Please help me with a Budget build

[zmatt]

I have said it before and will say it again. Unless you are upgrading a current AMD system there is very little reasons to go AMD. The Current Intel offerings are faster, cheaper and much more efficient. Not only that but the P45 chipset is much better than the amd motherboards. I declare this fanboyism over! There is no such thing as a gamers brand.

sounds like your system is going to be focused alot on your actual monitor and graphics card. WoW honestly isn't the biggest thing as far as resolution, to play crysis you'll need atleast 2GB of ram. This is a budget build I have
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=6992174
This is a micro box, you can put in whatever graphics card you like, I'll configure another that's a reasonable budget.

I forgot to ask, dual core? quad core? Memory is cheap these days and are you going to use a lot of hard drive space? I suggest the 160 if it's going to be games, but, you can buy a 640 in two partitions for media, gaming and other programs.

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops : Quad Core @ 2.6ghz that I find a lot of people use.
Price:189.99
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards : Intel Mobo by GIGABYTE, lot of expansion on this one along with the PCI 2.0
Price:126.99
-or-
Newegg.com - MSI P43 Neo3-F LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards : Intel Mobo by MSI, alternate with PCI 2.0 also
Price:83.99
Newegg.com - Patriot Viper 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1200 (PC2 9600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory : 2GB Patriot memory for the GIGABYTE
Price:77.99
^^On the memory, you can change to yet another board to accommodate the MSI for cheaper^^^^
Newegg.com - Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives : 500GB Sata Hard drive
Price:89.99
-or-
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3750330NS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives : 750GB Sata Hard Drive
Price:139.99
Newegg.com - Rosewill RX750-D-B 750W ATX12V v2.2 & EPS12V v2.91 SLI 8800GTX SLI CrossFire Ready Active PFC PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies : 750W PSU
Price:114.99
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100225L Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit GDDR4 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards :SAPPHIRE 100225L Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit GDDR4 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
Price:129.99
Newegg.com - Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support 300 cd/m2 700:1 - LCD Monitors :Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support
Price:194.99

At it's cheapest including the monitor, my subtotal is around 924.00 and some actual change. If you choose the cheaper motherboard then you can cut a few bucks off the memory and buy the 750GB drive.

Those aren't the best components. Wolfdale is out. Get the lad a new processor. All of the Q6600s left have a bad vid. Also there isn't any reason to get P43 when P45s can be had for such a low price. Biostar has some greta value boards. Instead of a 3870, get a 4850. Western Digital hard drives are better than seagates. Give me a few mintues and I can throw together a comprehensive parts list.

 

[veg1992]

I have said it before and will say it again. Unless you are upgrading a current AMD system there is very little reasons to go AMD. The Current Intel offerings are faster, cheaper and much more efficient. Not only that but the P45 chipset is much better than the amd motherboards. I declare this fanboyism over! There is no such thing as a gamers brand.



Those aren't the best components. Wolfdale is out. Get the lad a new processor. All of the Q6600s left have a bad vid. Also there isn't any reason to get P43 when P45s can be had for such a low price. Biostar has some greta value boards. Instead of a 3870, get a 4850. Western Digital hard drives are better than seagates. Give me a few mintues and I can throw together a comprehensive parts list.

Not trying to be stuck up, but that'd be my build hahaha

 

[zmatt]

Well Vern maybe this will change you mind dude. This isn't extremely indepth. I wanted to throw it together to make a point about staying on top of things.

Motherboard:$109.99
Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TForce TP45HP LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Processor:$120
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Memory:$49.99
Newegg.com - OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1100 (PC2 8800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

PSU:$97.99
Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

Hard Drive:$84.99
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

Video Card:$172.99
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Monitor:$169.99
Newegg.com - BenQ FP202W V3 Black 20" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1000:1 - LCD Monitors


Total comes to 805.94 before S&H. Of course this leaves the need for a case if you don't have one and keyboard and mouse. But since nobody else recommended any I'm assuming you have that taken care of. If not the recommended hardware thread lists the better cases. After that it comes down to aesthetic preferences mostly.


edited for spelling.

 

[Thresh25]

Well don't just limit him to Intel... AMD is the gamers brand. You can pick up the ASUS M2N-E motherboard for around $80 and a 2.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 for around $150 or less I believe. 2GB of G.Skill ram for around $60. And Western Digital 160GB HD for $40. You can get two of those HD and have 320GB of storage.

Motherboard
Newegg.com - ASUS M2N-E AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
$84.99

RAM
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
$39.99

CPU
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Brisbane 2.9GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
$87.99

I found them to be cheaper. The other stuff pick out up top is goo like the PSU and what not. I'd got for the two 160GB WD HD.

You can actually just get a Liton DVD drive from walmart for $40 I think??? I have one and they are solid as a rock and don't cost all that much.

"AMD is the gamer's brand"???? lol, i originally thought that too when I bought it, might be a gamer's brand, but not gamer's performance. Why waste your money on a less inferior product, I have AMD and regret it, don't be me.

And Asus M2N-E SLI is not a very good board anymore. It was decent to begin with, and now is just old. I've got it, and I am very mad at myself for not doing more research as well.

I can never upgrade to a quad core, unless I do some sort of bios flash that IDK how to do. It's also pretty dang bad for OCing I've unfortunately come to find out. Do NOT get the build that guy just recommended, I can tell you from personal experience.

 

[zmatt]

Yeah, a brisbane is old. If you are going to recommend something AMD recommend something newer. Except Phenom isn't a good value either. 140w tdp, cant oc, and the best Phenom is beat by the e8500.

 

[objecterror]

yeah i'm staying away from the quad cores on the amd side, i want to put a quad into a micro atx though in the future. It's taken me two years to upgrade from single core to dual core, now it's all about quad which has gotten ridiculously cheap.

you can tell my components on 'intel' suck, i've built two systems with AMD and they've been pretty solid. is there anything you can build with 4GB of ram, quad core for about 400 to 500 range?

 

[zmatt]

Well, if you don't need a full components list you should be able to get a Q6600, ram and mobo for that much.

But not a whole system. The Q6600 still cost over $200 so that's more than half of your budget. And really, unless your one of those guys who likes to run a virus scan while playing COD4 there isn't a huge reason to get a quad over any new dual core. Other than For e-*****. The wolfdales own in gaming, and the quads really shine in super multitasking which most don't do anyways.

By the time you will need 4 threads the Q6600 will not be relevant.