Withe the new job and all...

[JB73]

I am starting to price and plan out for my PC upgrade finally LOL

I have been wanting to for a long time, but life and then finances would always get in the way.

Anyway, I have planing for a budget of $450-$500 and get the most performance I can.

Running AH at high levels is all I care for.. and storing data, and maybe some basic music stuff, but we'll get to that later.

My requirements are that I can use my current DVD-rom drive, tower, and I can play AH.

I need to buy then:
Processor $150???
Motherboard $90???
Memory (1GB but prefer 2GB) $????
Video card $150
Power supply $40
Hard drive $????


I want to go to SATA, and as big as I can buy in my budget. above is listed what I hope to spend.

I may spend a bit more if I can... we will see how I am doing.

I plan for about 4 months or so until I will have the funds, maybe 5. until then I get to watch prices, get recommendations, and all that.

The starting point I guess is the Processor. I have been with Athlon for oh, 7 years or more now, but IIRC you all here talk about the Intel core 2 duo's...

Which to start with?

from there, I will be chosing an ASUS or MSI motherboard, and my video card (will be Nvidia).

which brand and model of memory is not even close to a decision as I know mostly nothing about them. All I ever have afforded is kensington el-cheapo stuff wherever I could get my dirty little grubs on ROFL.

HD is my "left over" money so whatever I have left in the end decides on the size (will be a seagate)

so what's your guys suggestions?

[Spatula]

I'd say make sure you get a good motherboard which has plenty a capacity but can also accept lower-spec'd stuff too. Dont skimp on the MOBO, skimp on the other stuff if you intend your system to have a good long(ish)-life upgrade path going forward. Then as time and money allows you can upgrade different components up to the max capacity your MOBO allows. This may mean that you end up with a system with a little less performance for the same $$ initially, but it has lots of good upgrade potential.

If you don't care so much for an upgrade path, put more $$ into video card and plenty of RAM min 1 Gig, 2 Gig=better (doesnt need to be the flash stuff either).

Im sure someone will disagree. I guess it all depends on your priorities.

[Krusty]

Get a conroe (E6320), it's about $160 or so right now.

I've got an ASRock Dual-775Vista, and it's serving me well (and was cheap!). Not the best mobo, but it gets the job done and has the prerequisite whistles (just not all the bells). It also supports your old RAM and your old vid card so you can upgrade 1 at a time. If not, the average Gigabyte (the brand name, not the memory size) mobo runs about $70-80.

Video: For $150 get a Ge7900GS or a ATI X1950 (both pretty close in performance and price)

HD: For about 120GB SATA drive you can expect about $120-130 (that's what I spent on mine a while back). Depends on brand, speed of drive, and any sales when you purchase it.

If you save money anywhere else, put it to the PSU. $40 is a bit light.

[JB73]

Originally posted by Krusty
It also supports your old RAM and your old vid card so you can upgrade 1 at a time. If not, the average Gigabyte (the brand name, not the memory size) mobo runs about $70-80.

the MSI board I was looking at is $74....

my old memory?

you sure about that lol..

my current rig is running PC133 memory. I think one stick is PC100.

it was not "top of the line" back when I built this system over 4 years ago... but until the vid card died I ran AH with 512 textures, and stayed above 30 for frame rate.

I kind of am looking at it like this:

SATA is the new standard for HD's for a while. IDE stuck around for a long time, and I am going to guess this will be around for a while.

get a PCI E board like the one I  looked at with 1 16x slot and this is like an AGP 4x back 4 years ago.

as long as you don't overclock (I never do) and are "nice" the MB will hold out for a long time. you can always get a better video card, and sometimes a better processor.

like my current PC the part I intend to change "frequently" are the power supply, video card, and DVD rom drive.

I'd like a good brand name 600+ watt PS, but that kills the budget, and won't be able to run the system.

[humble]

Just a quick once thru....

Motherboard $135

CPU $165

Memory (2G) $70 after rebate

Power Supply $33

VC (ATI) $110

Hard Drive (x2) $74 (total)

VC (Nvidia) $125

This was just a "once thru"...from one source.

[Krusty]

Sorry, in THAT case it won't support it.

The Dual-775Vista has 4 memory slots, 2 are DDR1, 2 are DDR2. You can only use one type at a time, though. It also sports both a AGP port and a PCIe x16 port (really running at x4 speed but I haven't had ANY performance problems so far), so you can pass your older stuff onto a newer motherboard.

SATA is soooooo much better than IDE. It's wicked fast compared to it, as well. The RPMs may be the same but the drive/interface combo is way faster. Read/write times are much faster. If you must, get a smaller SATA and install Windows and program files on it, then all your extra storage on the older IDE (just don't swap to and from the IDE while in a program if you can help it).

