E6300 Based Build - Need Advice!

[mwiz79]

Hi,

Am planning a E6300 based build for a friend. Not much gaming as such, so don't want to spend much on GPU. As the user is not really a DIYer a stable build is major requirement (minimal bios updates/crashes/BSODd) . How good is this build:

1)Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo - $193

2)Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express - $153 (Or should I go for ASUS P5B Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX - $160)

3)CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 675 (PC2 5400) - $116

4)ASUS EAX550GE/TD/256M Radeon X550 256MB 128-bit DDR PCI Express x16 - $55 ( how good is this one? Any other circa $50 graphic card that I should consider?)

5)NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Beige IDE Model ND-3550A - $35

Others:
a) Stock HSF
b) One UDMA HDD 120GB (from previous system) - Might buy a SATA HDD little later
c) Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (from previous system)

Is this OK?

What would be the power requirement of this rig and which powers supply should I buy?

Would really appreciate any help with this.

TIA,
M

 

[WR2]

Is there any gaming going on at all?? If so what games (or future games) are we talking about?
Thats certainly a gaming CPU and motherboard combo. Whats his current system like?

Without a gaming requirement you could probably go with:
$119 Intel BOXDG965RYCK Socket T (LGA 775) Intel G965 Express
Onboard Video Chipset: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3000
$139 Intel Pentium D 915 Presler 800MHz FSB 2.8Ghz
- and save the $55 on a video card to put to a good keyboard & mouse combo or a LCD monitor.

 

[mwiz79]

Oh. The games the user is going to play are: Quake 3/4, NFS (old versions), AoE, AoM etc. Primarily for video encoding.

I was planning to do an AMD 3800+ X2 AM2 build, but decided against it due to unavailability of any decent stable non-SLi motherboard for it.

Keyboard (MS Natural)/Mouse (MS Intellimouse optical)/Monitor (Samsung 17" flat CRT) are already there.

Oh and btw the computer is to run well for another 2-3 years without major upgrades (as in CPU/Mobo) and should ideally be Vista ready.

Rgds,
M