Help Me Build the Best $1200 Ever

[5u1c1d47m0nck3y]

So now I can spend $1200 on my computer. That is including shipping, the os, and good productivity software. Help me out, this is my first build.If you have any thing you think is bad tell me another thing that is better in the same price range. Also feel free to change the whole system around as long as you keep it in the budget.

Specs

Revision 5

Case - 50-70
XION XION II
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PSU - 43.99
Fortron 450W
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Mobo - 129.99
DFI Lanparty UT nF4
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Hard Drive - 89.00
Seagate Barracuda 160Gb
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Video Card - 295.00
eVGA 7800GT
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RAM - 169.00
G.Skill 1Gb
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Processor - 301.00
AMD X2 3800+
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OS - 88.95
Windows XP
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Other Asorted Goodies - 16.23
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Total Price (Inclu. ship.) - 1273.66

You will notice there is no optical drive. That is because I am taking it from my old crappy HP.

 

[sickness]

Yes, your mouse, keyboard, speakers, and monitor should work just fine.

I would suggest getting this CPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539

Also, with the money saved get a SATA hard drive, instead of an ATA hard drive.

You also might want to get a new power supply. Most PSUs that come with cases aren't very good.

 

[5u1c1d47m0nck3y]

Revision 1

Specs

Revision 1

Case - 99.99
Aspire X-Navigator
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Mobo - 129.99
DFI Lanparty UT nF4
__________________________________________________________________________

Hard Drive - 89.00
Seagate Barracuda 160Gb
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Video Card - 295.00
eVGA 7800GT
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RAM - 80.50
Patriot Signature Series 1gb
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Productivity - 81.95
Microsoft Office Standard
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Processor - 301.00
AMD X2 3800+
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OS - 88.95
Windows XP
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Total Price (Inclu. ship.) - 1253.91

. I went smaller on the hard drive for better performance. Like I said if you don't like something suggest another thing.

 

[BennyV04988]

Thats almost exactly the system i plan to build. but with minor changes like the 3700 becuase of 1MB of L2 Cache (BIG help). but same case, hdd, gpu, ram etc. Are most builds this similar? It seems that as of late computer parts seem to stand out when they are good quality, and everyone builds the same pc or close to it. Certain absolutes seem to be established lol. Such as...AMD Nvidia Seagate eVGA Aspire. haha. I love it. However i plan to build after graduation. Or more percisely...after socket AM2, Directx 10, etc. Massive price drops. The sky shall rain discounts.

 

[5u1c1d47m0nck3y]

Ya I might change it to a 3800+ because It has better performance in overclocking.

 

[5u1c1d47m0nck3y]

The dual core AMD beats the AMD single cores in everything except gaming. How much better is the single core in gaming? A lot of places say that the games out right now don't take advantage of the dual cores but they will later. Does this mean the performance of the dual cores will beat the single cores in the future?

 

[Vybuni]

The X2 3800 will help if you do massive multitasking.

Dont buy MS office............. There are loads of free MS office clones out there. I use easyoffice. You can find a lot of free spreadsheet, presentation, word, etc programs for free.

You should get a different PSU, one that doesnt come with the case as they generally arent very high quality.
Do you have CD/DVD drives?

 

[5u1c1d47m0nck3y]

I have a cd drive. I am gonna download open office now and give it a test run on the computer I have now.

 

[NickFas]

Before you make your move on this system...i would consider buying a 2x1gb package or 1gb stick of good overclocking ram such as this one

1 stick
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231031

2 sticks
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227210

The reason that i would go with 1gb stick(s) is because you can always buy another stick later. Some boards get finickey with 4x512mb sticks.

I would also keep in mind that the new series of gfx cards are coming out soon. This is why i would just go with a 6800gs or 6600gt for the time being... now being on the budget that you are on i would feel that this would be a good move because you can save up the money you didn't spend on the gfx card and wait until the g80 comes or wait the the price of the g71 cores falls. Call me crazy but i wish i would have waited. Just something i thought that i would put out there

Nick

 

[kiIIxthexIights]

if you really want a better comoputer..get a cheaer case, get rid of the MS office, get more ram and windows 64bit.