Building a "Semi-New" Budget PC

[og954]

I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU GUYS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP OR ADVICE YOU HAVE TO GIVE. COMMENTS AND OPINIONS ON ANY SUBJECT MATTER WOULD BE APPRECIATED. THANKS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

My stock retail HP pavillion overheated on me the other day and a lot of my friends told me to just build one and that I would be better off. FWIW the computer was only 3 years old. I took the computer for repair and the guy told me that the motherboard or processor burnt out, I am not sure which one.

My old pc was an AMD so i am thinking intel this time, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Since this is going to be the first computer I actually build, I don't want to go "all out" as far as parts/price is concerned.

This is where the semi-new part comes in...

I am planning on recycling some of my old parts...

My HDD which uses SATA ports, I don't want to lose all of my files, pictures and programs. This is it...
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152046

My DVD drive is still working fine. It is this one...
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-TS-H653-DO&cat=DVD

I Have 2 sticks of 1 GB DDR2, but I am not sure if maybe they would have got friend too???? Not sure what to do here...maybe I should upgrade to DDR3. I would definitely like some input on this aspect.
FWIW this is the model: http://www.memoryten.com/pc/008725/DDR2-240p-PC2-5300-1GB/

The power supply I am pretty sure will need changing as it says max out 300W, and friends of mine said I will need something around 500W.
This is the one: http://www.circotech.com/bestec-atx-300-12z-bd-hp-pavilion-300w-power-supply-part-no-5187-6114.html

A also have a hard shell that my brother let me have that was also for a custom PC which I plan on using. Only thing is that it is around 6 years old, would that be a problem?

As far as the new parts
I am not really sure about the Motherboard or the PCU. Because it was my first time I didn't want to go all out and buy top of the line stuff. Especially since I don't really use memory intense software.

I am thinking of whether I should get a
Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor

This way the system would be a lot cheaper right?

Or am I better off just going for an Intel i7: I have done a little bit of research and read the the 860 is really sweet:

I mean what is the price difference?

Really I am worried about this aspect of getting the right processor and motherboard that would be compatible with the whole system.

I also plan on dual monitoring so I need the PC to be able to support that. Do you think this video card will be able to do the job??
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5271086&Sku=G458-0220



Here is some of the info using the template in the stickies on top of the forum...

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: ASAP
BUDGET RANGE: Really no budget, but don't want to go all out because it will be my first time building a PC
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Online poker need ability to dual monitor, schoolwork, surfing the internet, some photo editing/video editing

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Hopefully HDD, DVD drive, Case, Keyboard, mouse, monitor.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Take your pick. I am not picky.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
PARTS PREFERENCES: Again not too picky.
OVERCLOCKING: Not sure about this one, only if it's safe I guess.

 

[og954]

Wow. Some of these computer cases are pretty hot. I think I should probably just upgrade that as well. Especially since some of them even come with a power supply that I might need to buy anyways. Although I have yet to find one with a decent PSU. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[dndhatcher]

Look at the following cases: Antec 300 illusion, Antec 900, Antec 902. Also check out the coolermaster HAF922 and CM 690. They are all good cases with plenty of airflow to keep the system cool.

You should buy a power supply separate from the case, good cases usually dont come with an installed power supply and pre-installed power supplies are generally cheap junk. A cheap power supply can make your system run flaky; a bad power supply can damage your other components. Dont skimp on the PSU.

First thing for you to do is look at the sticky of builds by usage and determine if you are in the budget, gamer or enthusiast category and get a starting parts list we can then review and modify for you.

My suggestion for HDDs is get a new faster 500GB Samsung F3 and install windows 7 64bit on it and use the old HDD as a data storage. You will have to re-install the operating system and programs with a motherboard change anyway, easier to create a new boot drive and use the older slower one for storage.

 

[og954]

Look at the following cases: Antec 300 illusion, Antec 900, Antec 902. Also check out the coolermaster HAF922 and CM 690. They are all good cases with plenty of airflow to keep the system cool.

