Hey guys, I'm building a PC for my friend to use until he can get something better, but for $600 I think I can build something pretty decent, he's looking for something that's going to play Battlefield 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Battlefield 2142, etc (Crysis would be a bonus too, even if it has to be on low or medium) So going from this pricelist - http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf - (which is where parts will be sourced from) this is what I have so far. Motherboard: ASUS P5N-E SLI $118.00 Memory: 4G Kit-800(2x2G) G.Skill $82 CPU: Intel E5200 $112 Graphics Card: ASUS 512M 9800GT $176 DVD/RW: 20x SATA Samsung $25 Hard Drive: W.D.SATA 160G $51 Case: ??? Undecided PSU: ??? Undecided So this is where it stands and at $564.00 it seems to be okay, now I could always build it into his previous case, however I think I'd need a new power supply to maintain that, the case is decent-ish. So suggestions on Case/PSU Combinations are welcome, and on all parts as well if anyone can see any bottlenecks or bad hardware please let me know. We could bring it up to $650.00 max if it will make a big difference, but at this stage I'm just looking for opinions and suggestions. Also monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers/headphones and all that are already sorted so no worries there. Thanks again, Joosh
Case/PSU combinations suck TBH. The PSUs are always low quality, and the PSU is the most important thing in a PC. I'd say get a Corsair, they're good quality. A 450W or a 520W should do it. The 450 isn't modular, the 520 is. I'd also suggest to get a bigger HD, 160GB isn't nothing these days. 500GB ones can be found for pretty cheap. And why get an Nvidia chipset mobo? Intel chipsets tend to OC a lot better. I'd suggest a P5Q Pro. Unless you need SLI of course. Also, look if you find a Samsung SH-S223Q DVD drive, it's 22x and supports LightScribe
The issue here isn't really performance although I'll take into account the PSU suggestions, the issue is cost. He doesn't need space as he already has another 2 hard drives that will go into the machine, the 160GB is purely for boot and some games. If you can suggest anything from the parts list keeping in mind the price, then I'd gladly have a look. Thanks, Joosh
Mate since your a fellow Aussie there is a few other shops you should check out , check out www.arc.com.au & itestate.com.au if your in sydney also one thing you have to go to is www.staticice.com.au , its basically a search engine that searches all the PC shops who have prices online etc (in Australia or NZ) you can find some serious bargins that way and other good shops to check out its the first place i turn to tbh when speccing a new build or checking the prices on parts, you can find the cheapest brick and morter store near you etc that has the parts cheaper (sometimes its only $5 more at one of them shops vs an online store where you have to pay $20 for postage etc) i recently put together a PC build simmilar to your price and covered everything minus the graphics card since the 780G covered what i needed for now and only paid just under $600 a few months back Patriot PSD24G800KH 2x2gb DDR2 800mhz @ 5-4-4-12 (stock 5-5-5-15) , Gigabyte MA780GPM-DS2H, Radeon HD 3200 GPU @ 710mhz (stock 500), 128MB DDR3 Sideport @ 1333mhz (stock 800mhz) could go much higher with active cooling, AMD Athlon X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7ghz (stock atm due to stock cooling and it being summer, was running at 3.1ghz happily during winter) , Coolermaster RC 690 (modded fan mounting for cross flow), Coolermaster 460w RS-460-PCAR-A2 etc Check out the coolermaster RC690 case from MSY , its got a Coolermaster 460w RS-460-PCAR-A2 (Extreme power plus) PSU , 3 120mm fans with space for a shed load more (even fits 140mm fans) , its $132 and really for the price features etc its damn decent, and its cooling is brilliant and its one sexy case Also any reason your pickign the 9800? you could pick up a ATi card that'll perform better iirc if you shop around yet more But since your going intel id definitely suggest checking your components (ram CPU & mobo) OC well and easily and throwing some money towards an after market cooler (a CM Hyper 212 will only set you back $44 @ MSY) and then OCing it to get even more bang for your buck Then later just thrown in a new CPU when he can afford it & a grapics card upgrade and you will get some better long term perf out of the system
Thanks for the fantastic reply gremlin! Unfortunately I've never overclocked in my life, is there some sort of Dummie's guide to overclocking? I mean I'm pretty confident with PC's and hardware, having built well over 100 PC's but haven't ventured much into the realms of overclocking. Any suggestions on where to get started, and I'll definitely look into the ATI cards, perhaps a 4850 . Also any suggestions on websites to find good reviews on motherboards/CPU/memory would be good too, if possible. Many thanks, Joosh
Motherboard was quite decent in its day wouldnt use a 650i chipset board now though, unless it was insanely cheap. Try and get a p35/p45 motherboard.
