Tom's Hardware > Forum > Homebuilt Systems > New System Build > Need help with an Upgrade for Cheap

Need help with an Upgrade for Cheap

Forum Homebuilt Systems : New System Build - Need help with an Upgrade for Cheap

Tom's Hardware: Over 1.4 million members in 6 different countries available to answer all your high-tech questions. Sign up now! Its free!
Word :    Username :           
 

Hello everyone, I am a new member of this forum however I have been reading this forum for years. I am in the process of planning a rebuild of our main desktop. I am not a virgin to building, this will actually be like my 10th pc I have built. However it has been quite a few years since I did the last one and technology has changed quite a bit. My wife is into photo editing, meaning photoshop and I am into video editing, so this PC would need to address these needs. We do not game at all, I save games for the Wii, and PS2. Other then that basic office applications and web surfing would be required. Right now the system we are operating on is:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+
ECS KN1 Extreme
2GB PC2700 DDR Dual Channel
Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE

This system has become very slow for and at times becomes unresponsive while my wife is using photoshop.

Now here is where I need some help. I do not want to spend that much, and really this is going to be the biggest constriction. I am trying to keep my total around $500 for the upgrade. The case, and other peripherals, DVD burner, hard drives, can all stay with this new build. The only things I can see needing are:

Motherboard/CPU
Memory
Power Supply
CPU heatsink/fan

I put together some items from tigerdirect and was wondering what you all thought.

Motherboard: MSI DKA790GX
CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
Power Supply: DiabloTek PHD650 650W
Memory: 2 x 2GB OCZ Dual Channel Platinum PC8500 DDR2
Heatsink/fan: Thermaltake TR2-R1

All of these for a total of 426.93

What do you think of this option? I wanted a quad core, however the tri-core was much cheaper and from what I read this board makes overclocking very easy. Please let me know what you think, and if you can think of anything different that might perform just as well please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Sponsored Links
Register or log in to remove.
- 0 +

Drop the Motherboard, and cheap A$$ PSU. Secondly, the board can only use DDR3 (same as the one I'm listing)

MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131366
$140 ASUS M4A78T-E (trust me spent the little extra)
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817702010
$50 BFG GS-550 550W (a good cheap PSU, that is a D@mn sight better than the one you listed)
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231179
$65 G.Skill 2x2GB DDR3 1333

Reply to IH8U

Thanks for the finds, I can pair that motherboard and the processor I was going to get for like $234, not bad at all, now what about heatsink/fans, any suggestions?

Reply to sdriscol
- 0 +

Fans, look for: Scythe S-Flex, Noctua, or Yate Loon.
For the HSF: Noctua NH-U12P (Nearly silent), Tuniq Tower, or the Zalman CNPS 9700 (if you like Zalman).

All but the Yates can be found on Newegg. The Yates can be found on FrozenCPU.

Reply to IH8U
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Homebuilt Systems > New System Build > Need help with an Upgrade for Cheap
Go to:

There are 814 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Sponsored links
  • Ask the community now
  • Publish
Ad
They won a badge
Join us in greeting them