So I have recently built my very first computer (core i7) for myself and I'm now helping my friend to build his first computer. He's going to be dorming has a budget of around $700 right now. The computer we compiled on Newegg goes over 700 a little but we already took away a few things that could be bought later on. He's looking for a solid and fast computer for basic multi tasking, browsing, playing music, writing papers, etc... and basic Photoshop (editing RAW images), and basic gaming (older games from a few years back to somewhat current ones, most gaming will be on the 360 though)
The original plan was to add a card reader (cheap $20, will add later) and trying to decide whether or not to have one ssd (os and programs) and one traditional (data) or two traditional hard drives. So we went with the two hard drive option (will add second drive later on) just because of the price and I'm not sure if it's really worth it just yet (maybe in a few years?) He wants to do some overclocking so the heatsink was added. He wanted to go with a quad core but I told him there is no real reason to go with it just for basic computer tasks. He has a keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers.
Does this look like a good build, something that will last him a few years at least? Any glaring problems?
If he needs to save about $45 he could go with the PhenomII x3 720 BE which would give about the same performance as the E8400 in some apps, but better performance in others for $119.
Your build is a solid build, but he can get much better performance at the same price with the 945, or just a bit better for less with the 720.
Thanks for the advice. I'm going to talk to him about it tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be very happy he can save some money and get better performance out of it. If we switch over to AMD, I'll be looking to get this heatsink:
Used my 3rd of this Rosewill case in a recent build, at $40 with free shipping it's an excellent budget case. My only complaint is that the 80mm fan on the side is a bit noisy, the 3 - 120mm fans it comes with are fine though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811147124
I'm not a huge fan of that Sapphire 4850, it has great performance, but it's on the loud side.
The HIS 4830 ($99) and HIS 4850 ($109) are both much longer than the 4670 and consume more power. They state that a 450W is recommended now.
He's not going to be doing that much gaming... unless he starts to because he has a good video card, lol. For now I might stick with the 4670 until I talk to him tonight but I'll definitely talk to him about the higher up cards.
I'm guessing the SSD is out of the question, right? I just talked to my friend on the phone and he'll gladly go with the AMD build that dirtmountain posted and the Scythe cooler I came across. Maybe he might not even overclock it since it's already a much better setup he's used to (2 1/2 year old laptop) but I heard the stock cooler makes it run very hot regardless. Sounds kind of like the problem I had with the stock 920 cooler.
Don't bring nice *** to the dorms. Just tell him to buy an econobox Dell or something, so it has less of a chance to be stolen. He'll also get tech support.