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post #11 of 31
SanDisk Ultra SSD SDSSDH-120G-G25 120GB SATA 3.0Gb...
An SSD for a $350 computer? Really?
Quote:
He doesn't want/need the best of the best.
Why? He can get a simple DVD Burner for $15 off Newegg.


Take out the unnecessary SSD and the build cost drops down to $343

Here's my recommendations:

Intel Build
388
Change: Actually it's better if the cpu be the Pentium G850 since it supports 1333 MHz RAM frequency. The Pentium G600s only support up to 1066 MHz RAM frequency fhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116397. It's $20 more but the total cost will only be $355.


or AMD Build
423

both within the budget.

I see you want your friend to have room for future upgrades so I had $100 motherboards with nearly the best chipsets and sockets. AMD 990FX with AM3+ and Intel Z68 with LGA1155 socket.

The processors have about the same performance, but according to this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-2.html
The Pentium G CPU is the has the best bang-for-buck below $100. Also it is part of Intel's Sandy-Bridge line of processors (2nd generation i3's, i5's and i7's) so it is both pretty strong and efficient in power consumption.

DVD Burner is good, the RAM is of the popular G. Skill brand, and I cheaped out on the power supply since this build honestly is not that powerful at all.

Hard Drive I assume is very similar to the popular Samsung Spinpoint F3, a very fast 1 TB HDD that's priced like any other 1 TB drive. This is one of, if not the, fastest 7200 rpm 500 GB HDD on some of these charts
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/benchmarks,134.html

The Caviar Blue you listed is near the bottom of the charts.

And don't worry, each part is rated 4-5 eggs with lots of reviews.

Hope this helps
Edited by Bitech - 6/11/12 at 12:09am
post #12 of 31
That PC doesn't need 500w... that PSU couldn't put out 500w even on a good day,

spend a little extra and get something like these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182074
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371033

Atleast you can rest assure they won't blow up your house..
 
Server
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CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T GA-990XA-UD3 ASUS GTS 450 1GB (Overclocked) 8GB Crucial DDR3 1600Mhz 
Hard DriveHard DriveHard DriveHard Drive
Seagate Barracuda  Samsung  Western Digital Caviar SE OCZ Agility 3 
Optical DriveCoolingOSMonitor
Bluray / HD - DVD / DVDRW Akasa X4 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 64bit Samsung Syncmaster 213T 
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HP L1910 Dell L20U Novatech Power Station 500 watts CM Storm Enforcer 
MouseMouse PadAudio
Microsoft Wireless Mouse 3000 My desk Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi 
CPUMotherboardGraphicsRAM
Intel Xeon 3065 HP Motherboard Matrox G200e (ServerEngines) 4GB DDR2-ECC 
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3x 500GB HDD's DVD/RW + LightScribe Massive heatsink using rear case fan as exhaust  Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Revision 2 
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N/A N/A HP Power Supply  HP 
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N/A N/A N/A HP ProLiant ML110 G5  
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Server
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Hard DriveHard DriveHard DriveHard Drive
Seagate Barracuda  Samsung  Western Digital Caviar SE OCZ Agility 3 
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post #13 of 31
CPU - Intel Pentium G630 - $68

Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-H61M-DS2 - $55

RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9B - $25

HDD - Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $120

PSU - Diablotek PHD Series PHD450 450W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply - $26

Optical Drive - LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH24NS90 - $18

GPU - EVGA GTX 560 SE - $130

Total - $442


I will advice u to sell ur HD 5550 and get that EVGA GTX 560 SE
post #14 of 31
I think you should get at least a 7750 (almost GTX 550 Ti in terms of performance, but with power usage as low as a GT 430 in most cases.. so you can save money on the PSU), as for the CPU WoW doesn't seem to bother with more than 2 cores, so a Pentium Dual Core (SB) should do a better job (I think) saving some money, also go as low as possible in terms of motherboard to save money for the rest,
post #15 of 31
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bitech View Post

