Computer Question

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randerson165

Senior Member
I am trying to build a computer for my brother. He has $400 bucks and I was searching on newegg.com. I know how to put stuff together, but I don't know how to buy ? He wants a fast computer for gaming mostly, do I want AMD or Intel ? and how do I know what motherboard to buy ? what case to fit the motherboard ? and what processor to fit the motherboard ?

Can somebody list some good items to look for ???
 
id get an AMD processor...whoops i did buy one for my old pc :) i was pleased with it. get an ATX (or is ATI? not sure what its called) because thats pretty much a standard case. what kinda stuff is he looking for specifically? for $400 hes gonna have a decent system...nothing too fast really but a decent system none-the-less.
 
he's not looking for anything in general. He said this local shop has a motherboard with a built in video card thats 128mb (sounds funny to me but then again what do i know ?) for like $150. I figured he could buy that for way cheaper on newegg.

he is running on a 500mhz right now.

all he wants is:

1.8 or higher processor
128mb video card (won't a 64mb work for games just fine ?)

that is really his only requirements, but for that $400, he needs the following:

processor
motherboard
case + power supply
memory
video card

he already has a cd rom, floppy, monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
 
hmm well i got some stuff i might be willing to sell for cheap if you are interested:

-ATX case with 300W power supply
-850mHz AMD Duron processor
-900mHz Thunderbird mother board
-256mb stick of RAM
-3D video card (forgot the name but i paid like $100 for the damn thing...im thinking its 128mb...might be higher)
-Soundblaster Live! 5.1 sound card
-56k fax/modem

case features:
-3 bay cd-rom drives in front
-2 3.5" disk slots up front
-2 bays for hardrives inside
-300W power supply

motherboard:
-up to 900mHz processor capabilities
-on board soundcard
-2 USB ports
-on board LAN card
-printer port

if any of this shit sounds like something he may be interested in, let me know and we can work on some deals.
 
try here some pretty good deals here. I would go with a celeron($100) dragon motherboard ($120) ATX case w/ 300W power supply($50) ATI all-in-wonder graphics card ($180) RAM like $30-80
 
Sorry to say but all you guys are forgetting about hard drives. For a decent 7200 40 gb, probably around 60 bucks or so.

With that budge, that computer specs, it is easily feasible.

www.pricewatch.com is yoru friend.
 
sorry, failed to mention he has a hard drive too !!!

nobody answered my question on "how do i know which motherboard, case, and processor will go together?"
 
Any ATX motherboard will fit in any ATX case. Otherwise read the specs. I know for a fact that newegg.com tells you exactly which processors will work in every mb.
 
400 bucks is cutting it damn close.

board - 100
512 stick DDR - 100
chip/fan- 150-
128 card - 100

thats over by $50 bucks.
 
lol j/k

i dunno man... i spent 650 on my last upgrade.....

case, board, ram, chip, video card.
 
if he is truely using it for gaming i would strongly sugest staying away from the intel celeron or amd duron. these procesors dont have math co prosessors in them and that is almost a must for gaming
 
IRQ 13.

lol pretty much, you aren't going to build a system with one of those chips now anyway. But i think the newer celerons have the Math Co Prpc, but they don't have a backside cache... something like that. god ive been out of school for a year and half, and i forgot everything.

amd athlon is FINE. just not the druon crap.
 
I got an AND Athlon 1800 and it works fine. the guy i bought it from said he only runs those cuz he doesn't like the way the pentiums run. whatever
 
dude with only wanting to spend $400 bucks on a descent gaming system the video card is going to eat up almost all that money on it's own.

Video
nVidia Geforce4 Ti4600 128MB DDR goes for about $260.00 and an
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB DDR goes for about $300

Motherboard
Tyan Trinity KT400 (S2495) = $95
this MB has everything you need on it sound, lan, etc.. it may have a few more features than you want but it's a quality MB and you get what you pay for.

