Building a Budget PC

That can hopefully play a number of newer games.

Not really sure how much I'm willing to spend on it right now, I suppose it depends on what I can get for different amounts of money.

I currently have a new case I bought a few weeks ago because it was a pretty sweet deal, a new 500GB SATA HDD, and all the accessories for my PC I'll neat (mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, etc).

I definitely want a dual-core processor, since I built a computer with one of them in the last lab I worked in, and it was possibly one of the best usability improvements for a PC since I started using Windows. So, yeah, definitely want one of them.

I figure since RAM is cheap right now, as might as well go in for 2GB of it (since there's no reason for getting 4, right?).

Video card is the hardest choice for me, since for the next six months, I'll only have a few hours (at best) to play games. My brother got me Orange Box for Christmas, so I'd like to be able to play that at pretty decent settings as well as possible some of the other new games (I saw my bro playing Bioshock on his 360 and that looks pretty neat).

So, umm, yeah. Recommendations?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, it's kinda hard for me to set a budget right now, since I'm not sure how much a good computer costs nowadays.

Tell me if these pricings (without actually researching prices online) are approximately correct.

CPU: $120
Mobo: $100
RAM: $75
PSU: $60
DVD-RW: $30

That all comes out to around $400, so I guess I could spend $100-$200 on a video card. The amount I'd like to spend on that depends on how long the card should last. I don't really have a whole lot of time to play during the school year, though I should have a bit more time over the summer. Would I be better buying a more budget-line card right now since I don't need a whole lot to play Orange Box and then maybe in two summers go out and buy a new card that'll hopefully bring my computer back up to snuff?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, I guess my biggest question is how much real performance increase will I see upgrading from a 3850 to the 8800GT? I've never really built a top of the line computer, so I don't really care about running everything at top notch settings.

Is the extra $100 just going to net me an extra bunch of FPS that isn't actually needed to play a game?

Most amazing jew boots

Alright, so I went to newegg to do a bit of shopping and here's what I've got so far.

Quote:

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write Black SATA Model LH-20A1S
$34.99

Antec Basiq BP500U ATX12V Version 2.01 500W Power Supply
$45

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail
$49.99 (After rebate)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6750
$189.99

So the CPU's a bit higher than I said I was going to pay, but that's because I really have no clue what a good one is nowadays. It seemed to have pretty good ratings and everything, but I have no idea if it's worth the extra money over the ones you guys recommended around the $100 price point earlier.

Newegg.com - MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Newegg.com - EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Looking at those two video cards, thoughts on which is a better value? Having my game look HOLY COW SWEET isn't super important, since I've always had a less than perfect systems, but would it be a good time-wise investment?

Newegg.com - MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

I'm liking the MSI board over the Gigabyte one since it has a firewire port onboard as well as two possible spots for PCI-E cards and three slots for PCI cards. It's got good ratings and everything, so any worries about that?

I think that should cover all of my bases. I'd like to try to order as soon as possible, since I'm having it shipped to me here at home (no tax on orders shipped to PA) and then my mom's going to use her office discount to ship everything out to me in California (8.25% sales tax, works out to save me a bit of money).

Most amazing jew boots

Alright, I think I'm going to go with the 8600 and the Gigabyte mobo.

I'm still pretty confused about all the different options for the Core 2 Duo chips. How much does cache matter? Is a higher FSB more important than a higher clock speed? Which ones are good to try and overclock?

Sorry I'm asking so many questions, it's just I only build a computer once ever four years or so and tend not to upgrade a whole lot after that, so I'd like something that will last me quite a while.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Ahh, cool, good to know about the cache not being that huge of a deal since it's a pretty big increase in costs. I don't really do any video/audio encoding, though I might do occasional massively large office things (50000 x 20 cell spreadsheets in excel each with a bunch of calculations to do isn't outside the norm for me ), but I can always just do that at my office computer if it becomes a problem.

I've got a TV tuner that I'm going to plug into one of the PCI slots, as well as an extra firewire card that came with my old mobo. And, well, it's always nice to have an extra slot or two lying around incase I need to sometime change to a wireless card. Also, didn't realize it earlier, but the Gigabyte one has 3 PCI slots too, and since I have that firewire PCI card, then I don't really need to spend the extra money on the MSI board.

And, yeah, I've got a case that I bought last month that should be fine for everything (got it on a nice black friday sale).

I don't think I'll be upgrading CPUs any time in the future since I usually stick with whatever's in there until my computer's done. If anything I might just charity this computer into my office in two years and build myself a semi-new computer then.

Should it matter that for the CPU you recommended ithe FSB is 800MHz and both of the mobo's we've been looking at are 1333/1066MHz? Can I just set it to the higher setting and have it work out of the box anyway?

Thanks for all the help on this, looks like I'm almost ready to start ordering!

Oh, and any reason for the E2160 instead of the 2140? $10 difference isn't a huge deal, just wondering if there's any reason for the 2160 or the 2180 over it.

Also, as of right now, for the PSU, CPU, DVD-RW, video card (the 7600GTS), RAM, and mobo for $400. Man, I remember back when a midrange CPU and mobo set me back $315 and it was a great deal.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Whoops, yeah, meant the 8600GTS.

I saw one review of the E2140 that mentioned the heat sink being crappy, so maybe the E2160 comes with a slightly better stock one.

And...guess it looks like I'm ready to get my credit card. Thanks for all the help.

Additional Spam:
Well, right when I was ready to check out both the video card and the mobo went out of stock, so I swapped out the mobo to the one we had been talking about earlier and switch to this video card: Newegg.com - XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

I had them shipped to my office at school, so I probably won't get them until next week, but I can't wait to put the whole thing together. Hopefully I'll even get most of the rebates back. =/

FELIPE NO

So I got all of my parts and the computer's working beautifully (already played TF2 and HL2 for quite a bit).

The only thing that's not working quite right is I can't get the overclock up to 3.0GHz. The default FSB is 800mhz, and I can set it to 1066 without any problems, but when I bump it up to 1333 Windows will stay stable for 5-10 minutes, then I'll bluescreen and crash out. My temperatures are perfectly fine (low-mid 30s in C), so I figure it's got to be something else. I've never gone about overclocking before, are there some other settings I can try tweaking?

Edit: I also get some weird error message during the BIOS stage talking about how a chip is 200mhz and the speed it's set to is unsupported, so the speed will be reduced. This only happens when I'm overclocking. Is this normal?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

It says it's at 1.320V. How high would I be able to bump it up?

Also, could I use intermediate FSB speeds instead of just the "normal" ones at 800, 1066, and 1333? Like, if it's unstable up at 1333mhz, could I go somewhere between 1066 and 1333?

Jam it back in, in the dark.