Building a comp with $1000 bankroll, any suggestions?

[rakmial]

I feel really dumb right now because i know how annoying it can be to get noobers who ask obvious questions - I've been on my share of guitar and gaming forums. However, I'm rather new to the computer-building world and tom's hardware has really helped me understand a ton of information through its tutorials and commentary by its intelligent community, so I was wondering if y'all could help.

I have about a thousand bucks i can spend on building a new computer, but i know next to nothing about major companies or brands, or what is dependable, or what blows out the arse. I am a gamer, and that is the main reason i am going to be using this computer for, but my parents' Dell just isn't cutting it anymore. Actually, it never really did. It sucks and I hate it.

 

[The_Prophecy]

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

RAM: G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800

Video: eVGA Geforce 7600GT

Case: Antec Sonata II

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2

Optical Drive: NEC ND-3550A

Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5

Total before taxes and shipping: $925.93

 

[rakmial]

Unfortunately Prophecy, I mean a COMPLETE computer system, monitor, keyboard, and everything. But thank you so much for your help anyway! Feel free to try again

 

[dietzjack]

Monitor and keyboard are really separate purchases. Just about any monitor or keyboard you purchase will work with your system.

Monitor, keyboard, and mouse purchases should be based on your personal preference. I use a Philips 19" LCD and Logitech MX3100 Keyboard/mouse combo and am pretty happy with both. You need to think about whether you want LCD or CRT, what screen size, wireless or wired keyboard/mouse, etc... Keep in mind the more you spend on your peripherals the less you will have for your system.

You are probably looking at a value system if you want to include a monitor in your $1000.

 

[rakmial]

You would be correct. I'm pretty much rebate-shopping. I think i want to go with an AMD system. I found a nice 17" LCD monitor on rebate for only $136! The pixel pitch is a nice .26, so it will be nice and clear.

 

[rakmial]

Mobo - ECS NFORCE4M-A (V1.1) - $60

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ - $180

RAM - OCZ Gold Series 2GB - $139 (Rebate high)

HDD - SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series - $74

DVDR - BenQ Black 16X DVD+R - $27.25 (Rebate)

Keyboard - Rosewill RK650 - $14 (Rebate)

Mouse - Sunbeam X-1300 - $12

GFX card - eVGA 256-P2-N516-RX Geforce 7800GT- $195

Case - Sunbeam TRIO - $75 (Rebate)

PSU - included in case

Monitor - JetWay M1752SF - $137 (Rebate high)

Speakers - Cyber Acoustics CA3090WB - $16 (Rebate)

SUBTOTAL = $929.25

Tax + Shipping = $140

TOTAL = 1069.25

 

[Onthefarside]

If you really wanted to save some cash or spend more on a monitor you could stick with the P D805, it's plenty fine for gaming, and is only about $90, with a cheap mobo thats almost 90-100 you could spend on a nice 19" which I find nice for gaming, either that or a Zalman 9500 if you wana do a little overclocking with your 805, its pretty much about as good as air cooling gets.

 

[rakmial]

Well, the combined cost of the Athlon X2 4200+ and the mobo is only $240, which isn't too much of a difference. Although, i would like to invest in liquid cooling sometime, but that would be at least another hundred dollars.

 

[Onthefarside]

Well if you're going to want water cooling, the only real need for that is overclocking, and the 805 is a really good OC chip, with even a cheap water cooling system like this you could get decent results. I haven't used AMD in a while so I honestly can't say anything about their overclockability.

 

[illinikevin]

Good water cooling is closer to $200 and on a $1000 budget it is probably out for right now. I'd start with an AMD 3800 or 4200 x2. Their fast chips and overclock well on stock heatsinks. Go with 1GB of ram it will save you almost $100 over 2GB and the performance difference isn't that much. Save your money for a nice high end video card(7900 gt or ATI equivalent). After all this you should have about $300 left over for a monitor, keyboard and, mouse. If you want intel go with a pentium D 915. It's only $137 and runs cooler and uses less power than the 805 and overclocks just as far.

 

[iMatt711]

unless you're buying a core 2 chip definitely go with amd, they just cut prices and are really good

 

[rakmial]

Here's what i've made thus far. It's SATA 3g ready, SLI ready, and shipping/tax is included. Any improvements/suggestions?

Mobo - Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8KRS Socket 939 - $87.21

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ - $193.98

RAM - OCZ Performance Series 1GB - $108.25

HDD - SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SATA 3g - $60.63 (Rebate)

DVDR - BenQ Black 16X DVD+R - $32.89 (Rebate)

Keyboard - Rosewill RK650 - $19.63 (Rebate)

Mouse - Sunbeam X-1300 - $16.98

GFX card - eVGA 256-P2-N516-RX Geforce 7800GT- $201.12

Case - Sunbeam TRIO - $90.79 (Rebate)

PSU - included in case

Monitor - AG Neovo F-417 - $169.98

Speakers - Cyber Acoustics CA3090WB - $24.93 (Rebate)

TOTAL = $1006.39

 

[ethel]

GFX card - eVGA 256-P2-N516-RX Geforce 7800GT- $201.12

For that money you can get an X1800XT, which is superior:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102007

Actually that's a pretty fantastic price for this card.

