Building a new PC

[Darrenct]

A friend of mine had there computer fried in a lightning strike. I thoroughly tested all of the components and concluded that the only part that survived was the case.

It has been about a year since I have looked in to building a computer so I'm not sure what the best stuff around is right now.

I have about $300 to spend on a mainboard, CPU, HSF, RAM, and power supply. Would you guys mind giving me some ideas on the best way to spend the cash. If you think of a nice system for less, that would be awesome too.

I'd prefer the board to have integrated sound and LAN.

Thanks for the help

[druidelder]

If you are looking into a board with integrated lan/sound, nforce2 boards are probably the best bet (one with Soundstorm). I like my ASUS A7N8X-Dlx personally, but some people here seem to prefer the Abit NF-7 for overclocking purposes. Nforce2 boards cost ~$70-$125 depending on the options included. Their integrated sound is definately the best as far as intgrated sound goes (and is pretty good as far as computer sound goes for that matter). They are socket A, so they can have any range of processors, from a very cheap duron to a fairly inexpensive 2500+ (~$85). They can use the much more expensive socket A processors as well (such as the 3200+ ~$335), but to keep the system cheap.... This would leave him with an upgrade path in the future. The price difference between DDR 2100 and DDR 2700 is negligible or non-existant, so DDR 2700 would be where I start with memory. If there is a good deal, higher rated DDR wouldn't be bad.

To better answer questions, what will the system be used for?

[sandman001]

I'd go with the one soltek board, it's cheaper. the NF2 one.

Cpu, I'd go with an athlon 1700+ see how far it'll go

Sk-6 with decent 60mm fan should only be like 15 bucks.

350watt fortron power supply.

some cheap ram.

[Darrenct]

Awesome thanks for the help.

The computer will definitely not be overclocked by the user. It is being used by a middle-aged couple who may do a little gaming, but nothing serious.

This reminds me, what would you recommend for a cheap but effective video card.

[druidelder]

You could get a Sapphire (ATI chipset) 9500 for about $100, or a 9100 (equivalent of an 8500) for about $50. Any cheaper and you're looking at nVidia Geforce MX cards (not great, but may be adequate for their needs).



Thermaltake VOLCANO 9 $21.99

Buffalo Technology 256MB PC2700 $41.00 x2 $82.00

Fortron FSP350-60PN 350W $36.00

AMD Athlon XP 1800+ Thoroughbred $52.00

ATI OEM Sapphire RADEON 9100 64MB $57.00

Shipping $12


Subtotal » $260.99 @ newegg.com

Add the motherboard (~$75-125) and you've got a system (- drives) for $330-380. You might save a little money by shopping around (but not a whole lot, and few hassles with newegg). When considering which mobo, two things to take into account, if you go nForce2, make sure it is dual-channel and has Soundstorm (and not just the Realtek or C-Media audio). Otherwise you won't get the memory benefits and the audio will be no better than any other intgrated audio (which is not very good). The price difference between the boards that have them and those that don't is worth it.

You could go with less RAM, but if it will be running XP I would suggest against it. Even with services down to a minimum, my box seems to like close to 256MB for itself, much less anything else.

What kind of system did they have before? If they had a much older system, a 1.3 duron might even be an improvement over what is gone.