$1000 budget build, how's this?

[cheechxu]

I have $1000 as my budget, not including the monitor. I'm trying to build the best gaming machine I can for my money. So far, here is what I have:

Motherboard - ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 4200+ Manchester 2000 MHz Socket 939
RAM - Corsair XMS 1 GB (2 x 512 MB) 184-pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC3200)
PSU - Antec SmartPower 500W
Video card - BFG Tech 7800GT 256MB
Case - undecided, but would like suggestions!
HDD - WD 120 GB SATA (or can I get a nice OEM one off newegg?)
Total - $990

How is this build so far? I'm fairly new to this, so I don't know much. Will the parts even fit together?
Where should I spend more/less money on?

thanks!

 

[Lord AnthraX]

Change the Video card to a 7900 GT as its cheaper and kicks the crap out of the 7800.

You dont need that board, get the DFI lanparty Ultra-D, much better and can be modded to SLI if you really need it. Cheaper too.

OEM hard drives are fine I got mine OEM and it works fine.

for a case its all personal prefrence. My personal favorite is the Gigabyte Aurora.. But thats just me.

 

[Sinow Beat]

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=931223#post931223

Check out mine...looks like a fair leg up on yours for about the same price, better to go with socket AM2 in general too if you ever want to upgrade.

 

[Dr DMoney]

Upgrading is good. You will beable to use the am3 chips on am2 boards!

 

[cheechxu]

Oops yeah, I meant the 7900GT and not the 7800.
Anyway, so you're saying the AM2 > 939?
That looks like a very impressive system Sinow Beat...problem is I really can't go over $1000, as I'm on a strict budget. Any other suggestions?

 

[ThirdLeft152]

somewhere i heard that am2 chips will be campatible with am3 boards, but am3 chips will not work on am2 boards. and fyi there really isn't an increase in performance between am2 and s939 at the moment.

 

[Drizo]

An alternative Conroe suggestion, I've been *******izing this by copy and pasting it on multiple threads...

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe Processor 2.13GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 2MB Cache Retail $247
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80859

Asus P5NSLI Core 2 Duo/ nForce 570 SLI/ DDR2/ SAT2/ RAID/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard $112.00
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-P5NSLI

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - Retail $177.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231073

eVGA 256-P2-N584-AR Geforce 7900GT KO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $264.99 ($244.99 after $20.00 rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130033

SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152025

NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI Model ND-3550A - OEM $28.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152058

Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103937

COOLER MASTER Centurion 532 RC-532-SKN1 Black Computer Case - Retail $64.99 ($44.99 after $20.00 rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119094

Total $1035.94 before rebates, $995.94 after rebates.

Also the ram is out of stock, but if you're willing to wait you can stick with that choice or get the:

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model F2-6400PHU2-2GBNR - Retail $174.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231084

 

[Sinow Beat]

Newegg has some mail-in rebates...that system ends up being $985 with those particular parts...I'm on roughly the same budget but I like what I came up with. Also Western digital just has a good track record with HD's, and Corsair memory has a life-time warranty in response to that build posted just above...burner is just random too...Also Apevia (Aspire) cases tend to have 500W power supplies in them, I'm probably going with that just to cut it down a few bucks.

 

[cheechxu]

thanks sinow beat. Your system does look a lot better than mine in terms of performance. It is AM2 slot so it's upgradeable later on right?

 

[Sinow Beat]

Yea...if you ever want to upgrade, AM2 is the way to go...939 is on the way out, also I think a 500w stock PSU could work for you so I think it'd work if you cut out the case/PSU and replace it with a case that has a stock PSU...saves money