You should buy a power supply separate from the case, good cases usually dont come with an installed power supply and pre-installed power supplies are generally cheap junk. A cheap power supply can make your system run flaky; a bad power supply can damage your other components. Dont skimp on the PSU.

First thing for you to do is look at the sticky of builds by usage and determine if you are in the budget, gamer or enthusiast category and get a starting parts list we can then review and modify for you.

My suggestion for HDDs is get a new faster 500GB Samsung F3 and install windows 7 64bit on it and use the old HDD as a data storage. You will have to re-install the operating system and programs with a motherboard change anyway, easier to create a new boot drive and use the older slower one for storage.

Thanks for the suggestions dndhatcher. I am going to assemble a list of parts and get back to this thread.

 

[og954]

Ok so this is what i have so far...

From what I read so far it, it is better to have a slower quadcore that a faster dual core. So the cheapest quadcore I found was this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055

the one recommended by tecmo34 was this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116074

Since I am going to be doing a lot of multitasking (when I play poker I have at least 4 programs working that record my data, not including IM's and browsers) I figured I should go with a quadcore. Tell if you have any advice regarding this.

Motherboard I decided to go with this one.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4924232&CatId=2014

If you find a better one with better specs/quality for a better price feel free to input. Basically what i was looking for was the right amount of ports and and nVidia chipset. I don't need on board graphics since I plan on getting a gpu

GPU
This is the one recommended in the usage thread

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150393

but I found this one earlier

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5271086&Sku=G458-0220

which I think is a better buy, am I right?

This is the power supply unit tecmo34 recommended for the bargain usage setup, but since I changed the pcu I am not sure if this one will be good anymore.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371006

Techmo recommended this computer case, which i think looks pretty cool.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156237


Memory

The specs on the mobo say that it supports MAX

4GB - 32bit
8GB - 64bit

Since I have two of these...

http://www.memoryten.com/pc/008813/DDR2-240p-PC2-5300-1GB/

I don't know if I can get the recommended....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4631346&Sku=C13-6084

Because I am unsure if it is 32 or 64bits and I would have a total of 6 gb.

Also I will probably get the

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181

Like dndhatcher mentioned above and keep the old HDD as a storage backup. Because I still don't want to lose all my files off of the old one.

So basically I am getting everything new except my old disk drive and the RAM which I may or may not be able to use.

 

[og954]

I just read this thread and posters are talking about how the 775 socket is becoming obsolete. Maybe I should just go with an AMD build?

 

[dndhatcher]

Pretty good first pass, lets make some changes.

Lets discuss motherboards. Did you notice that was a refurbished motherboard? Motherboards have the worst DOA rate of any component and a refurbish will only compound the potential for problems so I wouldnt touch it.

You really have two choices, either re-use your RAM and get an old 775 socket motherboard and intel quad core like you were looking at or switch to a less expensive AMD quad core (Athlon II x4), get an AM3 motherboard and 4GB DDR3 RAM and then you are set to run windows 7. I am assuming you are running XP now.

The GT220 would probably be fine for you but its overpriced. An ATI 4670 is faster and cheaper (should find some at $40-60). But there is another option, you could use video integrated into the motherboard and cut out that expense altogether.

... looking up some parts - will edit in a few minutes
Giagbyte Motherboard (onboard HD 4200 video) and Athlon IIx4 CPU combo $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.276969

Gskill RAM (2x2GB kit) DDR3-1333 $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253

Antec 300 illusion with Antec Earthwatts 430W PSU combo $107
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.288426

In case you need it - window 7 home premium 64
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754

 

[og954]

I forgot to post the link.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274015-31-computer-dollars

 

[og954]

LOL I just posted about the AMD build at the same time as you. I am going to go check out some parts and brb.

 

[og954]

The GT220 would probably be fine for you but its overpriced. An ATI 4670 is faster and cheaper (should find some at $40-60). But there is another option, you could use video integrated into the motherboard and cut out that expense altogether.

I am looking for the ATI 4670 right now. If I get a video integrated into the motherboard it would have to be one that can support dual monitors.

