With your budget and requirements, I'm going to say a P35 based system would me more than enough. It's tried and true, stable, mature, and a great performer. It's not a dead platform either. Bear in mind staying in that budget has not been the easiest LOL.
Motherboard:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards $85
CPU:
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops $170
Memory:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory $105
Power Supply:
Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies $110
Video Card:
Newegg.com - EVGA 512-P3-N971-TR GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards $125 (has 20 dollar rebate as well)
DVD Burner:
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe - CD / DVD Burners $26
Hard drive is tough. If you can eek it into the budget and want speed, I highly recommend this one:
FAST!:
Newegg.com - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives $280
Otherwise:
Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives $75
Case:
Newegg.com - Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases $110
Monitor:
Newegg.com - Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2500:1 - LCD Monitors $180
I leave keyboard and mouse up to you.
I got you everything I would buy as an IT professional, an avid gamer, a true DIYer and as a person that knows how to buy for a task rather than what I think is cool.
750GB Seagate drive choice (I use this drive, a personal fav for storage and it isn't slow
):
$960 before shipping, keyboard and mouse.
300GB raptor (fun drive, if you want to load games/apps/maps super fast):
$1165
Like I said, if you can eek it into the budget, it's
really fast.
I am not a loyalist, I just buy what is stable and fast.
-That said, the motherboard is a good pick. Stable and not prone to some of the bugs the more popular ASUS boards seem to have.
-The CPU is a given. Fast, dual core, and can be overclocked very easily, if you ever wanted to tweak the machine some. Even if not, believe me you won't be lacking for speed
-The memory is a good brand and the max for 32bit OSes. You will see less than 4GB, but this gives you all the room you can have, plus more if you ever want to try a 64bit OS. On a related note, I use 2GB on vista business 32 bit, and it works just fine unless I load Crysis.
-The PSU is one of the best brands in the business, if not the best. It will run your machine with one card forever
-I chose eVGA for the warranty and that model for the exceptional 2nd-slot cooling.
-DVD burner...meh. Whichever. Lite-On has given me a few problems, but I know samsung is a good brand in most hard drives, so why not.
-Drives are up to you. I prefer fast load times for gaming rigs and capacity for my server. I use a raptor (old gen) in my game rig and a 750GB seagate in my fileserver as secondary backup for the RAID array.
-The case is a tweaker's case, but I chose it because it can be made very quiet yet very cool. I am a big freak about heat on components, so that case for me is a no-brainer.
-The monitor seems like a good one (have read some good stuff about acer panels lately) and it's at a great price.
Of course you can change anything you like, but I can guarantee you this machine will NOT disappoint!
-----Added 6/10/2008 at 10 : 50 : 33-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by Byrnison
I built my new PC last month...unfortunately, it *is* a "Crysis face melter" (great line BTW )and would not fit into the budget you mentioned. What I can say is that, if you intend to network this computer to another at your place, I would recommend as an OS getting Vista Business or Ultimate instead of the Home Premium version. If this is to be your only computer, then Home Premium would be ok.
Despite the online critcisms against it, I find that I really like Vista. While I wish I had gotten Ultimate now (I opted for Premium), it's not really a showstopper in connecting to the wife's computer, but I just wish I had some of the tools that it has. It was also quite simply the easiest OS installation I've done.
As for the hardware, as always get the best Quad CPU you can afford, and maximize your RAM (4GB if a 32bit OS, as much as you can if 64bit). Almost all motherboards have a PCIE slot so you can upgrade your video card in the future. Oh, and like you, Newegg was my only supplier!
Just my $.02, report back and let us know what you wind up going with! |
Vista Business I agree with, but home premium works fine too. I have both on my internal subnet and they see other machines fine and business works on my 2003/AD domain fine.
Quad is overkill unless you plan on serious multitasking. I do serious multitasking so I have a Q6600 running at 3.6GHz on watercooling. I love it, this CPU will last me a long time. But for the average gamer and user, a dual-core will work just fine and not limit anything. Also, very few programs that you see on the market are written for quads.
Unless you do professional image editing etc, you won't need more than 4GB of ram, 64 bit or not.