 

[rakmial]

I've heard too many horror stories about ATI to really trust them. Every single person i know who tried out an ATI card had it either stop working completely or it works very badly.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Suggested Changes:

Mobo: Asus A8N5X <--- SLI boards are a waste of money. You won't get ANY BENEFIT AT ALL from an SLI setup, because your monitor can only display at 1280 x 1024. To see any benefit, you need a monitor which can display at least 1600 x 1200. You would also need to be able to buy the cards within 2 months of each other. The 7800GT's aren't really worth putting into an SLI setup anyway. You would get more out of 2 7900GT's.

Case: Antec Sonata II <--- This case (I would be willing to put money on this) has a better brand of power supply included with it.

DVD Burner: NEC ND-3550A

 

[rakmial]

Prophecy, the SLI is not the real reason why i chose the Foxconn board. I also chose it because it was compatible with SATA 3g, which the ASUS you prescribed me is not. Also, I don't see the difference in the power supply of the other case. Is it the "smartpower" thing? If so, why is it so much better? Also, the DVD Burner you suggested has a slower access speed (mine=120<yours=160)

 

[ikjadoon]

No offense, but any reason why everyone is suggesting the dying 939-socket? Kind of ruins the upgrade path, no?

Access time isn't that bad, your probably won't notice. I don't know much about those drives, though... I personally recommend this Samsung Burner.

~Ibrahim~

 

[k-]

I've heard too many horror stories about ATI to really trust them. Every single person i know who tried out an ATI card had it either stop working completely or it works very badly.

pfffffffffffffft.

 

[rakmial]

is the 939 out of date? I had no idea. I couldn't really find a good mobo that used the AM2 though, at least not one that was as good as this Foxconn. Why do you recommend that burner? Personal experiences?

 

[ikjadoon]

AM2 processors are hardly faster than their 939 counterparts, but AMD has already announced that they will not produce another 939-pin CPU....AM2 is kind of an in-between to AM3..

~Ibrahim~

 

[alien_3333]

i hvnt heard of any am3 mobo's yet but what i know is am2 mobo's will support am3 processors... but it doesnt work the other way around... heres the link.... am3 is just for DDR3 SD-RAM (more bandwith, more performance at low power...) more info here...

im building a am2 pc soon and well i have not intent to do SLi or have any outpriced (i guess) ddr3 memory... you can find decent stuff not really expensive... my setup :
- AMD athlon x2 3800+ (no need for the 4200+ / 4600+ / 4800+, this one is just plenty fine... the others arent worth the extra money.. you dont get more difference.. i.e. only a couple less seconds when encoding)
- ASUStek M2N-E NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP
one thing you should pay attention to is the ram... this mobo offers a max of 1.95V for the ram so if youre getting it get some adequate compatible ram

cheers and good luck

 

[rakmial]

what is the difference between the nForce 4 and nForce 570 chipsets?

 

[The_Prophecy]

Prophecy, the SLI is not the real reason why i chose the Foxconn board. I also chose it because it was compatible with SATA 3g, which the ASUS you prescribed me is not. Also, I don't see the difference in the power supply of the other case. Is it the "smartpower" thing? If so, why is it so much better? Also, the DVD Burner you suggested has a slower access speed (mine=120<yours=160)

Antec PSU's are a lot more reliable than other noname brand supplies that come in other cases....

The lack of SATA2 makes NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL. There is absolutely no performance gain between SATA1 and SATA2 devices.

 

[rakmial]

Hmmm... Interesting. I assumed that the SATA 3g would read off my hard drive 2x as fast as the SATA 1.5g... doesn't that seem logical? Also, I've been looking on the CPU charts, and it seems like the AMD Athlon 64 4000+ performs better every time in terms of framerate compared to the X2's. Is it really important to have dual core? I don't really ever multitask, i usually just do one thing at a time. I guess what i'm asking is, what real advantages are there from dual core over single core?

 

[nikolokolus]

SATA 3gs versus 1.5 is purely theoretical bandwidth. Right now HD's are limited by their physical characteristics (spindle speed, number of heads, etc.) that act as a bottleneck. Is there a difference between SATA I and II? Sure, but it's on the order of 2-5% depending on the benchmark; certainly nothing that is visible to the naked eye.

As far as single core versus dual core goes, single core can be faster in most games (for now), but you need to think of a few things.

1) developers are going to be increasingly optimizing code for 2 cores

2) your VGA card is by far more important to gaming performance

3) Benchmarks designed to highlight differences in CPU's are typically run at very low resolution (800X600), when those same benchmarks are cranked up to more "real world" settings like 1024X768 and 1280X1024 those differences mostly dry up.