Building a PC for a friend

My friend gave me a budget of 700 bucks to build him a system. He doesnt know anything about computer hardware so if something goes wrong its my booty. SO I want a stable computer but also a computer that will run games pretty well. I was thinking about getting him the ATI Radeon 9500pro but even though the drivers are much improved he still doesnt trust ATI so my only choice is Nvidia for a 3d card.

AMD Athlon XP 2100+/266 FSB Thoroughbred Processor CPU 2100+/ 1.73GHz Retail
SOLTEK Motherboard for AMD Athlon XP/ Athlon/Duron Model# SL-75DRV5 - RETAIL
Corsair Value RAM 512 PC2700 DDR ram
WD WESTERN DIGITAL "SPECIAL EDITION" 80GB 7200RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL # WD800JB
VGA CHAINTECH GEFORCE4 TI4600 128MB VGA & TV-OUT, DVI OUT. RETAIL BOX
BLACK CHIEFTEC Server Workstation Tower DX-01BD w/Plastic Front Cover and ACRYLIC WINDOW w 450watt PSU
SONY 1.44MB 3.5 INCH INTERNAL FDD DRIVE - OEM
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2
COOLER MASTER TLF-R82 (TLF-R82-E1) ( Blue )Neon L.E.D. Fan. Size: 80 x 80 x 25 mm.

= 670.50

He wont overclock or play with the bios in anyway. He is what some people would say AOL fan boy.

Nice system. I don't see a DVD drive there..

shoot thanks.

I knew I forgot something

Do you think I could use my 300watt Sparkle PSU for that system?

ok I had to get rid of the Geforce4 ti4600 because it was too expensive and I replaced it with a Asus ti4200 128MB. Also I got rid of the Audigy 2 and got the regular Audigy1

I added Lite On 48x24x48 CDRW Model LTR-48246SBlack and LITE-ON XJ-HD166S 16X DVD ROM Drive - OEM48X

final price came out to a even 700

Great.

Reading the soundcard section seems to put me off Creative a lot, but that system seems good for his use. I don't know how much the Audigy will cost you but pulling that out and getting a Philips or other card will get you enough spare cash to get a keyboard and mouse, and if you are lucky, a few blank CD-r's as well.

The only thing i can guess you are missing is:

Monitor
Keyboard
Mouse
Speakers
Heatsink (for CPU)
Power Cable
Operating System.


Power:
I run 2 HDD's (10 gig and 60 gig), 2 optical drives, a P4, a mobo, a floppy, USB keyboard, mouse etc, off a 300W psu, but i guess i might be running into trouble.

Cjwinnit said:

Great.

Reading the soundcard section seems to put me off Creative a lot, but that system seems good for his use. I don't know how much the Audigy will cost you but pulling that out and getting a Philips or other card will get you enough spare cash to get a keyboard and mouse, and if you are lucky, a few blank CD-r's as well.

The only thing i can guess you are missing is:

Monitor
Keyboard
Mouse
Speakers
Heatsink (for CPU)
Power Cable
Operating System.


Power:
I run 2 HDD's (10 gig and 60 gig), 2 optical drives, a P4, a mobo, a floppy, USB keyboard, mouse etc, off a 300W psu, but i guess i might be running into trouble.

Click to expand...

If you look in his list, he's getting a Retail Athlon, so he's gonna just use the included heatsink. Maybe you should check out a more reliable and stable brand of motherboard... I've never had any luck at all with Soltek boards

you could run a 300W psu on it I guess, but only if you had to....I think that's just asking for trouble later on down the road though =) downgrade to a 2000+ cpu or settle for PC2100 RAM (aol fan boy won't notice the difference I figure) and spend the extra dough on a 350W psu or higher....

WEll I am selling him my Corsair ram so I gotta.

He has a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers/power cable and windowsXP pro

I will try to look into a cheaper case and get a 350 or 400 psu. I would get a different sound card be he specifically said Creative.

I am thinking maybe I should sell him my Geforce4 Ti4200 and the ram for 200 bucks. I think thats a good deal right?

sk- said:

WEll I am selling him my Corsair ram so I gotta.

