I am newbie, I have five hundred dollars, I am not an overclocker ( I will not overclock) and I want to get the best bang for buck for the following components.

1. Motherboard
2. CPU
3. Graphic Card
4. Sound Card (I have already bought logitech z5500)
5. Ram

My requirements are that I want to play the latest games and would preferably want silent cpu and graphic card as i will use it for building a media center pc.



Thanks

Anyone Please Help

bump!!!

Patience..........

It would help if you could specify some additional info:

-What country are you in?
-Do you prefer AMD or Intel?
-Do you prefer ATI or Nvidia?
-What resolution monitor will you be playing on?

To be honest, a $500 budget for those components is challenging but not impossible. Your comment of "to play the latest games and would preferably want silent cpu and graphic card".......all CPU's are silent. As for graphics card, the ATI X1900XT 256 is nowhere near silent. The Nvidia 7900GT is, however, and offers excellent performance for the price.

"The latest games" is a difficult one.....you can play the latest games on a 7600GT but you can also play on a 7900GTO. Certain games (like Oblivion) will puke on a 7600 so you'd have to turn down the settings. No offense, but for $500 you not gonna get a Ferrari. You'll get something decent though.

Most people here will recommend an Intel C2D, but the mobos are more expensive than AMD. If you really wanna go cheap for $500, here is my best suggestion:

-AMD X2 3800 - AM2
-MSI K9N Neo-F Socket AM2 mobo
-2 x 512 DDR2 5400 (667) RAM - if you're not OC'ing, get the cheapest stuff
-Nvidia 7600GT gfx card

Look around for good prices, and you should fit into $500.

Tell me how the following combination looks

AMD 3700+ socket 939 = 90$
MSI K8N = 70$
x-fi xtreme music = 100$
geforce 7600gt = 150$
Kingston 1gb ram = 100$

Total = 510$

bump

Bump right back LOL

If you don't mind going socket 939 then that setup is fine for decent gaming. You won't need a dual core CPU, 1 gig RAM should do just fine, that gfx card is a great performer for the price (I had one before I upgraded), and the mobo should be ok if you're not overclocking.

Looks like you're good to go!

Opteron 144 - $79
OCZ Premier 512X2 - $104
DFI Infinity Nforce4 - $70
Auzentech Mystic 7.1 - $59
Gecube X1900GT - $188

$ 500.99 --damn I"m good

Thank you newegg :!:

Yea I would go with ravens choice! Even though u wont OC...when you see the light, you can with that motherboard!

Best,

3Ball

Step WELLLL away from that sound card, there's basically no point. Try and get an AM2 motherboard/CPU combo too. Dual core would be nice also. If you remove the x-fi you can easily fit in an x1900xt 256 into your budget, and that thing'll totally pwn an 7600GT into next week.

You will need a nice PSU too! Dont use one that comes with a case. Skip the sound card for now. Most mother boards have a nice 5.1 onboard sound.

That is one sweet sytem for the rpice... and im amazed...

That is one sweet sytem for the rpice... and im amazed...

I was amazed at how far he went over budget....Gosh!

Sometimes you gotta spend a little extra $$ ya know

Nice pricing, very impresive for the cost

Cuz he alredy has a sound card, dont know how good it is though, maybe he could put the extra 59$ somewhere else too.

The only issue I have with the machine is the CPU itself.

144 has a low(er) multi. However those DFI boards tolerate rather large HTT increases, so to make 270 easy isnt unheard of.

I"m pretty sure you could even do it without dropping the multi.

However the 3200+ and Lanparty I had did 300mhz HTT on air. so if you could do the same, you'd have a 2700mhz cpu and a nice little system.

Just need to tweak, perfect and overclock a little bit to get your extra $$ worth.

is the opteron 144 better than amd 3700+

good build from raven
if i were you i would know what to do

If you feel like just the smallest bit of overclocking....yes it would be better.