endlesszeal
Senior Member
Well I just finished building a low-budget rig for my brother. He thought an aged P4 at 2.8 with HT, 1GB, DVD+/-R and 160GB h.d.d tower at Fry's was a good deal for $510. I convinced him otherwise and throw in another $70 for a vastly more superior system. =)
Anyway, the rig consists of:
AMD X2 3800+ AM2
Biostar Tforce w/6100 AM2
1GB PQI Turbo DDR2 800 (5-5-5-15)
NEC 3550A
320 GB Seagate SATA II w/16mb (the new 10 series with perpendicular technology)
Cooler Master Centrion
Forton Saga 400 watt PSU
Why is it so much better?
1) Well for that extra $70 he has a system that is dual core and is overclockable if he ever wanted it. I gave him a good bump from 2.0ghz to 2.4ghz with no voltage changes and the temps are the same as stock.
2) His hard drive space doubled and is SATA now for better cooling.
3) Has faster RAM; most systems are only coming with 533mhz DDR2 or maybe 667 if you're lucky. The timing kinda stinks, but the extra mhz helps it and it doesnt effect it too bad. And it comes with heatspread.
4) A lot better onboard video than Intels old chipsets.
5) 7.1 surround vs stereo (5.1 is good enough).
6) Better chassis and power supply because its dual-rail with 18A and 16A respectively. The chassis is a lot better breathing too with room for side 80 intake and 120 mm exhaust (are planned to be installed). It already has 1 120mm intake that cools the hard drives and chipsets.
I think for 580 taxed and shipped is a pretty good deal for this particular system. With an extra 1GB, Im confident it'll crush anything that comes from Dell at the same price range and up to the $2000+. Only when you get to the gaming systems that have RAID/Raptor setups will it lose. And of course the graphics is laughable, but so are Dell's unless you opt to get the $500 cards.
Anyway, the rig consists of:
AMD X2 3800+ AM2
Biostar Tforce w/6100 AM2
1GB PQI Turbo DDR2 800 (5-5-5-15)
NEC 3550A
320 GB Seagate SATA II w/16mb (the new 10 series with perpendicular technology)
Cooler Master Centrion
Forton Saga 400 watt PSU
Why is it so much better?
1) Well for that extra $70 he has a system that is dual core and is overclockable if he ever wanted it. I gave him a good bump from 2.0ghz to 2.4ghz with no voltage changes and the temps are the same as stock.
2) His hard drive space doubled and is SATA now for better cooling.
3) Has faster RAM; most systems are only coming with 533mhz DDR2 or maybe 667 if you're lucky. The timing kinda stinks, but the extra mhz helps it and it doesnt effect it too bad. And it comes with heatspread.
4) A lot better onboard video than Intels old chipsets.
5) 7.1 surround vs stereo (5.1 is good enough).
6) Better chassis and power supply because its dual-rail with 18A and 16A respectively. The chassis is a lot better breathing too with room for side 80 intake and 120 mm exhaust (are planned to be installed). It already has 1 120mm intake that cools the hard drives and chipsets.
I think for 580 taxed and shipped is a pretty good deal for this particular system. With an extra 1GB, Im confident it'll crush anything that comes from Dell at the same price range and up to the $2000+. Only when you get to the gaming systems that have RAID/Raptor setups will it lose. And of course the graphics is laughable, but so are Dell's unless you opt to get the $500 cards.