Critique my $500 All inclusive Budget Build

[jbart1981]

Several years ago i used to build a lot of systems for my friends and family - with the advent of places like Cyberpower I now just kind of guide them in the right direction and let them fool with the configurator since higher end parts they seem to be able to build out cheaper than I could build it myself. So now my friend wants me to put together a Pc for her 7 year old son with total cost Under $500. I tried pawning her off on cp building site but nothing could touch her price point and I wasn't abou to let he r pick up some Wal-mart special with Atom inside. After perusing my local pc store and a few websites I came up with the following configuration. Let me know what you think and if there are any changes you could suggest.

Case: iMicro 10 bay Mid tower W/ 450w Power supply, Keyboard, Optical Scroll mouse and Speakers - $36

MotherBoard: XFX nForce 680i SLI LGA 775 supports FSB up to 1333mhz- $40
This board has 2x PCI-e 2.0 for Later SLI and built in SATA 3.0Gb hardware RAID and active cooling on the chipset along with a dedicated graphics power plug

Processor: Intel Core Duo e5400 2.7Ghz 45nm w 2MB L2 Cache - $50

CPU Cooler - Coolermaster Dream 4 - $10

Graphics: PNY GeForce GT 220 1GB DDR2 w/ HDMI - $45

Hard Drives: 2x Seagate Momentus 7200.4 120GB SATA/300 in RAID 0 - $25 each -> $50 total
I know these are laptop drives but it was a deal I couldn't pass up. They should be quiet and draw less power and create less heat - plus by the time he can fill up 200GB we can always add a storage drive

RAM: Hynix 2x 2GB PC6400 DDR2 800mhz - $75

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S243N 24x DVD±R. w/ Lightscribe SATA interface - $25

SD/MMC: 3.5" USB 2.0 Multi card reader - $7

Monitor: 20" HP LCD 1600x900 native resolution w/ DVI interface - $115

Misc: Case fans, Arctic Silver, Ram heat spreaders SATA Cables - $30

Shipping - $18

Total - $501

I know the LGA 775 Socket is EOL but I think parts for it will still be around for a few years in aftermarket and refurbs. I figure if his needs increase in a year or two it would be pretty cheap to go up to 8gb RAM and by that time a high clock Core 2 Quad should be in the $50 -$75 range . In the same vein if he gets into gaming the SLI features and dedicated power port for the graphics card on this motherboard should make the upgrade process easier. Basically my aim is to get in under budget now without sacrificing the ability to incrementally upgrade later. This will never be a blazing fast build but i think with incremental upgrades it should be able to keep relatively up to date while staying ona budget for the next few years.

I do plan on mildly overclocking. From what I have read it should be no problem upping the FSB from 200 -> 266 without affecting temps too much. With the 13.5x multiplier that puts me at 3.6 GHZ which I think would be a decent improvement without endangering stability or needing to go to water cooling.

I have a Windows 7 64 License leftover from a family pack and I think he can get by with Open Office for now as long as I set the default file types to be MS compatible.

Thoughts? Things you might do different? Thanks

 

[sportsfanboy]

Where do you live? Because you can have a better, faster more modern computer for that price, depending, on where you live.

 

[jbart1981]

Cincinnati OH USA - examples? Open to suggestions.

BTW it was a struggle to get the budget pushed up to $500 so that is the max ceiling for this build including taxes, shipping etc...

I did contemplate going Phenom 2 X3 instead of intel but felt like there was more headroom available for upgrades on the intel side. Phenom 2 is like the highest before going to AM3 boards which were too expensive where as i feel the ability to put in a Core 2 Quad relatively cheap in a year or two would be a better option.

Also I am pretty stuck on having a RAID array for the primary disk. I have seen benchmarks with the drives I chose putting up numbers that rival my SSD - about 150MB/s read and write in a striped 2 disk array.

 

[mosox]

BIOSTAR TA790GXB3 + AMD Athlon II X3 445
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.538436
Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146748
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB + OCZ Fatal1ty OCZ550FTY 550W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.514468
LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA + Rosewill Blackbone Black Steel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.514368

$501.92

For now he can use the onboard video card when he gets into gaming a dedicated video card can be added. For now he can play pretty much any game on lower settings.

