Want input in a project

[da-gokesta]

hi there all,
im in the process of taking an A+ course at school and one assignment is to build the best all around performance computer for $1200 or less. right now its in an excel document so sorry if you cant read it.


keep in mind that i have to buy everything from known internet stores. i want feedback on what i should change and if i can get better prices other places

thanks Will

Wills Computer (http://web.ndak.net/~sgokey/wills%20comp.xls)

[mdcomp]

It says current wish list is empty. I think you might have to click the share with others button when you submit it. Let me know when its working, interested to see what you came up with. Good LUCK!

Matt

[da-gokesta]

had to give up with using the wishlist now its in an excel spreadsheet

[JigPu]

Great... Excell... WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE WORKS INSTEAD OF WORD!?!?!


*goes to other computer to look at document*
JigPu

[Krusty]

Would you take overclocking into account for building a computer? If so, I'd go for a low speed barton to overclock, get an nforce2 motherboard with onboard RAID (SATA or IDE), some buffalo pc3200 memory, and a phat video card.

$1200 is a pretty good chunk of money for a system. Just upgrade from there till you hit the $1200 mark.

A month or so ago, my dad asked me to price out a system to build for heavy photoshop and digital video editing. I'll paste the contents of the notepad document I made here for you. It's a more expensive checklist than $1200, but you should be able to see what you can get for that price. This is a pentium4 system I priced out. All prices were pulled off of newegg:

MEMORY CHOICES
Buffalo Technology 512MB 6 Layer PC3700 DDR Memory Module 32X8 (Winbond Module) - OEM $99 + $4 shipping
CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series 512MB 64MX64 PC-3200C2PT With Platinum - Silver Heat Spreader OEM $128.50

PROCESSOR CHOICES
Intel Pentium 4 / 3.0CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB - RETAIL $392
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz 512k 800MHz FSB | socket 478 w/ Hyper Threading Technology - RETAIL $640

MOTHERBOARD
ABIT IS7,Intel 865PE chipset for Socket 478 P4 ATX motherboard RETAIL (has LAN, no firewire) $108
ABIT IC7, Intel 875P chipset for Socket 478 P4 Canterwood ATX motherboard (has firewire, no LAN) $121

HARD DRIVES
MAXTOR 80GB 7200RPM SATA HARD DRIVE MODEL # 6Y080M0 - OEM $102 (3 year warranty)
WD WESTERN DIGITAL "SPECIAL EDITION" 120GB 7200RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL # WD1200JB - OEM, DRIVE ONLY $101


CASE / POWER SUPPLY CHOICES
ANTEC LIFE STYLE SERIES SONATA PIANO BLACK Model# Sonata w/ ANTEC TRUE380 380W Power Supply $97 + $18 shipping
ANTEC SOLUTION SERIES MODEL SLK3700AMB w/ANTEC SMART POWER 350W P4/AMD POWER SUPPLY ATX12V - RETAIL $69.50 + $18 shipping
ANTEC PERFORMANCE PLUS Model# PLUS660AMG (METALIC GRAY) w/ ANTEC ATX12V TRUEPOWER 330W P4 READY POWER SUPPLY - RETAIL $95 + $15 shipping

HEATSINK
(optional) Thermalright SLK-800-U ( Heatsink ONLY ). All Copper heat spread. New Version. $42.99 + $6 shipping

VIDEO CARD
still need to choose

MONITOR
still need to choose

KEYBOARD/MOUSE/SPEAKERS still need to choose

CABLES/FANS still needed (allocate $30 for this)

Totals:
buffalo memory: 2*(99 + 4) = 206
3Ghz processor = 392
IC7 motherboard = 121
maxtor serial ata hard drives (in RAID): 2*102 = 204
western digital hard drive as backup = 101
case and power supply = (97+18) = 115
heatsink and misc hardware: 73

total without video card, monitor, keyboard/mouse/speakers = $1212

OOPS! Need dvd burner and cd rom! We'll approximate the prices here. We definately won't pay more for this
dvd+ rw drive: $150
dvd rom drive: $35

new total: $1397

So now we need a video card and "digital video editing system" before we can compare the price with the alienware computer.
The NVIDIA Quadro fx 500 video card can be obtained for just under $300
The Pinnacle dv500 digital video editing system sells for $410 total.

This brings the total to 2107. The alienware computer also has a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 6.1 sound card (sells for $75), but I did not
purchase this item since the motherboard I chose had integraded 6.1 surround sound.

So the total savings over the alienware system would be about $851. The system I listed also has an extra dvd rom drive so you do not
have to use the dvd/cd burner for reading data on cds. It will likely run quieter since I added a high quality cpu heatsink that will not
need such a big, loud fan to run it. Most importantly of all, the origional system had one 80GB 2MB cache hard drive and one 120GB 8MB cache hard drive. I upgraded that to 2 80GB serial ATA hard drives running in RAID (essentially makes one 160GB drive that is twice as fast) and one 120GB 8MB cache hard drive (optional) that you could back up your data on. This second hard drive would only be for backing up data. Those drives I chose also come with 3 year warranties as opposed to the 1 year warranties on the alienware computers.

[Krusty]

And to continue. . .

I checked out your spreadsheet. D'oh! Forgot you would need to include an OS into the build!

Anyhoo, check nexfan.com for fans that are less expensive. Frys electronics (outpost.com) has cheaper surge supressors. I bet you can find antivirus software for free as well. I remember norton giving away systemworks for free last year or something. And my Epox motherboard came with pc cillin for free. Check to see if the motherboard you picked comes with it.

Everything else looks in order.