Hi all, So I laid out a proposal to my dad (he has the credit card- so my online purchases must go by him) of me purchasing two PCs for college. One desktop (for heavyweight work and reliability) for my dorm, and one netbook (for notetaking and portable Wi-Fi). I want to order the parts of the desktop and build it ASAP as my current PC (which is actually my brother's old PC) is crapping out. I came up with this $380 build: 24.99 - Rosewill R101-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail 54.99 - ASRock A780LM AM2+/AM2 AMD RS780L (760G) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail 119.99 - XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail 44.99 - Rosewill RP500-2 500W ATX12V v2.01 Power Supply - Retail 79.99 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor Model ADX6000CZBOX - Retail 54.99 - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK - Retail I already have a 120GB Seagate SATA 150 drive that I will be using I already have an IDE Dual-Layer 16x DVD+/-RW drive that I will be using = $379.94 I plan on using it for video-editing, audio-editing, 3-D rendering, programming, and in my free time, gaming. I understand that the hard drive is technically a bottleneck, but I have read tests that show that it's not really noticeable at all, not even in gaming. I would greatly appreciate it if you have any advice or suggestions for me. I'm on a pretty tight budget, $390 is the max I can go. Cheers, TheMusician
1) You said yourself that you're going for reliability, so I would urge you to take the price hit and grab a Corsair CX400 instead. It's a $5 hit now with a $20 rebate later (and Corsair is good about their rebates). 2) You might want to take another hit and get a Phenom II X2 545 over the 6000. You'll be glad for the extra cache. In fact, do it as part of this combo deal and you can actually get the better CPU and a 785G motherboard for only $5 more than the CPU/Mobo combo you have currently. Other than that, it looks pretty good. Now, that being said - have you taken shipping into account in your budget? - Diosjenin -
why exactly cant you get a little bit more money for a good PSU and maybe a nicer case? a hundred dollars more on the budget would buy you a much more upgradeable system if you must stick with this budget then that looks like a solid setup but I agree with jumping for the phII
Thank you so much, Diosjenin - that combo was quite a deal. I just finished placing my order. May you have a good day and summer. To SNiiPE_DoGG, thank you, but my budget won't suffice. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Get DDR2 800, the performance difference is minimal compared to DDR2-1066 and it's cheaper. And find a cheaper 512mb version of the HD4850, or the GTS250(whichever one's cheaper). Or get the HD4770, all those cards are within the same performance levels, so the cheapest one is the best. Also, don't bother getting the 1GB versions, the performance difference is really minimal and even if you play at 1920x1200, it still wouldn't help much as you would then be GPU bottlenecked.