SanDisk Ultra SSD SDSSDH-120G-G25 120GB SATA 3.0Gb...
An SSD for a $350 computer? Really?
Quote:
He doesn't want/need the best of the best.
Why? He can get a simple DVD Burner for $15 off Newegg.
Take out the unnecessary SSD and the build cost drops down to $343
Here's my recommendations: Intel Build (Click to show)
388
Change: Actually it's better if the cpu be the Pentium G850 since it supports 1333 MHz RAM frequency. The Pentium G600s only support up to 1066 MHz RAM frequency fhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116397. It's $20 more but the total cost will only be $355.
or AMD Build (Click to show)
423
both within the budget.
I see you want your friend to have room for future upgrades so I had $100 motherboards with nearly the best chipsets and sockets. AMD 990FX with AM3+ and Intel Z68 with LGA1155 socket.
The processors have about the same performance, but according to this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-2.html
The Pentium G CPU is the has the best bang-for-buck below $100. Also it is part of Intel's Sandy-Bridge line of processors (2nd generation i3's, i5's and i7's) so it is both pretty strong and efficient in power consumption.
DVD Burner is good, the RAM is of the popular G. Skill brand, and I cheaped out on the power supply since this build honestly is not that powerful at all.
Hard Drive I assume is very similar to the popular Samsung Spinpoint F3, a very fast 1 TB HDD that's priced like any other 1 TB drive. This is one of, if not the, fastest 7200 rpm 500 GB HDD on some of these charts
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/benchmarks,134.html
The Caviar Blue you listed is near the bottom of the charts.
And don't worry, each part is rated 4-5 eggs with lots of reviews.
Hope this helps
+rep. thumb.gif

Thanks for the suggestions so far. The power supply seems to be where you guys are getting the most savings. I should probably specify that it's very important that the PSU is modular, or semi-modular at the very least, because the case doesn't have any cable management system. There's no where to hide the unused wires. It's a $30 CoolerMaster case from like 2008. I had a TX-750 in there at one point and it was an absolute nightmare. So I'd like to keep the amount of wires to a minimum to keep the airflow at a decent level. It only has like 2 fans, but I could mod it for more. I have some spare fans laying around.

Taking into account some of your advice, I got it down to $363 before tax & shipping. $400 after tax & shipping, $375 after rebate. I may do some more tweaking tomorrow. Any student discount I have expires on Friday (yay?), so at least the OS will be purchased by then.

What's the logic in going with a single PCIE 3 over 2xPCIE 2? Also, I didn't realize there were Sandy Bridge Pentiums out there. Didn't know Athlons were supported by AM3+, either.
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Mr. Bubbles
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2x WD Caviar Black 1TB LG Blu-Ray burner Koolance CPU-370 & VID-AR687, Phobya 4x120mm rad Windows 7 Pro 
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post #16 of 31
Quote:
Originally Posted by tippy25 View Post

+rep. thumb.gif
Thanks for the suggestions so far. The power supply seems to be where you guys are getting the most savings. I should probably specify that it's very important that the PSU is modular, or semi-modular at the very least, because the case doesn't have any cable management system. There's no where to hide the unused wires. It's a $30 CoolerMaster case from like 2008. I had a TX-750 in there at one point and it was an absolute nightmare. So I'd like to keep the amount of wires to a minimum to keep the airflow at a decent level. It only has like 2 fans, but I could mod it for more. I have some spare fans laying around.
Taking into account some of your advice, I got it down to $363 before tax & shipping. $400 after tax & shipping, $375 after rebate. I may do some more tweaking tomorrow. Any student discount I have expires on Friday (yay?), so at least the OS will be purchased by then.
What's the logic in going with a single PCIE 3 over 2xPCIE 2? Also, I didn't realize there were Sandy Bridge Pentiums out there. Didn't know Athlons were supported by AM3+, either.

If that's the case then you can get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152028
Raidmax isn't a high quality brand name so the wattage may be a lot lower than 530 W
Cheapest Modular power supply, 4/5 eggs from 871 reviews
Same price, except there's no rebate to cut the price in half.

