Building a PC on a low budget. Need some help

Anyplace you order your gear from, Newegg included since you had links for them, will have an online option to print your receipt. When receiving your gear you will get your shipping (packing) list, not necessarily your receipt.

 

for linux i would recommend debian. it is one of the best and most stable distros there is.

http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

if you have a good internet connection you can download the netinst cd. it will download any necessary files during installation so the disc is only about 150mb. if you need any help setting it up or installing you can go to the linux section of our forums.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/163

why do you need to quad boot? win xp and linux should be enough for what you are doing.

 

Thanks for the Linux info! Would 1500 down be considered fast? I average about 167 kB/s download, so my connection is about 1350 kbps.

About the Quad Boot, I really like Windows 2000. It is much better for memory intensive applications as on average it uses 1/2 RAM as windows XP. I don't know why, but Cinema 4D for instance, uses about 350MB RAM on XP and 220MB RAM on w2k. Symantec Anti Virus uses approx 36MB RAM on XP and 12 - 24 on w2k.

I may not do it as XP is not that bad, just more of a memory hog. With 4GB of RAM, XP shouldn't be a prob. The XP 64 would be if I get some 64bit software. I could always install this later.

So I may just go Linux/XP and if I get some 64bit software, then XP 64 as well. The Windows 2000, will be a coin toss. I have some time to decide. Thanks for the input though. I do appreciate it

 

With the Video card, it looks like my money has not cleared into my account, so I will miss out on the weekend sale, unless the term "weekend sale" is a gimmick and it will last until later on.

I am not familiar with video card brands. I usually stick with Sapphire for ATi cards and PNY for nVidia (workstation cards). I think the 4850 series is the best price for performance.

For example, this Asus is $140 ($5 more) and has a higher core and memory clock:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121272

Is there any difference in terms of quality? Is this the same as the Sapphire only Overclocked?

If there is a difference with brands, what would the hierarchy from best to worst?

Also, the nVidia equivalent is the 9800GTX+ correct? Looking at benchmarks, it seems like they are about equal in performance, except that the nVidia has a PhysX engine. Will this make a difference? Also, the price will be on average $20 more for the nVidia. Is that too much of a difference for the PhysX?

 

With 4GB of ram you won't have to worry about any OS memory overhead so installing windows 2000 with that build will just be a waste of space. Avoid XP-64 bit it's a mess. Vista-64 bit is great and debian has a 64-bit version as well.

 

PhysX won't make a real difference. With the better image quality, HD video playback, power consumption and price, the HD4850 is just the all round better product.

 

Ok. Thanks to both of you

 

More questions cause of some deals...

1. On the motherboard, can I do better than the Gigabyte board without breaking the wallet, or is the Gigabyte board a very good board. I am not too familiar with Motherboards, so I am not sure if this was recommended solely because of the price or because of the quality.

OK, so here is where I am at so far:

CPU $180: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
RAM $70: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197
PSU $80: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703019
GPU $135: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770

Total: $465

Left would be Fan/heatsink and Motherboard

Gigabyte recommended motherboard: $88

Total up to $553

Which brings me to question #2:

2. Heatsink/fan. I do not know which heatsink/fan is good. I just picked this one out of the blue:

$49: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118003

would something like this be better:

$58: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835154001

or

$68: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109125

That would take the total up to $602 - $621

or, is the stock heatsink & fan good enough? I want this PC to last a very long time. When I upgrade, I give my former PC to my parents and I would want it to last 5 - 10 years minimum... About 2 for me and 5+ for them.

My Current PC died on me and I fear it was either due to the PSU ruining my Video card (used a no name 450Watt PSU) or my video card dying (x700Pro). I bought this PC in 2002 and it was still pretty good since I used Windows 2000 and kept it very light in terms of apps. It screwed up about 3 months after I changed the PSU. I had the stock 230Watt PSU. There were no problems with the 230Watt, just my moms PSU was acting up and I thought giving her mine would be best. Now, I can't give her my old PC, or I have to find an AGP video card and Pretty Good PSU for that one so she can have an upgrade to her 700MHz PC...

