Building PC under $800.00???

S

Sozo

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What kind of pc's are you guys running?
I'm trying to piece one together for myself, mostly to run CS3, 3dsm and few other programs... Also some FPS's etc

Trying to stay under $800.00 w/ monitor. Ideally $700.00

I'm at newegg trying to piece something together,

any ideas? AMD or Intel doesn't really matter to me.


I seem to be a little to high right now for the setup i have:
($740.00 without monitor...)

Samsung 22x DVD+/- DVD burner- $26.99
Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0gb/s hard drive- $59.99
Asus M3a78-T Am2+/AM2 AMD HDMI ATX AMD mother board- $149.99
Corsair 4GB (2 x2GB) DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800- $69.99
Lite-On 4x Blue-ray DVD rom SATA model- $99.99
MSI N9800GT Geforce 9800GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI express 2.0 x16 HDCP, SLI supported video card- $129.99 (comes with vegas 2 for free)

Combo special:
Rosewill RX850-S-B 850W Power supply
AMD phenom 9600 Agena 2.3DHZ socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core
$203.99

Random Case- $70.00


= $740.93

Think that is everything...little to much....

Any ideas to get it a little lower? is quad core that much of a difference in performance from a good duel core?


Thanks
 
Wow, prices are down a lot since the last time I bought any parts. Maybe time for me to build a new machine....or at least get a new HDD or two, I'm down to my last few gigs on my current 2 drives... is there any hope that an external HDD can be accessed with any decent speed? My internal cage is full and it was a bitch even just getting the 2nd drive in there.

Maybe you could skip the blu-ray drive tho sozo? Seems relatively useless unless you own a lot of blu-ray movies and don't have a PS3.

-benny
 
Yeah, I'd yank the Blu-Ray for now--can always put one in later. That'd get your price down to 650$--which isn't too bad.

@Benny--depends what you need for speed. I carry around two WD Passport Elites at 320GB each... runs USB2 (so caps at 480Mb/s) and use them to virtualize server cluster environments OTF at home and at work. They work great, are speedy, and tiny.

If you wanted MORE speed, you could probably get a MyBook with eSATA or RAID. They're full size SATA hard drives (Passports use mobile drives), so your spindle speed should be a bit faster on the MyBooks.

Passports
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=517

MyBooks
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=8
 
Yeah a lot of external hard drives i'm reading are extremely fast.
I just carry x2 10gb flash drives around lol for all my web projects.

I sold my ps3 and iphone yesterday in order to build a new pc... I never found myself playing the PS3 games, only used it as a blue ray player for my new HDTV.
I figured I can get a 6ft HDMI cable, and run it from my pc to my HDTV, hell.. maybe use my TV as my monitor...(samsung 32" for my room)

I don't know much about processing, and not sure of quad's are worth the price compared to a duel core? i read somewhere that a single core unit is better for gaming? which made me say wtf...
But yeah, I could not go with the blueray for now.

anyone recommend intel or amd quad?
Which would be better.. 4GB memory with quad core processor.. or 8gb of memory with a duel core processor?
 
It depends on the games. Processors are developing faster than most game studios so a lot of games just can't take full advantage of the technology yet.
 
5 by 3 by .6 inches and less than half a pound? are you kidding me? For what you get, the price seems rather good too... wow, thanks Ehon.

-benny
 
Sozo said:
I just carry x2 10gb flash drives around lol for all my web projects.
Click to expand...

I did that for a while, but the flash drives couldn't keep up with the access times running VMs. All of my works is web and graphic design, but I have several situations where I need to virtualize a domain controller, DB server, etc..

I don't know much about processing, and not sure of quad's are worth the price compared to a duel core? i read somewhere that a single core unit is better for gaming? which made me say wtf.
Click to expand...

For most games out there, sadly, the single core statement is probably pretty true. Especially in FFXI. I know EQ2 added dual core support last week and moved the processing of shadows, sound effects, and.. uhh, something else, onto the separate core. It also set the affinity to the second core automatically--which is kinda cool.

Typically, single core CPUs have more raw power per processing thread where as multicores handle parallelization better IF the software is designed to fork each method onto a new thread. I remember I had an Intel Extreme single core Pentium 4 ages ago that seemed to blow away my newer computers--though that's evened out now with Vista and some geeky affinity PowerShell scripts I run at startup. :bluewink:

I'd go with the lesser (make sure to meet the requirements of your apps), but with a motherboard that can take bigger, beefier processors--then work your way up as you see the need to. No need to rush out and buy top notch at a premium--it'll get cheaper tomorrow.
 
My experience has always been to save money wherever remains practical. I saved on the motherboard (I built my pc with an lolASUS that was already outdated when I bought it), get a cheapo soundblaster if you aren't satisfied with onboard, etc etc.

I only spent a lot of money on the video card, really, because I took a HDD from old PC and added hitachi HDD and use passports, I use old ram + 2G Corsair, use monitor from old PC, and salvaged the CD/DVD drive/burners.

Also, I only spent like 30$ on case, another place where you can save if you're not caring much about how it looks and are getting your own power supply regardless (mine is just a white cheapo case)
 
So after reading some reviews and spending many hours on what to buy for performance and value. This is my pc, which I will get in 3 days! lol.

Rosewill Black Steel ATX mid tower case (great cooling)
Rosewill 650w Power Supply
Biostar Tforce TA790GX Mother Board
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz 89W Duel-Core processor
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express (SLi supported)
4GB Corsair memory
500GB Samsung 7200RPM 3mb/s SATA Hard Drive
Samsung 22x DVD+-

Price: $580.00

Not sure on what Monitor I want atm, Going to be using my 32" samsung HDTV in room for now ^^;

The board/cpu was a bundle package (saved more money), same with the case and powersupply. The video card came with mail in rebate and a free copy of Call of duty 4.

Board has alot of room to upgrade (up to 16gb memory, better processing in future etc.)
Will probably get another 4GB of memory in few months, along with a blueray drive.

Price seemed really good for what I got ^^;
 
Just purchased a 20" Widescreen LCD (Samsung) for $213.00 (included shipping).. Everywhere else has it for 250+

Brings grand total, for complete PC + Monitor
Final price- $798.99
Under the 800 mark! Can't wait to have it all together. Beast of a machine for under 800! Recommend to anyone :p

Only regret- Just noticed on newegg, a quad core AMD for 109.99, very good price :( Although it would have made me a few more dollars over budget..
 
amd was great until about 2 years ago when intel passed them bigtime...and havent looked back since
 
That would explain a lot then. I haven't bought a computer part other than video cards in years.

-benny
 
yeah i'm still running an AMD machine from about 4 years ago,... waiting on Apple to rev their mac mini's to replace this :)
 
LOL to the AMD comment.. I'm also running an AMD machine.. but I built this baby 3 years ago. With this next possible deployment commin' up.. I might just build another system XD.. it'll def be an intel system tho.. that decision has already been made lol.

I <3 my computer =P
 
Well, comparing the processor I have to the intel model...All marks show that the intel just barley beats it. So I think its ok.... Not a huge deal. It's a pretty nice machine for under 600 + monitor.

I put it all together last night... Mistake- The case.. I dislike it. But it was cheap... bungle package discount.

I'm not sure if I want to run vista or XP on it..
I have ubuntu on it atm lol.
 
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