CPU
Athlon XP 1800 = $49
Heat Sink , ThermalTake = $20

Memory
Crucial (Micron) = $79.99
512MB PC2100 DDR (CT6464Z265)

Hard Drive
60GB Maxtor = $60
believe me playin games you'll use it up fast.

Case/PS
Antec w/ 330Watt power supply PLUS660AMG = $109.00

So just to build a descent system with quality components you know you won't have a problem with
Total w/o video card = $412.99
Total w/ Geforce4 video card = $672.99

your bro might want to save a few more bucks for the descent video card.
 
for around $400 the only intel processor ur gonna get is the celeron. The P4 is like $250 alone. All you really need is a good graphics card cause now a days these graphic cards have their own processors and the speed of you main processor is only secondary. just get a good 128mb graphics card and ull do just fine!
 
Originally posted by CRX-YEM@Aug 26 2003, 09:07 AM
CPU
Athlon XP 1800 = $49
Heat Sink , ThermalTake = $20
Click to expand...

You don't have to get any special kind of heatsink/fan combo. I have spent MANY hours and gone through many CPUs to know that the stock AMD HSF combo included in the retail package is one of the best cooling around when keeping stock speeds and even a few overclocked Mhz.

I have tried Thermaltake's Dragon Orb, Volcano 7, Volcano 9+, and Thermalright and other brands and after many temp recordings, the best HSF was the stock one (great cooling and VERY quiet). Granted the aftermarket HSF are good, but most of them will be a lot more noisy and it gets very annoying after a while. Besides, Heatsinks usually weigh a lot and can easily damage your mobo if you're not careful. I chipped more cpu cores using Thermaltake HSF than I care to count.
For thermal compound though, I would get some Arctic Silver III.

As far as the price difference between an OEM CPU and a boxed-retail version, it's usually a $2-$3 difference, on www.newegg.com at least.

For $400, though, you might be better off buying a built system from Microcenter or Fry's if you have any of those stores in your area. It'll be a no-name system but it will be good enough to run games. I've seen many systems in that price range with at least an AMD XP 2000+ cpu, enough RAM and HDD space and a NIC and Sound card. The only thing that it would need is an upgrade in Video card. You can find GeForce 4 Ti4400 on newegg.com for cheap. He would get a decent system for around $450-$500 and be able to play all of today's games in good resolution without any drops in framerate.

www.outpost.com (which is Fry's Electronics online store) for example, is selling a built system for around $450. Product link --> LINK <--

Here are the specs:

Specifications:
CPU: AMD® Athlon™ XP Processor Model 1800+ (1.53GHz)
Chipset: SIS 730S
Memory: 128MB DDR RAM (expandable to 1GB)
Hard Drive: 40GB Ultra Hard Drive
Multimedia:
16x CD-RW Drive
16x DVD-ROM Drive
6 in 1 Media Card Reader
Motherboard:
Embedded 256-bit 3D AGP Graphics Accelerator with 64MB frame buffer
Embedded Direct Sound AC'97 Codec for audio
Built-in 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN
56K Modem Connection
Expansion Bays:
Two 5.25" drive bays
Expansion Slots:
One CNR (Communications and Networking Riser) slot
Two 32-bit PCI slots for PCI 2.2-compliant bus interface
Port Connectors:
Six USB 2.0 ports (four back-panel ports, onboard USB header providing two extra ports)
Two PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard
One Serial port
One Parallel port
One VGA port
Audio jacks for microphone, line-in and line-out
Accessories:
Keyboard
Mouse
Speakers
Operating System:
Windows XP Home Edition

That's not a bad price considering what you get. All you have to do is maybe change out the Video Card. I don't know if this system comes with an AGP slot, but if it does, you shouldn't have to worry about finding a good AGP card. Now, if the mobo doesn't have one it'll make your upgrade choices all that limited to a PCI card (which isn't too good). If you do buy a cheap built system, make sure it has an AGP slot and not an intergrated AGP card on the mobo.

I hope this helps you out. :)
 
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