Opinions?

[John90]

The computer im on right now is slowly dieing on me, and well with the holidays coming up I wont be able to spend to much.

I was wandering if I could get some opinions on this low budget setup.

ECS GeForce7050M-M (V2.0) AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA Geforce7050PV / nForce 630a Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Dual-Core Processor

Rosewill RCX-Z1 Long life ball bearing for over 45,000/hrs CPU Cooler

$147.45 (Also have ram, thermal compound, and a couple fans)

It is a budget computer, trying to stay as cheap as possible. I am going to rip down this case and use it since it supports the MicroATX. I'm not looking for anything great, just something that will get it done.

Any advice / opinions are appreciated.

 

[Redmo0n]

If you want better price performance you want to go with Intel.

Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - CPU Fans & Heatsinks


= $183.97, worth the extra and you can overclock it like crazy (4.0ghz+)

 

[John90]

Appreciate it. I guess ill just wait until after christmas before doing the build, so I can just do it all at one time.

Alright now... what would you suggest for a <$500 build? Case and all

APEVIA X-Infinity ATXB6KLW-AL Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500AAKS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (I have bought WD for the last 4+ years)

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler

ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black E-IDE/PATA Model DRW-2014S1 (Also have a Sony)

Let me know what you think.
I will be adding a Video card and new power supply in the future.

What do you think about this video card?
PNY VCG88512GXEB-FLB GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready

 

[Redmo0n]

Yep thats great, if you have any money left over you could consider a better motherboard or graphics card, but the 8800gt is still a good card and will run games on high settings.

For a power supply look at either the Corsiar 450vx or a Antec Earthwatts 380W.


Also for 4gig of ram you will need a 64bit OS, otherwise it will only register 4gig - your video cards ram.

 

[John90]

Whats a better motherboard <$100

I don't know much about choosing one, I just read the reviews and pray it works. (Well... maybe a bit more)

I plan on running XP 64bit, for a few months then switching over to Vista 64.

 

[rkagin]

A couple of good motherboards for under $100:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-945GCM-S2C LGA 775 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Newegg.com - ASRock G43Twins-FullHD LGA 775 Intel G43 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

You can read the reviews and specs to see if you like them.

If you're not looking for micro ATX, though, you can get a EP35, EP43, or even an EP45 for under $100.

 

[John90]

I don't care if it's ATX or MicroATX anymore since im buying a case and all. I also added the Corsiar 450vx to my list.

Which is the best of the few motherboards?

Thanks everyone.

 

[rkagin]

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards - $85, fairly standard motherboard

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards - $90, newer northbridge, few more ports

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards - $100, even newer northbridge, supports more memory (16GB instead of 8GB)

One thing in common is they all have only 1 PCI x16 - running SLI/crossfire (I forget which one) wouldn't get that speed. But I'll let others talk about other motherboards that may be higher end than these (and can run multiple gpus fast).

 

[John90]

Appreciate it!

Will be a while before I order so ill keep up to date on reviews and other stuff.

Are there any difference in ATX and MicroATX, other than the Micro being smaller and having less room to work with?

 

[Brinson]

MicroATX doesn't just have less space to work with, it has less ports.

My PC has a MicroATX motherboard. There is only one IDE port. There are like four SATAs, which is more important, but it limits your ability to use older hardware from past PCs. I had two IDE DVD burners and two IDE Hard drives in my old PC, and my new pc can only accept 2 ide devices, so I'm kinda just screwed there.

You are also less likely to have extended onboard functionality, ie connections for front IEEE, raid controllers, ect. You can also only put in 2 sticks of RAM.

Now, that said, I don't regret choosing my motherboard. It was dirt cheap compared to an ATX. Also, I used a MicroATX case with a handle that I've taken with me several times. I also built my entire PC for under $300 at a time when my CPU was the second best dual core on the market.

But, there ARE sacrifices to using an mATX mb.

I'd also like to throw out there...if you tell us what is wrong with your current PC, you can probably fix it, until you build your new system.

"Slowly dying" is an faulty way of saying your computer is breaking. Something is breaking. HD, Cpu, MB, Ram. Figure out which and replace that component and your PC will run fine.

Most commonly, in my experience, the HD begins failing and throwing up random errors and people assume its something really bad with their PC, when really, its not that bad. The same thing can happen with bad RAM or a dying motherboard, of course.