Oh I didn't notice the Asrock had a single PCIE 3 lane. There's really no benefit of PCIE 3 over PCIE 2, current video cards can't take advantage of the extra bandwidth PCIe3 has, so it doesn't matter which ever you use. But the fact that there's only 1 on this board means you can run only 1 video card on it. If your friend might run 2 video cards one day then get this motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138352

The new Z77 chipset is the successor to the previous Z68 chipset. It's basically almost the same except some more features like PCIe3 and native USB3 support, but it's mostly the same, and it supports both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors. And it has a PCIe3 and PCIe2 lane for crossfiring/SLI

Most people are too focused on Intel's Core i processors to even notice there's both Pentium and Celeron processors in the architecture

http://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Sandy%20Bridge.html

The AM3+ socket is simply the original AM3 socket with added support for the Bulldozer processors. AM3 and AM3+ both support Athlon II and Phenom II processors.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Athlon%20II%20X3%20455%20-%20ADX455WFK32GM%20%28ADX455WFGMBOX%29.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM3

Athlon ii is said to be support by AM2+ and AM3, but AM3+ is almost the same is AM3, so it supports all processors supported by AM3
post #17 of 31
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bitech View Post

SanDisk Ultra SSD SDSSDH-120G-G25 120GB SATA 3.0Gb...
An SSD for a $350 computer? Really?

Yes, really. As anyone who has ever upgraded a weak ass hdd to an ssd can tell you, it is the best upgrade bar none. I will always recommend to anyone, on any budget, try to get an ssd in their build. You recommended a 500gb hard drive that costs the same as a 120gb ssd, when hard drive prices will probably drop in half again within the next 6 months, and ssd prices are at an all time low.
Quote:
He doesn't want/need the best of the best.

Oh, i see what you did there. Throw that statement in as though it's the nail in the coffin on my poor choice. Nice! However, as you should know, that ssd I suggested is hardly best of the best, just a nice entry into the joys of near instant app response.
Why? He can get a simple DVD Burner for $15 off Newegg.
Take out the unnecessary SSD and the build cost drops down to $343


My reasoning for this is simple. If you are the type, like most, who only need the dvd drive for the occasional app or game install, why even have one in your rig? Save that spot for a fan controller or something else, and plug the external in when you need it. And use it on other computers or loan it to a friend when they need it.
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post #18 of 31
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ankit07 View Post

CPU - Intel Pentium G630 - $68
Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-H61M-DS2 - $55
RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9B - $25
HDD - Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $120
PSU - Diablotek PHD Series PHD450 450W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply - $26
Optical Drive - LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH24NS90 - $18
GPU - EVGA GTX 560 SE - $130
Total - $442
I will advice u to sell ur HD 5550 and get that EVGA GTX 560 SE

That board won't support 1600 Mhz ram
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post #19 of 31
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bandook View Post

Yes, really. As anyone who has ever upgraded a weak ass hdd to an ssd can tell you, it is the best upgrade bar none. I will always recommend to anyone, on any budget, try to get an ssd in their build. You recommended a 500gb hard drive that costs the same as a 120gb ssd, when hard drive prices will probably drop in half again within the next 6 months, and ssd prices are at an all time low.
Quote:
He doesn't want/need the best of the best.
Oh, i see what you did there. Throw that statement in as though it's the nail in the coffin on my poor choice. Nice! However, as you should know, that ssd I suggested is hardly best of the best, just a nice entry into the joys of near instant app response.

A couple problems here. This is a major upgrade for him, and it will render his previous system useless. He'll likely either get rid of it or give it to his grandparents or something. So he'll need to migrate everything he has over to this new system. The storage space takes priority in this situation. Also, keep the petty bickering out of this. I'm looking for good advice, not an e-peen contest.
Quote:
Quote:
Why? He can get a simple DVD Burner for $15 off Newegg.
Take out the unnecessary SSD and the build cost drops down to $343
My reasoning for this is simple. If you are the type, like most, who only need the dvd drive for the occasional app or game install, why even have one in your rig? Save that spot for a fan controller or something else, and plug the external in when you need it. And use it on other computers or loan it to a friend when they need it.

Again, a couple problems here. First, the external unit costs over twice as much as the internal unit. With cost being a driving factor, it's hard to justify double the expenditure for external over internal. Also, the case has 4 or 5 5.25" bays. There's no reason to save the slot for a fan controller or something else. Thus making it even harder to justify a slower (USB) external unit over a faster (SATA) and cleaner looking install of an internal unit.

Not that your points don't have any merit, it's just that in this particular situation, your suggestions don't quite fit the needs of the system.
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Mr. Bubbles
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2x WD Caviar Black 1TB LG Blu-Ray burner Koolance CPU-370 & VID-AR687, Phobya 4x120mm rad Windows 7 Pro 
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post #20 of 31
You can use a usb stick to install Windows and any other programs
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