3. Instead of the Heatsink and fan, would it be better to invest the money in a Raptor HDD instead?

 

I recommend that board mainly because it's cheap, but also because it does everything most people need.
Newegg do not stock Thermalright products, they just haven't removed them from their site from over 2 years ago when they last stocked them. I recommend grabbing an Ultra-120 with 120mm fan from http://www.performance-pcs.com if you want the best cooler for quietness and superb performance. For most people though, the Tuniq Tower is a similar performer, so get that. It's significantly better than the CNPS9500.

You do not HAVE to have a good CPU cooler for a Q6600 if you're not overclocking, but it's recommended, they will get very hot with the stock cooler as Intel have stopped providing coolers that do a good job in favour of ones that just about get the job done, to save money.

Your old PC almost undoubtedly broke due to the power supply, cheap PSUs are ALWAYS bad.

 

I think I will go with the Tuniq as I do not plan on overclocking any time soon and I may not benefit from OC when I do not play many games. Also, it just went $5 off!!

What would you recommend in terms of a PC case? Rather than upgrading Motherboard (the Gigabyte seems right), I think I should get a case as my case is rather old...

Would this one be good $30:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146041

or this one $40:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811226030

 

The NZXT Alpha is a fine case for the price, I can confirm that.

 

Thank you very much! I appreciate all of the help you and the others have given me in picking out my components.

 

Edit:

How do the rebates work? It asks for an invoice. Is that the order status screen or is that something I will get in the mail with my components?

If it is the order status screen, is it possible to export that so that I can have a friend print it? I do not have a printer.

 

I wouldn't know, I'm not from the US and so don't/can't use rebates.

 

hmm... hopefully I'll figure it out $135 is a lot of money.

I can't wait till the components get in. I also need to pick up some Arctic Silver and a wireless adapter. I can get both of those from stores though. It should be a fast system and a huge step up from the old one.

Now, I am considering fixing the old PC. I have to figure out what BIOS it has so I can decipher those beep codes... I am pretty sure it is related to the video card as there is no display and before the display completely disappeared, it showed a message with "Rialto" in it. I think that is what ATI called the PCI=>AGP bridge. It would be nice to give my parents a decent PC. Theres freezes up just surfing the net. All the eye candy out there is more than the 10 year old system can handle

 

Can you find out what the motherboard is? It should have a model number printed on it somewhere, even if its specific to the manufacturer of the PC.

 

I found this:

http://logicalplus.stores.yahoo.net/gainle3mogap.html

It looks like a Lexington 3 motherboard?

I took the Video card out and cleaned the heatsink and I am getting the "Railto...Atombios" or whatever screen and the beeping stopped now.

When it did beep, it was 1 beep immediately followed by 2 short beeps, then a pause and two short beeps again.

Crap... Went to check order status and this was on the front page at newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...128358&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-13-128-358-_-Product

For only $13 it looks like I could have gotten a Motherboard Upgrade. Don't even know how I didn't see this yesterday... Maybe it wasn't on sale

 

Yeah those beep codes usually imply bad video card (or bad connection to it)

 

hopefully it isn't the AGP slot... Do you think it could be possible that the card is not getting enough power from the power supply?

I don't know if this PC is worth upgrading a motherboard with... Basically only the CPU would stay and I don't think I can find an AGP board any more... Basically it would cost the same price as building a new desktop with a C2D.

 

Here's a really inexpensive build that will do quite well.

Case: COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black $34.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119115

Power Supply: Antec Basiq BP500UB 500W ATX12V Power supply. $29.99Free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371019

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive. Free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288

Memory: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $34.95 minus $13.00 rebate us $21.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145590


DVD-RW: LITE-ON Black 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW two of them for $34

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106085


Video Card: HIS Hightech H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512MB $79.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161252

CPU: AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Black Edition with unlocked clock Multiplier. $105.

Price Total $443.91 Plus shipping $33.68

Total $477.59 including shipping not including a $13.00 rebate.