New pc as cheap as possible

[Kutabare]

I'm looking to put together a system for my girlfriend that will basically just run guild wars and other games of that nature. I dont need anything really hardcore, I already have a monitor and I'm a broke college student. My maximum budget would probably be in the $4-500 range. I'm not really up on what video cards are good for the price and whatnot, and everything i put together ends up being in the $700 range...Could anyone help me out here? I figure you are all knowledgable about all the new products, I just want to see what I could do for that little.

 

[dvdpiddy]

well for four dollars i would recomenned that you save up your money *looking closer*oh you meant 4 to 500 dollars then get a sempron 2800 biostar tforce 6100 mobo 512 mb corsair ram and this graphics card 80gb hard drive and cheap case my guess around 550 hope your happy

 

[3dking3]

I would look at the Arstechnica system guide for the budget box. About 500-600.

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200601.ars/2

Just my 2cents though.......

 

[Kutabare]

Thanks for the input!

 

[Kutabare]

I never consider buying a prebuilt pc. I know my way around computers pretty well, I have put together a few, I'm just bad about keeping the cost down and dont really know what's worth what. I'm kind of out of the loop as it were, I had a spell there where I didnt have any internet access so I'm just trying to catch up and see what I can do on a poor college kid's budget.

 

[Watersplash]

Hey, I'm in the same situation except I figured out all the prices and went for it

I generally went for the cheapest possible since I'm planning to sell this off right around graduation in about 6 mos. And yeah, I'm building this for GW as well. I've been getting around 10~40fps with an ooollllldddd Dell P3-933mhz/512mb/Geforce 5500 and some crappy 10gig HD. I'm hoping the new build gets me up to 30~60+.

The new PC consists of the following (prices include shipping):
1. Case $37 - cheap ATX with 5 star rating and 350W PSU from newegg
2. Mobo $37 - PC Chips K7 FSB266... for around $10 more you could get one that supports newer CPUs / from newegg
3. HDD $53 - Western Digital 80gig 7200rpm 2mb cache from newegg
4. RAM $39 - Corsair PC2100 512mb from zipzoomfly
5. DVD/CDRW Combo $35 - Sony 52x32x52 from zipzoomfly
6. Gfx card $56 - ASUS Geforce FX 6200 128mb AGP from digitalhotbuy
7. CPU $69 - Athlon XP 1900+ with copper cooling from eBay (sigh)

The total came to $324.76 including all shipping costs.
I've compared eBay prices + pricegrabber + newegg for all of these, and if eBay prices were only a couple dollars less than retail, I went for retail. The only part that's used is the CPU, and those don't break too often + it comes with copper cooling (saves $20~30).

Other cost-performance stuff I considered:
HDD - 8mb cache would have been nice but they cost $20~30 more
Gfx card - I also considered the Geforce 5700 Ultra and Radeon 9600 XT, but the GF6200 seems a wee bit faster and even a new one costs less on average than those older models.
CPU - around $50 more could have put me in 2000+ & overclocking land with a better mobo, but 1900+ seems enough for GW and other MMORPGs.

I got everything in 2~3 days except for the eBay item, which I'm still waiting for (sigh).

Hope this helps :lol:

btw don't forget, if you sell off your old rig after this you'll be spending only $100 or so...

 

[Watersplash]

lol :twisted: :twisted:

 

[madtatanka]

Here is what you can buy 4 aprox 550 USD:

CPU AMD Athlon™ 64 3000+ Socket 939 512K bus 2000 0.13u 1.5V 89W 64bit (1800 MHz) BOX
MB Asus A8R-MVP, RD480 CrossFire, S-939, ATX, 2xPCI-Ex16 / 1xPCI-x / 3xPCI / Dual DDR400, U-DMA 133, S-ATA II, Raid 5, SB 6ch.&1394&Lan 1000 on board.
DIMM 512Mb DDRAM PC-3200 (400MHz - 2x200MHz) GeIL Value CL2.5 Radiator ( Kit 2 x 256MB, SPD Dual Channel )
HDD WDIGITAL 160 GB 7200rpm 8Mb Serial-ATA II 300 8,9ms WD1600JS
DVD±RW ASUS DRW-1608P2SB 8X16X8X16X - 40X32X40X Ultra-ATA RETAIL Dual Layer BLACK
VC GeCube Game Buster Radeon RX550 128Mb DDRAM PCI Express (128bit) (256MB Hyper Memory) TV-OUT DVI Dual Display
This is aprox 522 USD

Case+mouse+keyboard+speakers aprox 30 USD

Note that you can upgrade this PC pretty good whitout changing the motherboard.

 

[jyjjy]

Im in basically the same situation. Check my post to see what I came up with;

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=991703#991703

 

[DragonDoc]

I'm looking to put together a system for my girlfriend that will basically just run guild wars and other games of that nature. I dont need anything really hardcore, I already have a monitor and I'm a broke college student. My maximum budget would probably be in the $4-500 range. I'm not really up on what video cards are good for the price and whatnot, and everything i put together ends up being in the $700 range...Could anyone help me out here? I figure you are all knowledgable about all the new products, I just want to see what I could do for that little.

:arrow: Motherboard:
I would suggest MSI K8MM-V, Socket "754". I have used over 60 of these in office PCs without any problems.
- 1 floppy port supports 1 FDD with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M and 2.88Mbytes
- 1 serial ports COM1
- 8) 1 VGA port Onboard
- 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
- 8 USB 2.0 ports (Rear x 4 / Front x 4)
- 3 audio ports in vertical (Line-out, Line-in, MIC)
- 1 RJ-45 jack 10/100 NIC
- Supports up to 2GB DDR333
- Ultra DMA 66/100/133 master mode EIDE controller
- Integrated dual channel native Serial ATA/RAID controller that will supply 150MB/s and support RAID 0, RAID 1
- AGP Slot 8X - Video Card Upgrade Path if you don't like the onboard video. Onboard video should be fine for or upgrade with low AGP Video Card.
$51
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130494&ATT...-130-49

:arrow: Processor:
AMD Sempron 3000+ 1.8GHz Socket 754 Processor Retail
$90
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80145-1&am...ffiliat

:arrow: Memory:
Kingston KVR333X64C25/512 512MB DDR333 PC2700 Memory
$40
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80065-K&am...ffiliat

:arrow: Hard Drive:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 - Hard Drive - 80GB - Internal - 3.5IN - SATA 1.5GB/S N
$63
http://newsite.pagecomputers.com/store/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=Stor...+Device

:arrow: DVD-RW:
Liteon SHW160P6S05 16X Dual Layer DVD±RW Bare Drive
$40
- Read CDs
- Read DVDs
- Burn CDs
- Create and burn DVDs
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=170674

:arrow: Speakers are a personal choice. Decent speakers low end (office use) around $20.
$18 Creative Labs SBS-260 2.0 Speaker System
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=360234

:arrow: Wireless keyboard and mouse:
Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Sets OEM
$42
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=211285&amp...filiate

:arrow: Estimated cost - $344
Plus case and PS ($40 and up) At least 350 watt PS
Plus Floppy ($12)+/-
Plus OS if needed: XP Home ($90ish), XP Pro (140ish). Recommend XP Pro if going to network with other office PCs now or plan to in the future.
Plus Office if needed: Recommend Office 2003 Small Business Edition ($220ish)
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Outlook
- Outlook Buisness Contact Manager
- Publisher

I hope this helps.