Forgot to list the monitor, get a big one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009266

 

[jbart1981]

Honestly I have always leaned towards Intel processors- Except the P4 - always went with athlon's back then - so hadn't really looked closely at the AM3 boards. Good point in that using the cash from the graphics card to upgrade the monitor but how much gaming potential will be lost? I am not that familiar with the capabilities of the AM3 onboard graphics.

A few things your build didn't include that I would need: SD/MMC reader, keyboard, mouse, speakers.

That case and power supply are def upgrades from what I was looking at though.


Thanks for such a fast response

 

[sportsfanboy]

This came to 513 after instant rebates and so on. I think it's vastly better than your build(no offense).

 

[jbart1981]

Looks like i may have missed the boat by not going AMD - thats 2 vote for very similiar builds - surprised both of you went with on-board graphics

For S&G i will go through piece vs piece and compare my original against yours fanboy - let me know if i am missing anything.


DVD drive - mine is slightly faster, is SATA instead of IDE and has lightscribe ( which i am willing to pay a few buck more for) - I like mine better

Case- Both pretty basic mid-towers lets call this a draw - Mosox's suggestion was pretty nice though for the price

Hard Drives: My raid array is probably a little faster, more power efficient and cooler running - although the spinpoint is quicker than I expected - the spinpoint is twice the capacity but how much drive space does a 7 year old need ? I only use about 70gb for everything on my main PC - Lets call this one a draw

Monitor - mine 1600 x 900 yours 1680x 1050 both midrange TN LCD screens - you get this one.

Motherboards - this is tough because they are so different. I chose a full size ATX board with dual x16 graphics slots, SLI bridge, 6 SATA ports, active cooling fans and lots of unlocked OC'ing stuff in the Bios
you chose a micro ATX with fewer expansion slots, and fewer SATA connections but with newer RAM architecture and onboard graphics. both support hardware raid and full 7.1 audio. This is very close but I think i lean towards wanting a full atx board that can handle OC'ing better and has more room for future expansion - just barely giving this one to myself.

MMC /SD reader: they are all pretty similiar - Draw

RAM - Your build def has better ram DDR3 vs DDR2 both 4GB

Processor: This one is hard for me to figure out because I haven't been able to find direct comparison in a review for these two - what I was able to find was numbers from Anandtech for the Athlon 2 x3 435 vs the intel E5300 so a slightly faster x3 vs a slightly slower Core Duo what they showed was Sysmark2007 153 vs 143 and a Photoshop 29sec vs 33sec and a data compression algorithm 145sec vs 222 sec I am a little confused from that one since the other two scores are so close - guess that third core really comes in handy sometimes. I know the e5400 has been overclocked on air up to 4Ghz - saw the Athlon2 get up to 3.75 Ghz . I think clock for clock they are pretty similiar but i will give the edge to the triple core. You win that one.

CPU cooler - great find on that open box special - another point for you

Keyboard, mouse, speakers - they are all pretty much the same but you didn't include speakers - a cheap point for me - ok half point

Graphics: I don't know what the capabilities of the on-board AMD graphics are but I doubt they are better than what the 220 GT will provide - i get this one

So your processor and Ram are better - the storage is kind of a tossup along with the monitor and mmc/sd reader , I get points for graphics, a more robust motherboard, and the DVD drive. While I have no doubt the AMD processor and faster RAM would outclass my e5400 in some synthetics and multi-threaded apps I have to say i feel like my build is a little more well rounded. I am not trying to make this a competition just thinking out loud about the differences in our approach. I do appreciate everyone's input and will be looking more closely at the possibility of switching to an AMD build. Thanks and keep the ideas coming.

 

[sportsfanboy]

I went with onboard graphics because the card in your build wouldn't do much better if at all. And it gave me the freedom to use better, faster parts.

