Inexpensive College-Student PC Build

[Grassypoo]

Howdy guys, building a PC for my little sister who is going to college next fall for a non-number crunching major. Here is the rig that I have picked out so far, my parents are trying to stay under about $450. Here ya go:

-ASUS AM3 NVIDIA Geforce 7025/nForce 630a Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
-AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor
-G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory
-HIS Radeon HD 5450 (Cedar) 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Video Card
-Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
-Antec Basiq 430W Continuous Power ATX12V Version 2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
-COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel , SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
-SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner Black SATA
-Win7 OEM 64-bit

Total price thus far: $470ish.

My big questions are:

Will the power supply be sufficient?
Will the RAM work with the mobo?
Will the GPU last a non-gamer a few years?
Do i need to invest in a more ventilated case?
Is an after-market heatsink needed?

Thanks guys

 

[Marshmallow64]

Everything will work, ps is sufficient, gpu will last. No you do not need a better case or after market heatsink.

 

[Trap05]

I would not get the gpu and purchase a better board...think 890gx

 

[Knufire]

Why would you want an 890gx if your not going to overclock? It's a waste, much easier getting a cheap video card. All you need is a motherboard from a quality brand (such as ASUS), that you know will last.

But yes, that's a pretty good budget build right there.

 

[Trap05]

Why 890gx? Better onboard video, better cpu support now and better future cpu support. If you drop the videocard and get the better motherboard you have a better more upgradeable PC and you can always drop in a card later if it becomes necessary.

 

[Wayward_Son]

Here's a build that steps up the processing power and motherboard and drops the price down to a cool $400.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131609

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103872

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371023

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136759

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811164114

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151220


This list includes about $85 worth of instant savings currently at Newegg, but if you bought all of this at the time I'm posting it your total without shipping would be $399.

You could change up my chosen hard drive and gone with the one you chose instead, and change up the case or something, and the price would raise closer to yours. However, I did away with the discrete graphics card and instead chose a different motherboard and went with a tri-core processor with 3.1ghz of power. You would use the onboard graphics which would be ample for a college non-gaming computer. Onboard sound, which is damn good these days. Take a look at this build and see if it might be more to your liking.