 

[dndhatcher]

Thats a good question I dont know the answer to. Will HD 4200 onboard (which has both a VGA and an HDMI adapter) run two monitors?

If not you can get a cheap graphics card and run one monitor onboard and the other on the GPU.

I asked in this thread - should have an answer by tomorrow.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/273616-33-integrated-4200-runs-monitors

 

[og954]

I am guessing it will, but I will do more research.
What about this combo...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.273673

It also has the onboard graphics card, is it better?

 

[og954]

This is the benchmark tests between the two PCUs in question FWIW.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=106&p2=52

 

[dndhatcher]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2387-7.html
Looking at the chart, the ATI 4200 is 4 steps higher than the Nvidia 8200. Thats a pretty significant difference in favor of the board I chose. The4200 is ATIs latest integrated video; Nvidia has a 9000 series - the 9300 and 9400 are equivalent to ATI 4200. Gotta love those overlapping, confusing numbering systems they use.


Th answer came back on the onboard video. As long as you have one vga and one hdmi it will run two monitors. There are hdmi-vga adapters if both monitors are hdmi or both are vga.

 

[og954]

Ok so the new system is looking like this

Giagbyte Motherboard (onboard HD 4200 video) and Athlon IIx4 CPU combo $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.276969

Gskill RAM (2x2GB kit) DDR3-1333 $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231253

Antec 300 illusion with Antec Earthwatts 430W PSU combo $107
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.288426

Samsung 500GB HDD $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181

Using the old DVD drive
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-TS-H653-DO&cat=DVD

Does this work? Is there any merit to getting a separate GPU rather than the integrated HD4200?

 

[og954]

Sorry i just realized the links are not working because i copied and pasted from dnd's post about, so the first 3 links are the same as above.

 

[sonic-boom]

If you aren't doing any graphic intense programs that onboard video should be fine. I mean unless that photo editing or video editing is hardcore. If you think you could use a lot more graphics power id recommend the 4770 and the Gigabyte equivalent of that board without onboard graphics.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Yeah, saw your post about the q8200, look at the athlon 2 620 or 630. Also with the 50 bucks you could save dropping to the 620, forget integrated graphics and grab a 4670 or something similar.

 

[dndhatcher]

If you were playing FPSs or MMORPGs the 4670 would be a minimal graphics card normally only recommended to upgrade old systems with weak PSUs; onboard would be useless. For general use the onboard video will do the job and a 4670 would probably be overkill.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I have a 9600gt, it's close to the 4670, my 9600gt does ok with most games. Not ultra settings so don't expect everything maxed, but it should be good, especially at lower resolutions. Depending on budget, I'd also recommending looking into maybe a Phenom 2 x3 720 Black Edition. Might do better at gaming and is only 20 bucks more than the 620. Or the 710 which is not a Black Edition is only 10 more.

But if you want to do any gaming, I'd definitely look at least a 4670 or something similar. The other thing I feel as well is that onboard graphics in my opinion drag your system down too much. Me personally, I'd rather have a seperate graphics chip, then you don't worry as much about it sharing system memory as much.

 

[dndhatcher]

Online poker isnt the kind of gaming you need a graphics card for, unless they are 3d rendering virtual opponents or something.

 

[og954]

It will be 24 poker tables simultaneously FWIW. I am not sure how much graphics that takes.

 

[dndhatcher]

What graphics card do you currently have? There are browser games that use the graphics card, but most dont even register FPS. I dont think pokerstars.net takes that much resource.

I think that system ram is more likely an issue. Use task manager to see how much ram a single table takes and make sure 4GB will be enough.

 

[og954]

It doesn't say on the graphics card.
And this is a website showing the exact model and the specs. it says 256 shard memory for the video section.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/12132708-12133156-12133158-12133158-12133158-79481422-79912096.html

 

[dndhatcher]

Its an older onboard graphics (shared memory is the give away) so the 4200 will definitely do better. Given the chipset I bet its integrated nvidia 6100 which is 2 steps below the 8200 motherboard you werelooking at. If your old computer could do 24 sessions at all, this new PC will be much faster at it.