclocking, just a plain old PC.

Thanks!
 
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SHORYUKEN

SHORYUKEN

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Jan 3, 2013
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Pentium G860 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Mushkin Silverline 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($26.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint M Series 160GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($40.25 @ Compuvest)
Case: Apex SK-386 ATX Mid Tower Case w/300W Power Supply ($36.98 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $299.17
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-29 12:25 EDT-0400)

Right under $300 with Windows 7. The case has a 300W PSU.
 
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drpepperulz

drpepperulz

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Jan 27, 2013
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I found a case+PSU bundle for under 35$ with free shipping, because the one you directed me to is from Amazon.com but shipped from OutletPC.com for 14$ shipping. Does it hurt to have a 480W power supply?
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=computer%20case%20and%20power%20supply&page=1&rh=n%3A172282%2Ck%3Acomputer%20case%20and%20power%20supply

There is the link to the list of all the case+PSU combos on Amazon. I was thinking about the Logisys 368 SOHO Case with 480 Watt Power Supply Cases CS368RB (Black/Red) because it looks good and is quite cheap, but I was wondering if a 480 watt power supply would damage anything or does it matter what power supply I get?
 
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n3cw4rr10r

n3cw4rr10r

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drpepperulz

drpepperulz

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Jan 27, 2013
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I thought so, but reading the reviews on Amazon I am now kind of on the fence. There are 3 people in the reviews sad the PSU was not good, but then there are 4 people that said nothing about it. I think I might as well go ahead and just go with this one, just because of the price, and the other one that the guy mentioned above had a 15 dollar shipping fee. This one has free shipping through Amazon. Thank you.
 
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drpepperulz

drpepperulz

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Ah! What should I do MauveCloud? I don't really know anything about Power supplies...
 
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n3cw4rr10r

n3cw4rr10r

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Try These: $20 more but....

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/N2C3
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/N2C3/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/N2C3/benchmarks/

Case: Apex SK-393-C ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Antec Basiq 350W ATX12V Power Supply ($28.80 @ Amazon)
Total: $53.79
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-29 13:23 EDT-0400)

or this case for free shipping
http://www.amazon.com/Apex-Computer-Technology-PC-389-C-PC389C/dp/B0029V0G48/ref=sr_1_19?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1364577904&sr=1-19

+ the PSU mentioned above.
 
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MauveCloud

MauveCloud

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May 7, 2010
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Just make sure the psu is a brand and series listed in Tier 1, 2, or 3 at the eggxpert thread I linked before.
 
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drpepperulz

drpepperulz

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Jan 27, 2013
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Final thoughts... This in my Amazon Shopping Cart right now, I think this is my final judgement call on everything.

Shopping Cart on Amazon...

Mushkin Silverline - memory - 4 GB : 2 x 2 GB - Avant Garde Electronics
$26.98
Only 8 left in stock.
Shipped from: OutletPC

Apex Computer Technology PC-389-C 10bay ATX Tower No Psu USB / Hd PC389C - APEX
$29.99
Only 12 left in stock (more on the way).

Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS (CX430) - Corsair
$44.99
You save:
$5.00 ( 10%)
Only 8 left in stock (more on the way).

ASRock H61M-DGS Motherboard DDR3 1333 Intel - LGA 1155 - ASRock
$44.99
You save:
$10.18 ( 18%)
In Stock

Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor G640 2.8 GHz 3 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80623G640 - Intel
$65.98
You save:
$18.02 ( 21%)
Only 6 left in stock (more on the way).

Seagate Barracuda 1 TB HDD SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive ST1000DM003 - Seagate
$69.34
You save:
$80.65 ( 54%)
In Stock

Subtotal: $282.27

And an upside to buying it all on Amazon.com I will get the trial of Prime for 30 days for free 2 day shipping on everything (except the RAM from Outlet PC) but that pretty much saves me all the shipping and handling. And it will get here in very few days.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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As others have indicated, buy only a quality psu.
The only psu's that came with a case that I would buy come from Antec.

You can buy a Corsair CX430 which is a bargain for $35 after rebate: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026
I would go with a ivy bridge G1610 cpu. It is a bit cheaper, and is plenty strong enough:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116889

Look at a B75 based motherboard. They are about $5 more, but you get USB3.0, 6gb sata
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157362

Now, this may be a bit controversial, but why not buy a SSD instead of a hard drive? Most desktop users will be very happy with a 120gb ssd that costs $100 or so.
Only if storing large files like video's would a large hard drive be necessary. You can always add one later.
It will make everything you do so much quicker.

 
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drpepperulz

drpepperulz

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Jan 27, 2013
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Yeah, I went with buying the PSU at Amazon because of my trial with Amazon Prime I wanted to try to order everything there because of the no shipping costs.
And the family member I am building this computer for, doesn't know a computer's true potential. They have been using a computer that is over 10 years old and takes like 2 minutes to boot up. Then it takes a few minutes just to open Microsoft Outlook. So yes you are right an SSD would be a HUGE upgrade, speed wise.
For now though, I am just going to build this PC very cheap.
Although, whenever they have issues with it I have to take my time to fix it. I just can't seem to spend 100 dollars more, even on a cheap SSD, for a couple seconds. Practically ANYTHING would be a step up in this case... No matter how frustrating it gets frustrating spending 2 hours fixing a problem that should take 10 because of just how slow the machine is, I just can't see to spend that money.

Thank you for your advice though, much appreciated.

PS. The only reason I bought a 1 TB is because it 10 dollars more than 500 GB, although I know they won't use nor need that much storage it fit within their budge constraints. I can always partition the hard drive and use it for my personal storage, because I know they would never find it... :p I probably don't even need to partition it, haha I could just make a folder called "RANDOM" on their desktop and they wouldn't ever touch it. All they know how to do is search the internet (And I am loosely using the word "know") and read e-mails and stuff.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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How much is YOUR time worth?
Installing windows on a ssd will take 10 minutes vs an hour for a hard drive.
Ditto for a big maintenance job.
You can buy a Samsung 840 for $93 on amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-120GB-internal-MZ-7TD120BW/dp/B009NHAF06
You can buy a G1610 for $49 http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Celeron-2-60GHz-Processor-BX80637G1610/dp/B00B4BJYVU
A G640 cpu has a passmark rating of 2577.
The $16 cheaper ivy bridge G1610 has a rating of 2621.

The net difference is $6. If bulk storage is not an issue consider it.
If you already have a ssd on your own pc, you know what it is worth.
If you don't ..... use it in the build and find out.
 
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mohit9206

mohit9206

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Aug 8, 2012
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good build for only $300! you could add a $50 graphics card to your build like radeon 6570 etc. it helps in playing full hd movies, makes internet browsing faster and smoother and generally helps to boost every application speed and responsiveness
 
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