I have a 475W PSU that is of good quality and reputation. It cost me about $60. The one I had before it was listed as 350W but was a total POS. You can actualy fry your computer by undervolting or overvolting, and my PSU was doing BOTH very badly (on different areas). Some of my hardware wasn't working, and the other stuff that was was in danger of being killed.

The PSU is more important than the CPU. Keep that in mind! (also you can take the PSU with you to other cases in future upgrades).

What motherboard are you considering so far? Keep in mind if you're bringing your old cards (NIC, sound, fireware, whatever) you will need to get a motherboard that still has PCI slots. Many only have 1 or 2 nowadays, and several PCIe X1 slots (which are useless at this point in time). For conroe chips you'll need 1066MHz FSB, and even the 6320 (only 1.8GHz) will blow away most older chips. The performance gets better with higher conroe versions, but it's a good starting spot (and cheap!)

EDIT: Humble was typing the same time as I was! He's got some nice choices there!

[Fulmar]

Originally posted by humble
Just a quick once thru....

Memory (2G) $70 after rebate

Power Supply $33

Hard Drive (x2) $74 (total)

This was just a "once thru"...from one source.

I'd get the RAM you selected if you planned on overclocking this computer.  Otherwise rebates are g@y and you can find stuff around $70-80 that will work fine.

Don't buy cheap power supplies ever.
Ever.

EXCELSTOR Jupiter Series Hard drive?  What brand is this?  Stick with a good seagate.  Spend $75 and get 320gb, not $37 x 2 and only get 160gb on an unknown brand.  Seagates have a 5 year warranty too.

[Fulmar]

A good 600W power supply from a good brand is going to cost you about $100-120 on the lower end.  You can drop up to $250+ on a 600W that is absolute top of the line and probably makes you coffee in the morning as well, well it should for that price.

[Speed55]

I've got the same mobo as krusty, so i can vouch for it being a good deal for the price.

[JB73]

Thanks for the info..

I was looking at this MB:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813130050

I would use the built in LAN port, get a PCIE video card, and for now use my old creative live! PCI card I have.

seriously that's all I'd need.


I know all about poser supplies....

I smoke, and YES YES I know it is bad around PC's I have killed 3 power supplies on my current rig by the fan getting gunked up and dying, then the PS overheating / frying.

the MB and processor have held through all of it ROFL.

anyway for a starting point this is I think a decent MB, and I have had really really good luck with MSI stuff in the past.

also thanks for the links. the memory looks like a good deal. the power supply too.


if I can get my current rig to play AH with the athlon 1.5ghz, 768mb pc133 memory, and GF Ti4800 (and AH ran just fine) I am sure I will get a great PC from what is being linked to here.

[humble]

Originally posted by Fulmar
I'd get the RAM you selected if you planned on overclocking this computer.  Otherwise rebates are g@y and you can find stuff around $70-80 that will work fine.

Don't buy cheap power supplies ever.
Ever.

EXCELSTOR Jupiter Series Hard drive?  What brand is this?  Stick with a good seagate.  Spend $75 and get 320gb, not $37 x 2 and only get 160gb on an unknown brand.  Seagates have a 5 year warranty too.

I looked at what I saw....

1) the memory is a great deal for the price IMO...OC or not.

2) thats a good PS for the money, again I'm working off the budget as best as possible

3) EXCELSTOR makes a perfectly good HD...it is in fact better then a lot of "name brands". HD's are no longer a specialty product at the lower end. This is a good drive at a good price, two identical smaller drives allow either a OS/Data, Mirrored raid or striped raid setup based on need and MB.

No question he can do better on all 3, but I focused on the best mid level board based on the latest chipset and the best cpu, the memory, VC, HD(s) and PS are all as close to on budget as possible. Rebates are never gay as long as they are discounts on what you'd buy anyway.

At the price points he's at your going to trade off somewhere. The PS has a 20@ and 18@ 12V rail and enough power for the box he's building and its a decent company. Memory is great deal (a tthe moment). I always look at planned use on HD's bigger isnt better. I have a 350/250 with an external 500G network and 500G external backup. But my biggest single "drive" is 80G's. Big drives arent as efficent. So since he doesnt show much need for "space" IMO a two disk OS/Data set up makes the most sense...

Like I said it was a once thru from 1 source to give an overview of the possibilites...

[JB73]

humble right now I have a 60gb and a 50gb in my system, about a total of say 10gb between them free.

I plan on keeping them in my "current" box (using a cheaper tower / power supply I have laying around, and making that a linux box.

I do even have an old 1ghz athlon setup with no video or memory (needs pc100) but a 20gb WD Hd sitting in another tower (it has a CD rom drive and floppy to) so I can set up multiple "file servers" on my home network for storing anything not really needed on a constant basis.