budget comp for sister

A

apHytHiaTe

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 9, 2004
Messages
2,899
Hi guys,

My sister came to me, asking where to buy a computer, so i told here of course that dell and gateway are crap. She just wanted a tower for ~$500. So i have decided on these components

Barton Athlon XP 2500+

Chaintech 7VIF4

Mushkin Basic Green 184 512MB DDR PC-2700

Seagate 7200 RPM IDE hard drive

In Win black/silver mATX case w/300watt PSU

In Win media card reader

Optorite Black CD/RW 52/32/52

Nec Floppy drive

Win XP home

Norton Internet Securities 2004

Should i go cheaper and get a Sempr0n? The current price is about $550 shipped, and thats fine, so i though i might as well go with a nice and comfy barton. The computer is for her to do her college work on, and listening to music, surfing, etc. Her Pentium II box just aint cutting it!

Thx in advance.
 
I like this mobo because of the 5.1 / optical output built in - 13 dollars more than that chaintech.

AbitVM-10

I've also had issues with In-Win power supplies. The cases are great, but there's a high probability of a DOA PSU. Fans power up, but not enough juice to run the system. Even a lightly loaded one.

Consider this case. Yeah, its not as nice looking, but its PSU is better, even though nominally rated less.

Are you tied to the minitower? Lots of decent mid tower cases for around 50 bucks.

BB
 
Looks good. It will give her plenty of power for what she wants to do. The only thing to watch on the KM400 is heat on the chipset. I used the Abit VM-10 for a system and the people had heat issues until I put active cooling on the chipset. Haven't heard a peep since.
 
Interesting. I've used that VM-10 for 5 systems now, in pretty low airflow micro-atx cases for grade-school teacher/student applications. Not a single issue with any of them.

BB
 
Maybe I got a bad one. I also ran into an issue with the IDE headers. The people I built it for had a CD and a CDRW drive and they wanted both drives, when I had both drives on IDE 2 it would not boot unless I took one of the drives off. I finally got it to boot by putting the HDD on IDE2 and the two optical drives on IDE1. Other than the heat issue, they have been running fine.
 
8Zombie8 said:
haha you baught a copy of windows xp
Click to expand...

HAHA what else does one do?

Thanks guys for input. I'm getting mixed signals about the abit board, is it going to be worth the 13 more bucks? I'm sure she doesnt need 5.1 ch audio or optical audio hookups.

Also bbgun, thanks for the suggestion of case, i actually think it looks better ;), and no, i'm not tied to a micro tower.
 
Are there any mATX mobo's suggested? or even atx mobos. I just need something reliable and with integrated sound and video. Also what about card readers?
 
Integrated and cheap usually go hand in hand, and I think buying a mobo with the most things integrated is more bang for the buck.
I built a few PC with a ASROCK mobo and other stuff for under $300 minus the software and floppy drive (had a whole bunch from school for free).
As long as she is not rendering for gaming, anything new nowadays will suffice a person till x86-64 catches on big time and Windows 2010 comes out. :)
Also a Duron 1.8 is fine for what your describing her computer habits to be. A large 80+gig 7200rpm drive would be be my minimum for storage. 256MB ram minimum. And a combo drive so you dont have to buy a DVD and cd-rw drive. Cheap midtower fro under $35 with at least 320w psu.
my last pc built under $300

AMD Duron 1.8
ASRock K7S41GX SiS741GX/lan/winmodem/video/usb/sound
256MB OEM PC2700 333mhz DDR Memory
Cooler Master Socket A Heatsink & 80mm Fan Low Noise (8JD1F-0L)
Beige Mid Tower ATX USB2/Aud 350W P4/AMD Case
Western Digital 80G 7200 RPM ATA/100
Lite On 52X/32X/52X CD-RW w/Software
 
Look on pricewatch for CPU/Motherboard/Memory combos, you'll find some good deals there.


And there's nothing wrong with buying a legit copy of an OS... especially when wanting to build PC's for a real company, you'll want to be running legit software otherwise...
 
Yeah, legit OS, the best way is Xp home @ $99
And if your a student, you can get Office for a discount if stores have student discount offers.
 
Actually take my comment with a grain of salt... I'm not using a legit OS at the moment, but if I were running a business using software like Adobe Photoshop or what not, I would start paying if I were to start making money off of them.
 
the sempron seems to be a good choice and it has a 233FSB so you only need PC2100 RAM which tends to be cheaper. for a budget computer i would go for SAMSUNG RAM, i know its not king shit but its cheap and reliable/stable. not the tighest timings either but its nothing your sister will notice. with that in mind you can exchange that shitty mobo with onboard video and go for like as 9200SE, i know thats the shitty edition but its cheap but it will allow moderate gameplay.It runs warcraft III good :p.
 
my university has a system that allows the students to register an academic copy of winxp pro for free (both on and off campus usage). she might wanna see what freebies her school has before you fork out $99 for winxp home ~_^
 
afirawker said:
the sempron seems to be a good choice and it has a 233FSB so you only need PC2100 RAM which tends to be cheaper. for a budget computer i would go for SAMSUNG RAM, i know its not king shit but its cheap and reliable/stable. not the tighest timings either but its nothing your sister will notice. with that in mind you can exchange that shitty mobo with onboard video and go for like as 9200SE, i know thats the shitty edition but its cheap but it will allow moderate gameplay.It runs warcraft III good :p.
Click to expand...

The Sempron has a 166/333 FSB, which is one of their selling points over an older AthlonXP 2400+ with a 133/266 FSB.

Actually, if the Sempron was significantly cheaper, it probably wouldn't be bad for non-gaming purposes. It is essentially an AthlonXP with 256Kb cache and a 166 FSB borrowed from the Barton.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top