Building a "value" system for my sister...thoughts?

[Hender]

I don't think I've ever had to build a "value" system before, but my sister needs a new computer with her tax return money. Right now she's using an old workstation of mine, a Pentium Pro 200 with 96 MB of RAM. Great workstation...in about 1996. I had it configured with a first-generation Matrox Millenium and NT4, too, but she wanted Windows 2000 and her crappy Voodoo5 for some reason....

Anyhow, on with the build. I know what I want in my next system I'm building, but as I said, I'm a bit out of touch with value stuff and I'm not sure about the parts I've picked out for her. I'm calling it a "value" system, but I don't want to hobble her for the future. She said she wanted to spend only $400, but I told her that wasn't possible, since she needs a new case, new video card, new CPU, motherboard, etc. Not gonna happen.

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ $69
Durons are cheaper, but I want her to have a full Athlon XP. I'm going for a Thoroughbred to have less heat in the system, and the low-end XP's are pretty close in price, anyway.

Asus A7N8X nForce2 motherboard $105
I'm going for an nForce2 to have everything integrated. I could get a Shuttle KT400 board for about $30 cheaper, but with sound, network, and firewire built in, it's hard to go wrong. Any suggestions on just as good nForce2 boards that might run cheaper?

512 MB PC2700 DDR-SDRAM $60
See above comment about hobbling a computer. I'm not getting her only 256 MB of RAM. The 333 Mhz bus means she can get a faster Athlon XP at some point, if she wants. 2x256 for the nForce2.

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro $82
This was the hardest component to pick out. I want her to have something that's good enough to play today's games but not leave her behind for Doom III, which I know she'll want to play whenever it comes out. I thought about the 9500 Pro, but it ran a bit too expensive for her budget, though that's more what I had in mind for her performance-wise. Will the 9000 Pro cut it? Or should I look to a Ti4200 or back at the 9500 Pro? Or even the 8500?

Case, DVD drive, CPU cooler, etc. I can pick out easily enough, but what are your thoughts about the above components? By using the onboard sound on the nForce2 I can save $50 on a Santa Cruz for her. She currently has an SB Live, but she wants to get rid of it. My final calculation for all the parts I have picked out (not just the ones above) is $529, not including shipping. Suggestions about lowering costs with different parts greatly appreciated, but I'm happy to add on a few bucks here and there for better performance (mostly for the video card). Thanks.

 

[nick1985]

i would get the soltek nforce2 board for around 90 bucks and take the cash you save and bump up that video card to a 4200

 

[DannyBoy]

[Hender...

Is your sister going to be playing the latest in games? Ever? Like will she be wanting a quick run on UT2K3?

No? Yes?

If shes coming from a PPro200 then I dont think shes gunna notice the difference if you drop down that 2000 to like a 1700 or 1800.

Is she looking to need USB2.0? And firewire? AGP8.0x? Is she going to overclock?

Its not much of a "value" system youve built there chum.

Its better than mine :Q


I just want to know before i say anything else.. What exactly is she going to do with the system?

 

[m1ke101]

Alright if you're going budget scrap the 2000+, all you need is a 1700+. Its probably around $50 from newegg. Also, seeing that shes coming from a p200, she doesn't play games that require a lot of video power, so why in the world are you getting her a radeon 9000? Just get one of the nforce2 boards with builtin video (which is pretty decent for games) and sound like the 8rga, which is about $120 also at newegg. Throw in some kingston pc2700 valueram for $65 and a $40 evercase. Dvd drive and everything else shouldn't be too much, so you could probably get everything for less than $350.

 

[mechBgon]

I second the motion for the nForce2 IGP setup. You can start with the onboard video and upgrade when the need makes itself evident.

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
I second the motion for the nForce2 IGP setup. You can start with the onboard video and upgrade when the need makes itself evident.

