The Official Budget-Conscious Dream Machine!

What video card is that?

 

i cant remember boozer im not looking at it right now... ill go to the pc building threaD and find it.

here is the link to my build
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/426825/3782132

here is the link to the GPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

 

whoa! the components you guys listed are quite expensive. My budget is like $300 dollars, is that possible?

 

oh, i herd EXTREME, and missed the budget


dayam.


if it was £300, we coudl do good, but $300, not sure

 

Three hundred dollars. It's potentially doable, but would mean using a naff PSU. A wee bit over, like $320-$330 and you can probably do it. This is US prices though, in South Africa you may have to allow extra given the extra cost of components. Or are you getting this lot imported?

E2160 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116036 $75
Gigabyte board with onboard video http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128076 $56
1GB Corsair DDR2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145568 $30
80GB WD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144102 $47
Antec Earthwatts 380W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371005 $35
Optiarc 20x Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118001 $28
Coolermaster Centurion http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068 $55

$329...

 

it's alright now, sorted out. thanks.

BTW i was thinking jumping back to AMD, the tri-core looks promising but it's 65nm tho.

 

Nice call on the Centurion sammorris

Excellent case. I've still got mine

 

AMD still sucks balls. I guess we need people to buy their CPUs though, so they have some money to research on better ones.

BTW the Tri-cores are failed Phenoms, while are a failure in the first place. ZING!

 

AMD does not suck balls man.

The X2 6000+ is faster than the E6600 but is ~$60-70 cheaper. Yes, their stuff just isn't as fast, but the Athlon 64 dual cores and the Phenoms are still more than enough for gaming. Anyone with something like a 4800+ and up still doesn't really need an upgrade IMO. And the super low prices make AMD the better choice for anyone making a budget gaming rig.

And the Phenoms are a nice upgrade from the X2 series. They actually match pretty well with the Core 2 Duo. Yes, not as fast. But a step in the right direction

 

X2 6000+ =159
E6750 =189

For only 30 bucks you can get the E6750. Tell me, can the 6000+ overclock to 3.6Ghz on stock cooling?

No, in my opinion it still sucks balls.


So what if the Phenoms can almost beat out the Core 2 Duos? They are supposed to best the Quads.

 

long time, no see, Estuansis.

wait till you Oc them, then they are world apart.

 

I don't have such a harsh opinion as Abuzar, but there are very few cases that it's worthwhile using an AMD CPU in nowadays. The Phenoms aren't very good for the cost, and now that the new 45nm quads are out, they're massively outclassed. AMD used to be useful for some cheap dual cores, but with the introduction of the E series, that's also out the window. If you can't afford an E2160, you may as well get a second hand PC, they're that cheap.
If the Tri-cores are failed Phenoms, that's a little disconcerting. It's one thing if a CPU doesn't reach a desired clock speed, it's quite another if one of the cores doesn't work...
As for the 6000+ being faster than the E6600, if it is, it's not by much, and since any old fool can overclock the cherries off one, then why not do so, you can even do it with the stock cooler. Plus of course, the E6600 is an expensive CPU nowadays, the E6550 and E6750 are certainly a lot better value.

If you spent a lot of money on the AM2 platform, a Phenom would be a nice upgrade, but the fact that they're well outclassed by a Q6600 is a sobering thought for anybody spending quite a big chunk of money on a new CPU. If they're barely faster than the top end dual cores in the apps that support all 4, then in the apps that only support 2 (i.e. most), what have you gained? If you're going to keep a CPU for a while, maybe they make sense, but the arguments against going quad are even greater when you consider the Phenoms, because they're not even fast to start with like the Core 2s are.

The average joe who wants a quad core would do OK by buying a Phenom, but the only people who fall into that category are probably people who would buy from a PC world (and in that case would probably be sold a core 2 anyway). The sort of people who are going with quads this early are probably likely to overclock them anyway, so arguments along the lines of "but what if they don't overclock?" imo really aren't that valid.

 

Well, I just looked at the benchmark and gaming scores for the E2160. And they were amazing! Faster than my old 4400+ by a good amount. And $76.00 on newegg is awesome!!!

An overclocker's dream I think. Super budget CPU that can run with the big dogs.

But, I think it would be better to save up and get the E4300 if you want to OC. The E4000's are definitely faster than the 2000's.

 

Indeed, for the money, the E2160 CPU is probably as good as you can get for bang for the buck.

 

yeah E2160 is an awesome CPU, will be overclocking it to 3.2Ghz when i get my mobo and power supply.

@sammorris
about the long speech on who will buy a quad core cpu now are indeed the people that wants to OC it, but also to newbies or noobs. I seriously think my friend got rip off, yes he bought a Q6600 and a 8800GT 256MB i think, wide 19" monitor, thats the only components that are good the rest are crap, like a frostbite mobo, cheap psu and ram. and he also got a new KB and mice and a case all that for R16000 = round about $2000 NOTE: components in SA are quite expensive.
he doesn't know anything about components, i could buy a much better computer with that money.

agree with me or not?

@Estuansis
which site did you get that benchmark?

 

Frostbite? Never heard of them... you don't mean Foxconn do you? lol
You're dead right for prebuilt PCs though, the main components that everybody recognises (CPU, AMOUNT of RAM but not brand, Graphics card) are focused on, and everything else is done on the cheap. If anything, things are better now, even the graphics card used to be overlooked!
A Q6600 and 8800GT (I notice he got the crap one, what a surprise) are worth about £300 in the UK. A cheap mobo, some cheap RAM, a cheap 19" monitor, hard drive, Optical drive, case, PSU and cooling can be had for about £250 these days. You could build his entire PC for £550. Only if prices in SA were double that of the US would he have got a fair deal...

 

http://www.techspot.com/review/53-pentium-e2140-e2160/

In most of those tests, the E2160 is as fast as, if not faster than my old X2 4400+. Consistently stomped it in all the tests. Excellent performance at 1.8GHz!

To bring it into scope, my 4400+ had a SuperPi 1M of 35 seconds. The E2160 @ 1.8GHz has a SuperPi 1M of 33.6 seconds. Overclock that E2160 to about 2.8GHz, and you're golden

 

Then overclock it to 3Ghz on a cooler that cost you barely more than a tenner, and you're laughing!

 

I'm still on Stock cooling and at 3.6 Ghz. I feel so special lol. In a good way.

 

That's nuts. I do still care about temps though, honest!