=/ I have a budget of 700 dollars =( The bad thing is I've already made pretty much a way better pc then i bought from HP before. I have a Screen and will be stealing my Lightscribe Optical Drive, Speakers, Keyboard and Mouse, OS , and SD Card Reader. Heres what I have Case - Click HDD - Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $49.99 GPU - EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - $240 Ram - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 - $47 Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - $ 100 Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz oc 3.2GHz Drive - Lightscribe Dvd/Dvd+rw/Cd/Cd+Rw x16 - $40 but already own OS - Windows Xp SP2 *I hate vista* $80 but already own Other - 20' Asus or 47' LCD Flatscreen TV - $200 and $1300 but already own, Logitech speakers (upgrading next check), Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard. - $25 , $35, $65 - already own , HP SD Card Reader - Free with HP Media Center PC. Price + Shipping and Tax = $675 (Just the stuff I have to buy) What do you think? anyway to better improve it and stay under my budget? =_= "Ohiya welcome back lykos"
Looks like a pretty solid build. Perhaps consider an x38 board for PCIe 2, but it's not necessary. gl with the build!
In my other thread I am looking at 8800s, a guy pointed out 8800gt are good for the price. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814500006 Higher clocks, less stream processors.
Update Total = $704 (Including Shipping and Tax) HDD - 160 - $50 CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor - $170 GPU - ZOTAC OC GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - $230 PSU - ePOWER EP-500XP ATX12V 500W Power Supply - $43 (Going to update later down the line) RAM - 2GB - $42 but also has a $5 mall in rebate Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - $100 Case - Demon Full Tower Case - $53 Really awesome =) I Bet I can make it cheaper by shopping on Ebay
On the 3d card, could I suggest the 8800gts instead? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130325 512mg, 670mghz, 256bit, 259.99 after discount. RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820220091 800mghz 2x1g DDR2, 43.99 without discount. Mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131072 ASUS M2NBP-VM CSM AM2 NVIDIA Quadro NVS 210S Micro ATX AMD Motherboard, 89.99 You need an AMD board for an AMD chip :\ See no problem with anything else.
cheaper/better stuff 8800 with rebate http://www.ncixus.com/products/27328/88YFF...y%20Technology/ 2GB RAM with micron D9 chips(the chips are what matters for overclocking FYI) http://www.tankguys.com/product_info.php?m...roducts_id=1806 if you want to save on the board the IP35 is comparable http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813127031 put the diference towards an e8400or and/or a heatsink. The e8400 should do 3.6-4GHzGhz day to day easy FYI, roughly 20-35% faster CPU wise since the e8000 series is around 7% more efficient. edit: FYI AMD is WAY behind as far as gaming performance goes especially if you're an overclocker
Yes thats the AMD 64 x2, not their dual core. Its true that Intel is ahead as far as C2D goes, but an AMD 3ghz chip will still out do a C2D 2ghz. Depends on what you want i guess, I still prefer single core chips :\ Nice suggestions on parts though, I didnt see those.
