my new $263 budget rig

[gta_bmx]

ASUS M2N-MX SE Plus with onboard Nvidia GeForce 6150 graphics $55
AMD Athlon X2 4000+ dual core $59
stick of Transcend 2 gigabyte DDR2 800 RAM $35
Lite-On DVD-RW drive $24
Asus TA-851 case with 350 watt PS $50
used an 80 gig HD I already had
Windows Vista Basic bought off ebay $40

total: $263

I needed a cheap system to replace a 5 year old Pentium 4 Compaq. Dual core is great. This system plays "GTA: San Andreas" smoothly. It won't play the very latest games but will play games that are 2 years old just fine. Plus it has PCI Express, so I can add a better card later to be able to play the newer games. All in all, a nice system for web surfing, email, podcasts, word processing, iTunes, and playing games that are 2-3 years old. The case is an el cheapo model but still looks nice, and the build quality seems higher than its price. This is about the cheapest you can spend on a relatively new system. I guess one could get a Pc Chips mobo for a few bucks less, but ASUS seems like a better vendor.

 

[A_Dying_Wren]

Im surprised u can even play 2~3 yr old games with those onboard graphics. Get a proper video card even if old.

 

[random1283]

Nice work on a REAL budget build but yeah if possible buy a cheap graphics card of newegg. For you spend about 40-50 bucks

 

[Onus]

At that price and considering what it replaced, great job. No nits worth picking.

 

[compy386]

Great build. I might have to steal your design... I agree with AMDfangirl though. Get a 780g mobo. It'll only be 20-30 more. More than just graphics the 780g is also a lot better in other things too like USB transfer speeds.

 

[lunyone]

I would've went with at least the 690 chipset, but definately would've got the 780g chipset instead. I would've also probably just got XP instead of Vista, since it has a smaller memory footprint than Vista, but that is nit picking a bit.

 

[rodney_ws]

Is $40 really the going rate for a legal copy of Vista on eBay?

 

[lunyone]

Is $40 really the going rate for a legal copy of Vista on eBay?

I really doubt it. If it was like $85-90 than I'd believe that more so.

 

[gta_bmx]

yeah, it was $40 for the upgrade version (used) on ebay. I already had a full copy of XP, so I was able to use the upgrade version of Vista. I had to call MS customer service to activate it. I may go back to XP because of the toll that Vista takes on a system. Seems to run about 20% slower under Vista than it did running XP.

 

[lunyone]

If you upgraded to 4 gb's of RAM you might have a better experience (at least from what I've read). I don't have VIsta right now, because there wasn't any particular reason I need it, but might go to it later.

 

[randomizer]

If you upgraded to 4 gb's of RAM you might have a better experience (at least from what I've read). I don't have VIsta right now, because there wasn't any particular reason I need it, but might go to it later.

No bloated rubbish in vista home basic. Actually... there isn't much in vista home basic at all. I run vista Business N (which has Aero and other stuff that the home versions don't have, but has no WMP startup crap to balance it out) with only 2Gb RAM and I play crysis and other RAM hogs. More RAM would be nice, but it isn't necessary.

 

[gta_bmx]

Yeah, the Aero interface is just eye candy. About the only thing of substance that the pricier versions of Vista offer is the Media Center functionality. For most folks, Vista Home Basic is sufficient.

I am building another one of these $263 systems for my neighbor who got addicted to 'GTA: San Andreas' while playing it over here at my house. He was into casual games like 'Bejeweled', so I guess he wants to branch out. I will use the suggestions you all offered here in the forum to make an even better "<$300 budget" build.

 

[randomizer]

I like the aero GUI actually. The Vista Basic GUI looks worse than XPs.