$400 Budget Build

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Pseudoflare

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I want to build a budget computer for gaming, watching movies, and mainly music. However I won't be gaming anything high-end (e.g. Crysis) and don't care if the settings are set to medium quality so long as the game works pretty well. The highest system requirement I might want to get in with games is maybe HL2 and STALKER Clear Sky. So at the least I want to be able to play those games with a good FPS.

What's most important for me on this build is being able to upgrade hard drive space. With this budget, I know I'm going to have to sacrifice on the space part for a while but want to have future space in hard drives for lots of storage. Right now I'm looking at something around 3TB of space for upgrade reasons. Currently my drives are of IDE type, and I've heard that they don't work with some newer (then mine of course) computers. My knowledge is limited so I'm not sure but I want to be able to put my old drives into the new comp if possible. This is however optional and if it requires significantly more budget I wouldn't go with this.

For this build I don't need a mouse, monitor, keyboard, or soundcard. I'm not going to overclock or do any other fancy stuff. Also I live in California so taxes and shipping is applied. If possible I might be able to up the budget by about 30 more dollars but would be really hard to push up the boundary after that.

Also, this is not really a problem, only a bit of gripe, but I would like the computer to be running fairly quiet. This will be turned on 24/7 mostly and its in the same room as where I sleep. Since I'm not overclocking, I don't see it as much of an issue, but well, here it is.

I've only grabbed two parts I'm keen on, but quite clueless on others.

PSU: Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Power Supplies
Harddrive: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
 
ProcessorNewegg.com - AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Mobo and RAM
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Case
Newegg.com - Rosewill TU-155 Black 0.8mm SGCC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with 400W(20+4 pin) Power Supply - Computer Cases

Dvd Drive
Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW SATA CD/DVD Burner - Bulk - CD / DVD Burners

Hard Drive
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD2500AAKS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Pretty sweet stuff for your budget there, this is what trotter gave to me for an idea, so all credit to him You can buy a better mobo if u want better upgrade opotions (this one had 4g max ram, but im sure thats plenty for what you'll be doing) Get a decent graphics card for however much your willing to spend, and didn't know if you had an OS, windows 7 is about 100 bucks. Hope this helped.
 
Oh and while I've not stated anything about needing OS, I don't need one.

I've been doing a bit of research on my own and here's what I've come up with (still need case and graphics card).

PSU $50: Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Power Supplies
RAM $50: Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Desktop Memory
Hard Drive $70: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
CPU $58: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Motherboard $60: Newegg.com - BIOSTAR A785GE AM2+/AM3 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
DVD Drive $29: Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW SATA CD/DVD Burner - Bulk - CD / DVD Burners
Total: $317 (Without case and graphics card)

Everything except the DVD burner and PSU is free shipping.

I'm not sure if all the parts are compatible. I'm pretty sure they should fit together, but lack any knowledge on whether they do. If the case you suggested above has a non-PSU loaded version, I'd be quite willing to buy that (I've had a really bad experience with PSUs and since Corsair has quite a good reputation, I'm somewhat stuck to it.).

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Everything looks real great except for the case. I have this really big DAC/Headphone Amplifier which I normally put on top of my computer because of lack of space around my room. Good thing I don't use the USB too much though, but I'm going to have to find a way around to work it if I want a stable top surface to put it on. But really its nothing a few McGyver scenarios can't solve. Mostly nitpicking.

Thanks for the help.
 
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