NEWEST UPDATE FINAL UPDATE I HOPE!! Total - $690 after $70 mail in rebate (includes shipping and tax) HDD - 250 GB SATA HD Maxtor Max Line II 7Y250M0 $47 (Deal from friend) GPU - GeForce 8800GT $228.54 Before rebate. $188.54 After Rebate. (Thanks for the tip xlink) MOBO - Intel P35 ATX $90 Before Rebate. $60 after Rebate. (Thanks for the tip xlink) PSU - 600 Watt Heavy Duty Power Supply w LED & Quiet Fan or Echo Star 680W Dual Fan Gold w/SATA ATX Power Supply $32 (Deal from friend) RAM - BRAND NEW KINGSTON 1 GB RAM MEMORY (x3) 3 GB Ram $62 CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 $222.16 (Thanks for the tip xlink) Case - Demon Full Tower Case $53
the AMD athlon 64 x2 is effectively identical to the single core athlons it's just mapped over twice. And yes the athlon x2 is dual core, hence the x2 since it has (standard core x 2) the only way the dual core athlons are worse than the single core athlons is that they put out more heat and put additional stress on the southbridge but aside from that they are all good, had one myself just around 2 years ago and was running it up to 2.9Ghz, was a great chip for its time... but that was 2 years ago and AMD's current crop isn't really any better. if you're referring to the phenom quadcore... let's just say that gaming wise the athlon x2s reign supreme. Phenom is roughly 10% faster per clock than the single core athlons. But the most you can push it to is ~230HTT due to the CPU's cache being linked to the system bus and the phenom black editions with unlocked multis aren't really doing past 2.6ish themselves. Add on top of that the TLB bug and... so 1.1*2.6 < 3.2 I will say not all is lost for AMD, the prices on the athlon x2s have come down a bit to better match the new wave of c2ds and on top of that the e8000 series is still hard to get due to availability constraints. also a few warnings, on both current AMD and intel systems, the memory controller is configured to allow RAM to run on two separate channel. This effectively doubles the available memory bandwidth to the system. If you use 3 sticks, memory performance is literally cut in half as far as bandwidth is concerned. Also for power supplies wattage isn't everything, there is rail stability load distribution and a variety of other things which most manufacturers fail to mention. Wattage has in essence become a marketing gimmick and a lot of companies pull wattage ratings out of their asses. They test under atypical conditions or fail to test their units accordingly at all. Typical intake for a PSU might be at 30C(100F) since the unit is in a case and there are heat producing parts i n a case. think tests at the south pole. Think unit exploding if ever loaded to 600W and taking the rest of the system down with it. That said there are a lot of good high quality units out there which are well represented. They usually aren't dirt cheap though. With PSUs I advise quality over quantity because quite frankly most systems don't push over 400W and when you sacrifice quality for quantity you'll often get neither(EG: load regulation at 400W is worse than on a highend 400W unit) FYI googling echo star 680W reveals the market value for the unit is roughly $25. I am willing to bet money that it's a piece of crap. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...amp;btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...amp;btnG=Search same goes for ram to a degree, what it's rated as isn't what it'll necessarily do if you're overclocking. I have a kit rated for DDR2-533, it does DDR2-1200 and up. I have a friend with a kit rated for DDR2-800. It doesn't like much more than 800 and it does 800 with horrible timings.
I knew about the heat part, the C2D are currently running cooler to the AMD x2s, I hanvt kept up with chip names lately and didnt know x2 was a dual core. Then like I said, I still prefer AMD single cores, I dont plan on changing chipsets till dual cores drop in price for higher mghz. Im not even interested in quad cores, too expensive, besides the PS3's cell chip bottle necking on data intake... From personal exp, if you pump too much power into the mobo you will hear sparking, see smoke come out of the case and by that time your mobo is fried. You only need enough watts for what your powering, too little and computer wont turn on, too much and it fries it. As little as adding a new CD drive can put too much drain on a stock psu... I had some bad exp overclocking RAM and havnt bothered with since...
that's only if you use a very very very low quality board. and the prices on athlons have dropped like a rock. 2 years ago 3Ghz single core Athlon/opterons were going for in excess of $800. Now the dual core version is under $180. As it is anyway the dual core athlons scale just about as well as the single core athlon, the single core athlons are basically just value bin $20-40 chips now. I can see people saying they don't like quads(double the heat and not much things use the extra cores) considering their cost and additional dificulty to overclock. But duals are standard now. you can get entry level dual core CPUs for around $50 that's cheap, and if you're an OCer that $50 chip will run around 80-130% faster. in the last few years I've had.. athlon xp 3000+ athlon 64 3000+ opteron 165(think athlon FX60 with with a lower multi) c2d e6400, and a celeron 420. The $35 celery can be OCed to beat any single core chip on the market(even with the athlon being OCed) it's just slaughter. Will say though the athlons work well for HTPCs, just undervolt the suckers. Athlons undervolt really really well capacitance drops like a rock for athlons at lower temps/voltages
After looking around in bestbuy the other day I decided to wait till i got some more money to build my first pc (i thought this was a good idea) and just buy a laptop instead.