 

[sportsfanboy]

Forgot to add speakers, but you can buy cheap speakers anywhere

 

[ScrewySqrl]

I have a slightly overbudget build I can post when I get home ($537 for athlon II x3, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, and a Geforce GTS 450 with a 1600x900 monitor

 

[jbart1981]

I did some research on the AMD on- board graphics I the review I sow there were 2 options HD 3300 and HD 4250 with the 4250 being significantly better than the 3300. The 4250 seems to come on higher end - i.e. more expensive boards though So I would probably end up with a board that had the HD3300. as far as the GT 220 I was able to find a few sites with numbers in the same benchmark for both the HD4250 and the GT 220. In all cases the GT220 scored about 2x the FPS as the HD 4250 which I think would equate to nearly 2.5x the FPS of the HD 3300. i am not sure if the trade off in graphics performance would be worth it to get the more powerful processor and faster RAM. This kid doesn't have an xbox or PS3 so any gaming would be done on this box. Screwy I look forward to seein what you came up with because the GTS 450 would be really nice to have instead of onboard graphics

 

[sportsfanboy]

Well if your planning on doing any real gaming, you need a discrete graphics card.
This will do a pretty good job at 1650 resolution

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102873

 

[simple_inhibition]

if you substitute the corresponding parts from sportsfanboy's build with this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.513430

youll get a quad-core Athlon II X4 640. the same ram, an MSI 880G motherboard (has the radeon HD4250 on it) which is more modern than the nforce 630a on that asus board, and it would be a little cheaper. if you dont trust that power supply (i dont blame you if you do) then just replace the motherboard, processor and ram in sportsfans build with this combo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.513225

it drops you down to DDR2, but you do get a quad still and the board still has a newer chipset, plus if will be a little cheaper

 

[simple_inhibition]

oh and by the way, what kind of games is he going to be playing on this system? integrated may be enough for those until another $130 can be scraped up for a GTS450

 

[sportsfanboy]

Forgot to add with that card we need to tweak the power supply a little(add power). I can do it for not much more, maybe 10 to 20 dollars. So your looking at around 160 extra for a pretty good gaming machine.

 

[jbart1981]

I honestly don't know what type of gaming it will be but it would be nice to have the option for at least medium settings on relatively modern games at the resolution of 1600x900 or 1680x1050 - the most likely monitor size we are looking at.

 

[sportsfanboy]

Ok, lol 592.00 with a capable video card for the resolution he/she will be playing at. I upgraded the power and case as well, to handle the card.

The picture cropped the e5400 wolfdale

 

[jbart1981]

You all have given me a lot to think about - No way I can get into that $600 range
But I f I Switch out My MoBo & CPU for Simple's 2nd option I can get a 3Ghz quad core and stay right around $500
Any other Graphics card options in the under $50 pricepoint ?

 

[sportsfanboy]

The problem getting a 50 dollar video card, your not really getting decent gaming ability anyway, so it isn't worth it. You might as well get the cheapest board with the best on board graphics you can find.

 

[jbart1981]

yeah - did some checking on cheap video cards - seems like i got a pretty good deal on the GT 220 for $45 - most places are selling it for about $70 The equivalent Radeon is the HD4650 or 4670. I can get the 4650 for about the same price as gt220 but it seems like a lateral move. The 4670 would be an upgrade but it seems like they are just barely out of the price range at around $75

 

[jbart1981]

Well after looking into the AMD stuff a little more I think I came up with a good combination -
I had $190 budgeted for the DVD drive, RAM, CPU, and MoBo. I can get the following Combo for $186

LG 22X DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH22LS50 LightScribe Support

BIOSTAR A770E3 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor

Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

I don't think switching out any of the other components would create a significant difference and most are cheaper solutions than I could find replacements for

What do y'all think ?

 

[mosox]

Get a sapphire hd 5670 and only one stick of DDR3 RAM.

 

[jbart1981]

only 2gb of ram? sounds like rough trade off - I have 8gb in my laptop

 

[mosox]

What kind of games can a 7 yo play? I would get the onboard and a big monitor instead. And the onboard is not that weak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a20fFgJ8GaU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgTT9P4rPuk&feature=related

 

[jbart1981]

This kid I don't know - he has never had a game system so probably not a ton. On the other hand my 8yr old brother is a beast at MW2 and HALO Reach. He beat the original HALO by himself when he was 3 1/2 :0