Please comment my budget build

[honkytonkman]

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for constructive comments (good or bad) for this budget build I'm doing for my mom. It will be used strictly for Microsoft Office and web surfing and will be running XP, but it needs to be able to run Vista in maybe a couple of years. The most important factors are 1. price, 2. decent performance that will last 4-5 years including Vista. Thanks for your input.

Seagate Barracuda 80GB 7200.9 8MB SATA Hard Drive $52.99
(She only had 10GB used in total on her pc that recently died)
Corsair Value Select PC2-5300 1X1024MB DDR2-667 240PIN DIMM $73.98
(I chose 1 stick because theres only 2 ram slots on the mother board and we may want to upgrade to 2 GB when switching to Vista)
Samsung SH-S182F DVD+RW 18X8X18 DVD-RW 18X6X18 DL 8X 2MB IDE $33.99
Logisys CS-51WBK 51W Black 450W ATX Tower Case $55.36
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ EE Dual Core Processor AM2 Windsor 512KBX2 65W 90NM Retail Box 139.95
ECS RS485M-M mATX AM2 Radeon Xpress 1100 DDR2 PCI-E16 PCI-E1 2PCI SATA2 Video LAN Audio Motherboard $66.07
AMD Boost 512MB Flash Drive USB2.0 Promo Only - Not for Resale $0.00

Total comes to about 420 $ CAD, so approximately 365$ US

 

[TSIMonster]

The motherboard is good. Drop the CPU down to a 3600+ and switch to 2GB of RAM (You can get G.Skill for $130)

Also, don't trust that case PSU. Save some cash and get one without. FSP has a 400watt PSU for about $30 that will work good.

Hard drive is fine, DVD drive is fine. That board is good for 250Mhz FSB, and the 3600+ will handle that beautifully! Also, that board has good onboard video and should handle Aero fine.

Here are links to my suggestions:

65nm 3600+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103046

2GB G.Skill DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098

FSP 400 Watt PSU (They have the OEM version which could save you a few bucks)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104953


That will give her a kickin system

 

[TSIMonster]

Of course, you are in canada... so my suggestions may have been pointless..

 

[jeff_2087]

Pretty good. You should definitely go with a better PSU like the one TSI mentioned, though. And follow the suggestion on RAM and get 2x1GB.

Also, for a CPU consider the X2 Windsor 4200+. Only $10 more expensive than the 3600+, and it's 2.2GHz as opposed to 1.9.

For your board, you should look at a 690G based board for better graphics. Asus makes one, the M2A-VM, that's mATX and has 4 RAM slots for future upgrades as opposed to the 2 in your board. It's $70 US.

 

[TSIMonster]

Yeah, the Windsors are getting cheap. I still think that ECS board is good though. I had one that I had gotten for $50 and it was great.

The On board video played Unreal 2004 and Halo fine, so I would imagine Vista Aero would be fine. However, a cheap dedicated nVidia 7 series or Ati x1k series card would definately be much better!!

 

[honkytonkman]

Thanks for the replies guys, great help, I will definately be checking your suggestions out.
Few questions though.
Is another power supply really necessary? I know all about the good PSU's vs cheap PSU's as I built my system recently. But this pc will use maybe 220 watts total and if I were to upgrade with a discrete video card, I would obviously change the PSU. I'd like to know if that sounds reasonable to you guys or you still think this thing will blow up (the pc will be connected to a UPS also, don't know if that makes a difference) And unfortunately we have some good stores in Canada, but not Newegg equivalent, so finding a solid 30$ PSU is impossible.

Also I don't understand why you guys suggest 2 gigs of ram for some Word and web browsing in XP. I would probably buy a second stick in a couple of years when upgrading it to Vista but to keep costs down right now I personally don't see how 2 gigs is necessary. I might be wrong.

And for the cpu's, if I can get a 4600 for 140 CAD (115 US), why should I go with a 3600 or 3800, are they better because of a new architechture or something?

Finally that motherboard you suggested is 105$ here vs 65$ for the ECS, that seems like a good trade for the better brand, 4 slots, and better vid card, better sound card, better ehternet card, more usb's etc. etc. etc.

It might seem like I'm just disagreeing with your suggestions but this is exactly what I wanted, to compare my opinions with my limited knowledge to yours.
Thanks

 

[jeff_2087]

Oh sorry I thought you were going to be using Vista now, I tend to read too quickly and skim over important stuff. Yeah XP is fine with 1GB

I suppose the PSU is more of a knee-jerk suggestion than anything else... Chances are you'd be fine for some time with a noname PSU on a light system, I've just always preferred to be better safe than sorry, as they say.

140 Cdn for a 4600+ is pretty good, I'm so used to talking in US dollars here even though I live in Canada :lol:

 

[honkytonkman]

Hehe that's what happens when you live next to the USA. We might be close, I live in Qc but 5 mins from Ottawa. Out of curiosity, where do you buy your hardware? I go with NCIX because of no PST, great prices, amazing custumer service and price matching (the cpu is a price match).

 

[TSIMonster]

In that case, your build looks good. I would try my best to get a decent PSU though. If that thing shorts, it is likely to take something else with it!!