He has a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers/power cable and windowsXP pro

I will try to look into a cheaper case and get a 350 or 400 psu. I would get a different sound card be he specifically said Creative.

Click to expand...

I see.


Selling him your stuff: look on the internet and see how much the stuff you want to sell him would cost new (without shipping). Then charge him 70% of the new price (less if he is a good friend).

CORSAIR MEMORY 512MB PC2700 VALUE SELECT. DDR RAM - OEM = 75
ASUS V9280TD Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB 128 bit AGP 8X TV-OUT & DVI RETAIL = 147

= 222 shipped

He is a OK friend, met him last year in college but I dont feel the need to lower the price dramtically.

OK this is what I am looking at to what I should be putting together.

EPOX Motherboard for AMD Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron Processors, Model #EP-8K9A
AMD Athlon XP 2100+/266 FSB Thoroughbred Processor CPU 2100+/ 1.73GHz -Retail
CORSAIR MEMORY 512MB PC2700 VALUE SELECT. DDR RAM - OEM
WD WESTERN DIGITAL "SPECIAL EDITION" 80GB 7200RPM EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL
ASUS V9280TD Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB 128 bit AGP 8X TV-OUT & DVI RETAIL
Lite On 48x24x48 CDRW Model LTR-48246SBlack OEMBuffer
LITE-ON XJ-HD166S 16X DVD ROM Drive BLACK- OEM
SAMSUNG 1.44MB BLACK FLOPPY DRIVE Model# SFD321B/KEB - OEM, DRIVE ONLY
Chenming ATX-301KB-B-0-450W Mini-Tower Case Black

= 707.99shipped from newegg.com. I already have the ram and video card so the final price will be 22 dollars cheaper, it will be 687.

Your original motherboard choice is right on the money...I have always been a Soltek fan since my first SL-75DRV5...The ONLY motherboard's that I have personal experience with that have never given me any problems out of no less than 15 Soltek boarded box's I have built...Put one together for a friend last week using the SL-75FRN2. Not one problem, no issues, nothing, fired right up, rock solid stability...Nothing like my Asus A7N8X Deluxe...Liked it so much I bought one for myself...Same thing assembled the box...Turned it on, loaded XP, drivers...rock solid stability...Waiting on some memory because the only thing I have is some PC2700 Kingston Value Ram that I had to buy to deal with the Corsair XMS PC3200LL twin pack memory for nForce 2 motherboards...GRRRRR...For 89.00 including 2nd day shipping at googlegear you cant beat it with a bat...Also I would recommend you looking at the Toshiba DVDROM's over the Lite-On...Much quieter...for the couple duckies extra a much better choice...

I rekon he should stick with the lite on , I have one myself , and they're not too loud , but they are ROCK SOLID when using clone cd , I have never had any probs using my liteon dvd and liton cdrw ,using them together for 3 months and they go over copy protection like It was never even there.
Of course, I only ever use them to make backups of games which I legeally own and which I have a right to do under Irish copyright law . but then again , this guy may not need to do that.

All The Best
Dancing_Priest

I agree with Hookem!

Use nForce 2 - it is the best! It even beats KT400A (!!!).
Go Asus A7N8X or Abit NT7-S if you want maxspeed by auto or by fine tuning ( I love Abit, although I have build around 6 systems on ASUS basis) MSI is silly and Gigabyte is TOO silly. Epox might be risky as they are known for building lots of chipset mixes( and since there are a lot of motherboard versions, it can be tough with the new BIOS updates)

Also, you might be interested in buying two 256 blocks inspite of one 512 for a DualDDR. NVidia recommends buying 2x256 DDR400 cl2.5-3 and running them @ 333 cl2 for maximal perfomance.

You can get rid of Geforce 4200 and go radeon 9500 PRO.

Also, note that there is a new model from Seagate on the market ( and Seagate drives are well-known for their worlds best reliability) with 7200, 3D defence System, SoftSonic (2.5 sone) motor, and 8MB cache. In case of ABit you can buy a Serial ATA version and use an integrated S-ATA controller.

If your case will be black - I would recommend you buying a Pioneer DVD drive (although I am a Liton fan too) just because it is available in black).

And the rest (but not least) be sure to buy a T-bred as it consumes little energy and has more overclocking possibilities.