The Official Budget-Conscious Dream Machine!

It should, good luck

 

OK some one has to help me.

i am making a decent computer and i need help.

i have a budget of £500, and am making a nice gaming system.

i have just taken up computer building and upgrading as an after school class, and i am 17 yrs old, so the class is advanced. i have partially built computers, and upgraded, btu never a whole system from nothing.

i am deffinat;ley getting a BFG 8800GTS, that costs £200, so i have £300 left.

i need 2GB RAM (notsure what brand or whatever.
a mobo that has to support and include a dual proccessor, and a pci-e 16x. i am guessing caus of the parts i will need a 550W silient PSU, and i need a sata rator 100GB or 200GB hdd (what ever will come in the budget) and a seperate 100GB (internal or external) HDD for storage.

i dont care for a fansy case, any would be suted.

WHAT CAN I DO, AND CAN I DO IT FOR UNDER £500?
(about $980 USD)

 

If you mind pulling back on the 8800 you could with that you only have 300 pounds left thats not alot for 2gb DDR2 ram, dual core CPU,200 gb S-ATA HDD i think it will go over your budget dont you?
I think youd need a bigger thne 550W PSU maybe 700W

 

what graphics card wold you suggest for command and caonquer tiberium wars 3?

 

radeon 8500 is the minumin for that ok so i recommend anything above a radeon 9800
Like Geforce 7600GT,7900,Radeon X1900.X1950,X1800,X1650,6800ultra all of them will run you most newer games at High but the only difference between them and the 8800 besides a bit higher performance is that the 8800 does DirectX 10 but the otehrs do only 9.0c and are much cheaper think about it.

 

Here's my machine, hope to get it going in the next few months.

I'm using my current monitor, a Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP. I probably will upgrade my speakers from my older Harmon Kardon speakers, although I love them. I will also be using my current mouse (Microsoft TrackBall Explorer) and keyboard (Logitech G15).

Case:
Thermaltake LanBox VF1000SWA - Silver - $139.99
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=371369

Motherboard:
ASUS P5K-VM - $124.99
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10005881

Power Supply:
Corsair CMPSU-620HX - $146.90
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=373110

Processor:
C2D E6750 - $198
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10005522

Sound Card:
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality Pro Series - $134.98
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=290248

Graphics:
EVGA 8800GTS Superclocked - $399.99 (!)
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321207

Hard Drive:
WD Raptor X - $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822136011

OS:
Windows XP Pro SP2 (duh! who needs Vista yet?) - $110
http://www.ivorcom.com/shopping/third_level.php?product_id=OS100023&category_id=77

Extras:
Arctic Silver 5 - $10.98 (!):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16835100007

3rd Fan for back of case - $9.98:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811999106

MonsterPower PC800 Surge Protector:
http://www.buy.com/prod/computer-powercenter-mp-pc800-rp-8-outlet-900joules/q/loc/101/203078120.html

Possibly looking into a battery backup/surge protector combo instead.

Total:
$1,390.50

 

Do you really need the 640 MB? An 8800 GTS is usually avaliable for around 270 bucks these days. If you're about to spend 400 on a video card might as well get a GTX. Very nice build though.

 

Both Newegg and ZZF have the GTX (any of them) priced at >$500.

If I could get a decent GTX for $450 or less I would probably go that route though.

 

Where do you live?

 

In the United States, Utah if you want to get specific

 

Where in Utah? I want to check craigslist lol.

 

lol, I just looked and couldn't see any 8800's (at all, I searched for "8800" across the whole site for my area).

 

There were no video card in my area either(Orlando), so I searched in Jacksonville and thats where I got my 7600 GT.

 

A second hand video card? No offense, but I would never use something like craiglist (even if it existed in this country) for hardware. I don't use ebay or amazon marketplace for expensive components, only things like fan controllers and cables.

The build looks superb , but that extra 60mm fan is going to be noisy.

 

Eh, got my Thermaltake Armor Series case brand-new off eBay... no video cards though. Sometimes they're just broken or sometimes they have been overclocked and abused and are on the last legs of life.

I would stick to eTailers like newegg, tigerdirect, and ebuyer.

 

Likewise, with a case it doesn't matter much, there's very little to go wrong, but things like graphics cards, nah, best avoided.

 

My video card was bought used off craigslist. Stupid I know, but it turned out fine. My motherboard was bought refurbished and my CPU was bought of eBay. The motherboard turned out DOA but gigabyte replaced it without problems.

 

Well I was reading on Doom 3, even though its a bit older, and when fully maxed out it takes about 500MB of your Video cards RAM. I am sure newer games will only use more. This is why I went 640MB.

Thank you for the compliment. Yes, the 60mm will be noisy but I don't really care if my machine is loud or not. I usually either listen to music with my MP3 player while gaming or I have the sound up to a decent level so its not too big of a deal to me.

Also, if I do find it too noisy I could always just take out the extra 60mm and keep it, just in case one of the 60mm fans that come with the case dies.

Peace

 

Case noise is a non-issue for me. I run both 120mm fans full blast and let it rip. My case is about a foot from my monitor. I usually have my speakers up for gaming or I use some headphones so it never bothers me.

While a fool thing to do sometimes, it seems you worked out okay. Not a bad system by any means

 

Yeah much better than my celeron D system with built in GFX heh.