Building a New system and need some suggestions

Hi everyone,
I am going to build a new computer for a friend of mine. He is not a heavy gamer. He mostly playes games like Command and Conquerors so he wont need to much power. I was thinkin a xp1800+. He has $350 to spend on the hardware, not including a monitor. I was putting together some things at tigerdirect and found my self going over the limit. Can you guys throw out some suggestions on cost cutting. I was looking at the cheep motherboards, but i am hesitant on going that cheep. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Cooked

 

can't say I'm overly excited by anything at tigerdirect.
Look into an integrated board, as long as it does have an AGP slot. That would cut your cost down to case, mainboard, Memory, CPU and hard drive, with an integrated board having audio, video, and LAN.
Street price for an MSI KM4M is about $79, Athlon XXP 2100 somewhere around $50, Micron 256 PC2100-$50, WD 40 GB 7200 RPM-$50, Case-$50-buy at a local PC place, shipping will kill you.
that puts you at 279 for the tower itself. The KM4M has an integrated S3 core for video, not great, but it's decent. We've built a few budget boxes with these boards, they're solid, I think we've had 1 of about 15 go bad in 6 months. This leaves you about $70 for some other things. Don't get a cheap mainboard, if anything sacrifice dicrete video and lan cards to get a better mainboard. When he can afford it he can slap a decent AGP card in there and be set.

 

Hi,
Thanks for the help. I am going to still look around for some better prices, most likly new egg. I definitly am going for a decent motherboard. I was looking at this one by DFI. Then for video i would get him a FX5200.

Thanks for the help and i am still open to more suggestions!

Cooked

 

Well reading your posts and looking at your budget, i have to agree with FW190 go for a decent board with an AGP slot as well as onboard video
I like this one here
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-483&depa=1

Has the equilavent of a standard geforce 4 onboard which will suffice for now and can be upgraded later when needed
IMO that would serve a hell of a lot better than the FX5200 you listed, that card just wont cut it, that and the mobo you listed come in at $104 whereas the board i listed comes in at $82 a saving of $22
That board also comes with onboard LAN, and onboard 6 channel sound

 

actually, his idea of getting the FX5200 would be better than just going for the onboard GF4 MX on that Asus mobo, simply due to the fact that the "MX" was designed for OEMs, not gaming and if he's going to play Command & Conquer: Generals or the expansion pack you need at least a halfdecent gfx card.
I play it all the time and my GF4 Ti4400 (o/ced to 310 core/ 612mem) can barely manage to get a decent 30fps, this is with 512MB ram and an o/ced XP2000+ @ 1,9Ghz.

 

Good info Fleppen as always
But in my opinion i wouldnt spend $5s on a fx5200 let alone $50 your GF4TI will out perform that card by a mile i know mine does
My son has a geforce MX440 and can play almost any game currently on the martket, admittedly at lower resolutions and with a lot of eye candy turned off
As for C+C generals i havent actually played that game, but if it plays badly on a GF4TI then its going to play just as bad on the FX5200
so if your really wanting to play that game at a good standard,you are going to have to get your friend to up his budget a fair bit

I would be interested to know what his current specs are when he is playing Generals, and how it performs

 

Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for all your help. I am going to talk to him and try to squeeze some more money from him. Also he really dosnt care for the eyecandy and special stuff, he just wants to play the game. I think right now he is playing on a sony vaio laptop, 600MHz duron, 256MB RAm, and I have no clue what the video card is.

Also i should have made this clearer. He mostly plays C+C Red alert 2 ( Not Generals) Which dosn't require that much power, but i would think in the future he would start to get some better games and would start to have some problems. So for now the built in video might not be that be that bad.

Thanks
Cooked

 

Well if its only Red Alert 2 and it plays ok on his current set-up shouldnt be a problem playing with the onboard GF4
And then he has the option to upgrade to a decent AGP card when he has the funds in the future

Have you decided on the rest of your specs yet, or if you need any further help just shout

 

Hi,
I appreciate the help. I am still searching for deals on parts, and i am starting to put things together. I will definitly come bake for some more help. One i get a decent setup i will post everything and have you guys look it over.

Thanks,
Cooked

 

I have to agree with FW, I've used a couple of hundred MSI boards and I think I've had a failure rate of about 1% and that's on install, never lost one in the field and our machines work 365/24/7 unattended. Just FYI

 

Hi,
I am considering the MSI board, however i was able to get him to spend another $100 bringing the total to $450. That helps me out a lot. I am going to look around some more and start from scratch now that i have more money to spend.

Thanks,
Cooked

 

Hi everybody,
I think i have put together some thing. Here is the part list. I am open to any suggestions you might have.

MotherBoard
Processor
Memory
HDD
DVD
Case

The total is around 325 without shipping. This is just basic. I have a $450 budget so there is room for improvment.

Thankyou,

Cooked

 

I would only suggest 2 changes. For one, I would get 512 Mb of memory (2 sticks so you can run them in dual channel). Something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-477&depa=1

Also, I'd get a hard drive with an 8Mb buffer, such as this Western Digital (it's cheaper than the Maxtor). It's also an 80Gb hdd for only about $14 more:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-122&depa=1

These 2 upgrades should give a decent boost in performance for about $70 more.

 

.... yes....!....?

That setup looks nice! Though I would definatley go for 2 sticks instead of just the one, of your not taking advantage of the dual channel technology on that board. Its also got an AGP port should your friend need to upgrade the video card in the future, which is good!

 

Hi,
Thanks for all the help everyone! I upgraded the ram and hdd so now it is a kick butt system. He will upgrade the video in the future, probly for a bithday or something.

Thanks again,

Cooked

 

Hi,
I got everything from newegg and have it built. Everything works great except for the sound Just one more thing to work out and my friend will be really happy!!!
Thank you everyone for your imput!!!!

Cooked

 

Hey bud .stay away from that asus mobo.I put a couple together with that board didn't like it.I like the epox with onboard video if your gonna use onboard video.Also has a beter heatsink on chipset.450.00 I would recomend epox 8rda3I 67.00 dolors pc3200 corsair extrem 256 80.00
artec 3700 cases 59.00 2500+ 80.00 video card ati 9600 pro 150.00 maxtor 40 gig 54.00 bam you have a cheep screemer