Hello everyone,
Newbie to the THForums here but I've been using the site and forums for awhile now as a resource to design & build my new computer. I decided once I had gotten everything done to post the build here for critique's. Feel free to call me an idiot for the choices but there are reasons behind all of them.
The Build:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103186&Tpk=BE-2350 (86$)
Motherboard: ASUS M2V -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131024 (76$)
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034 (100$-40$mir*=60$)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075 (50$)
Video Card: ASUS EAX1950PRO -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121031 (150$)
Sound Card: Onboard
Speakers: ~50$
Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc 7170 SATA -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827152079 (35$)
Case: COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811119115 (40$-10$mir*=30$)
Power Supply: Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103941 (100$-45$mir*=55$)
~30$ shipping
~total after mir*: 575$
*MIR = Mail-in-rebate
The Breakdown... I'm no overclocker. I've tried 3 times to overclock in the past and every one has met with disaster. This system is designed to be a 'solid runner' for both gaming and work applications for at least 5-6 years.
CPU & Mobo notes: ASUS has been good to me, so I continue to use their products. I couldn't find any real negative reviews of the M2V and at under 80$ it seemed a good choice. The CPU is, of course, a AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350. It took me a good bit of agony to end up chosing the BE-2350 over the C2D E4300 but in the end, the price point for the CPU and motherboard combo was too convincing. Plus, many times I've read on this site that if you want rock steady, go AMD, if you want to overclock, go C2D. I want Rock Steady.
RAM: Not much to say. 2gb of DDR2 800 for 60 bucks after rebate? Sign me up! Oh and everything I read said the ram will do 4-4-4 with little problem.
HDD: Later on down the road I will add a 500-700gb storage drive, the WD Caviar SE is supposed to be a good 'everyday usage' drive and 160gb is almost triple the storage I have on my present HDD. So I think I'll be ok.
Video Card: I know, I know. NVidia blahblah GTS 320... With this being more of a 'budget' system, that vid card would bottleneck on the CPU in a heartbeat. Near as I can tell the EAX1950 PRO is a fairly powerful card that is made for the type of system I'm building. And if later on I want to drop that out and put a better vid card in, I can. Oh and it's an ASUS and as I said, I like ASUS.
Sound & Speakers: Just gonna go with onboard for now on the sound, if needs be a trip to Circut City and I walk out with a decent sound card for under 50$. Oh and I'm using my old speakers, older Altec Lansing 2.1's. They're not great but they can sure put out some noise.
Optical: Stolen directly from the System Builder's Marathons. A good SATA dvd burner. Can't go wrong.
Case: Again with the SBM ripoff. Still, I like that it has a 'washable' filter in front. I have 2 cats and a dog and they tend to generate enough loose hair per week to knit sweaters for my entire extended family...
Power: Here's where I took the cue from a forum goer, a one lunyone. He/she pointed out to another builder that you could get this PSU for essentially 55$ after rebate. Figuring that 1$ for 10w of power isn't a bad trade off, I decided to go for it, oh and it had good reviews on Newegg and Tigerdirect.
Well, thats about it for now. All told, if the Rebates work, I'll have spent just under 600$ US for what I feel is a fairly powerful computer. (It makes my present P4 1.6ghz look like a tinkertoy and it was purchased for almost double what I'm paying for this one.)
Feel free to add your experiences and thoughts to the thread.
Finally, thank you all for having this wonderful resource. I consider myself a fairly proficient technogeek, but building my own system has been an exercise in PAIN these past couple days. Oh for the good old days when you went to the local swap meet and built a decent computer from people's garbage. *feels old and is going off to yell at kids to get off his lawn*
Newbie to the THForums here but I've been using the site and forums for awhile now as a resource to design & build my new computer. I decided once I had gotten everything done to post the build here for critique's. Feel free to call me an idiot for the choices but there are reasons behind all of them.
The Build:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103186&Tpk=BE-2350 (86$)
Motherboard: ASUS M2V -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131024 (76$)
RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034 (100$-40$mir*=60$)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075 (50$)
Video Card: ASUS EAX1950PRO -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121031 (150$)
Sound Card: Onboard
Speakers: ~50$
Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc 7170 SATA -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827152079 (35$)
Case: COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811119115 (40$-10$mir*=30$)
Power Supply: Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103941 (100$-45$mir*=55$)
~30$ shipping
~total after mir*: 575$
*MIR = Mail-in-rebate
The Breakdown... I'm no overclocker. I've tried 3 times to overclock in the past and every one has met with disaster. This system is designed to be a 'solid runner' for both gaming and work applications for at least 5-6 years.
CPU & Mobo notes: ASUS has been good to me, so I continue to use their products. I couldn't find any real negative reviews of the M2V and at under 80$ it seemed a good choice. The CPU is, of course, a AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350. It took me a good bit of agony to end up chosing the BE-2350 over the C2D E4300 but in the end, the price point for the CPU and motherboard combo was too convincing. Plus, many times I've read on this site that if you want rock steady, go AMD, if you want to overclock, go C2D. I want Rock Steady.
RAM: Not much to say. 2gb of DDR2 800 for 60 bucks after rebate? Sign me up! Oh and everything I read said the ram will do 4-4-4 with little problem.
HDD: Later on down the road I will add a 500-700gb storage drive, the WD Caviar SE is supposed to be a good 'everyday usage' drive and 160gb is almost triple the storage I have on my present HDD. So I think I'll be ok.
Video Card: I know, I know. NVidia blahblah GTS 320... With this being more of a 'budget' system, that vid card would bottleneck on the CPU in a heartbeat. Near as I can tell the EAX1950 PRO is a fairly powerful card that is made for the type of system I'm building. And if later on I want to drop that out and put a better vid card in, I can. Oh and it's an ASUS and as I said, I like ASUS.
Sound & Speakers: Just gonna go with onboard for now on the sound, if needs be a trip to Circut City and I walk out with a decent sound card for under 50$. Oh and I'm using my old speakers, older Altec Lansing 2.1's. They're not great but they can sure put out some noise.
Optical: Stolen directly from the System Builder's Marathons. A good SATA dvd burner. Can't go wrong.
Case: Again with the SBM ripoff. Still, I like that it has a 'washable' filter in front. I have 2 cats and a dog and they tend to generate enough loose hair per week to knit sweaters for my entire extended family...
Power: Here's where I took the cue from a forum goer, a one lunyone. He/she pointed out to another builder that you could get this PSU for essentially 55$ after rebate. Figuring that 1$ for 10w of power isn't a bad trade off, I decided to go for it, oh and it had good reviews on Newegg and Tigerdirect.
Well, thats about it for now. All told, if the Rebates work, I'll have spent just under 600$ US for what I feel is a fairly powerful computer. (It makes my present P4 1.6ghz look like a tinkertoy and it was purchased for almost double what I'm paying for this one.)
Feel free to add your experiences and thoughts to the thread.
Finally, thank you all for having this wonderful resource. I consider myself a fairly proficient technogeek, but building my own system has been an exercise in PAIN these past couple days. Oh for the good old days when you went to the local swap meet and built a decent computer from people's garbage. *feels old and is going off to yell at kids to get off his lawn*
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