Best low cost setup for a new system

[Major_Spittle]

I would go for the 920D. At $100 you will not save yourself any real money going with a single core processor. So a $100 dual core is as cheap of a processor I could go.

For a MB I would go with the likes of a GIGABYTE GA-965G-DS3. The on board sound and graphics (X3000) are good enough for a Vista experience now and if you want to drop another $100+ later for a video card you could have a decent gaming rig. Right now this is priced at about $125 for the MB.

For memory I would opt. for 2 gigs of 667 DDR2 which you can buy now for about $150. I feel 2 gigs with Windows is a minimum if you want to be able to use your dual cores processing power on many programs now days. Ironicly unless you are going to run a 64 bit version of windows anything over 3 gigs is pretty pointless too. High speed ram doesn't really matter with the C2D systems and makes no sense in a low end system with a 920D.

Well, my bare minimum system's major components come to $375. $475 for me if I want to game because I would probably drop $100 for a 7600gt or better video card.

Hard drives, case, power supply don't really matter a lot for such a low end system, just get what is cheapest with the exception maybe being the HD but there are always deals.

I choose this over the X2 3800 based system, soley because if I was building a system I would get a MB that could upgrade to a C2D 2 or 4 core processor later on. Intels price and roadmap is better and I would like the options that would be available to me down the road with intel. If this wasn't an issue I would definately go with the X2 3800 at the same price.

I have heard many comments on the forum about how AMD has the low end market. It looks pretty much dead even to me unless I am missing something. Right now I would give the nod to an Intel platform that can upgrade to C2D. This wouldn't be so if AMD had processors that could compete past the 6700 C2D.

What kind of a build would you do on the cheap?

 

[m25]

AMDs K10 cores are supposed so beat Core2, so I'd strongly advice you to wait for 1-2 months till some benchmarks come out so you can better decide what to get. I'd not upgrade in a situation like this.

 

[qcmadness]

Intel will change socket in 2008 (Socket H and Socket B).
You can still plug an AM2+ CPU into a Socket AM2 board in 2008.
For upgradability, I will choose AMD.

 

[Periander]

AMDs K10 cores are supposed so beat Core2, so I'd strongly advice you to wait for 1-2 months till some benchmarks come out so you can better decide what to get. I'd not upgrade in a situation like this.

I tend to doubt that K10s will be hitting the "low cost setup" price points the OP mentioned in the near future.

 

[Periander]

Intel will change socket in 2008 (Socket H and Socket B).
You can still plug an AM2+ CPU into a Socket AM2 board in 2008.
For upgradability, I will choose AMD.

You are talking about Nehalem sockets. Penryn is not expected (correct me if I am wrong) to use a new socket, although voltage requirements might be a problem with some existing boards.

 

[Major_Spittle]

AMDs K10 cores are supposed so beat Core2, so I'd strongly advice you to wait for 1-2 months till some benchmarks come out so you can better decide what to get. I'd not upgrade in a situation like this.

I tend to doubt that K10s will be hitting the "low cost setup" price points the OP mentioned in the near future.

I doubt I would ever spend over $250 on ANY processor. Sooner or latter Intels current Quads will hit that price point and I could plug in one of them.

If Crysis can run on a 920D then the next upgrade to look at would be a video card. I wish AMD would release a DX10 card so that prices would drop. I also will not spend more than $200 on a video card.