I was going to say EXACTLY that :Q

 

[natopotato]

$400 for the computer itself is fairly reasonable. I think it is fair to assume that she does not do anything particularly stressfull going from the fact that she has been ok with a p200 for this long. I would recommend something fairly basic; a KM266 board (like the M7VIG pro), a t-bred 1700+, 256-512 megs of PC2100, 40-60gig HDD, and a DVD-CD/RW combo drive. I'd put that all in a nice compact case like an Aopen H340D. If she is willing to spend more, have her put it towards a nice (but cheap) LCD monitor.

you'd be surprised what a difference a smaller footprint makes. These days, when most people could do what they needed on a much slower system, appearence definately counts.

if you really think she could use it, you could always go with an Nforce2 IGP board and a couple sticks of PC2700 and you'd have more power in the same compact package.

 

[Hender]

Well, she's just been using the Pentium Pro 200 as a temporary system since hers took a dive about a year and a half ago, so she hasn't played any games since then, but I know she wants to again. Yes, she does play games, and she couldn't play anything with her old system (not the one she has now) because she bought crappy parts to begin with. As I said, I'd like to get her a Thoroughbred, and the price difference between the 1700, 1800, and 2000 is pretty small. Yes, every dollar counts, but they were so close in price I thought I'd just go for the higher-end model. AGP 8X isn't necessary, nor is USB2, but I'd like to get the nice onboard sound on the nForce2, the built-in ethernet, and the firewire in case she needs it (which she may down the line if I know her).

 

[Vonkhan]

ur sister is gonna play doom3? really? can i have her number?

i think u should keep the 9000pro, which i had and was a great card + it overclocked like a mother (motha, sista, whateva)

think u shud getter a better processor tho

 

[TronX]

Originally posted by: Hender
I don't think I've ever had to build a "value" system before, but my sister needs a new computer with her tax return money. Right now she's using an old workstation of mine, a Pentium Pro 200 with 96 MB of RAM. Great workstation...in about 1996. I had it configured with a first-generation Matrox Millenium and NT4, too, but she wanted Windows 2000 and her crappy Voodoo5 for some reason....

Anyhow, on with the build. I know what I want in my next system I'm building, but as I said, I'm a bit out of touch with value stuff and I'm not sure about the parts I've picked out for her. I'm calling it a "value" system, but I don't want to hobble her for the future. She said she wanted to spend only $400, but I told her that wasn't possible, since she needs a new case, new video card, new CPU, motherboard, etc. Not gonna happen.

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ $69
Durons are cheaper, but I want her to have a full Athlon XP. I'm going for a Thoroughbred to have less heat in the system, and the low-end XP's are pretty close in price, anyway.

Asus A7N8X nForce2 motherboard $105
I'm going for an nForce2 to have everything integrated. I could get a Shuttle KT400 board for about $30 cheaper, but with sound, network, and firewire built in, it's hard to go wrong. Any suggestions on just as good nForce2 boards that might run cheaper?

512 MB PC2700 DDR-SDRAM $60
See above comment about hobbling a computer. I'm not getting her only 256 MB of RAM. The 333 Mhz bus means she can get a faster Athlon XP at some point, if she wants. 2x256 for the nForce2.

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro $82
This was the hardest component to pick out. I want her to have something that's good enough to play today's games but not leave her behind for Doom III, which I know she'll want to play whenever it comes out. I thought about the 9500 Pro, but it ran a bit too expensive for her budget, though that's more what I had in mind for her performance-wise. Will the 9000 Pro cut it? Or should I look to a Ti4200 or back at the 9500 Pro? Or even the 8500?

Case, DVD drive, CPU cooler, etc. I can pick out easily enough, but what are your thoughts about the above components? By using the onboard sound on the nForce2 I can save $50 on a Santa Cruz for her. She currently has an SB Live, but she wants to get rid of it. My final calculation for all the parts I have picked out (not just the ones above) is $529, not including shipping. Suggestions about lowering costs with different parts greatly appreciated, but I'm happy to add on a few bucks here and there for better performance (mostly for the video card). Thanks.

Not bad for a cheap system. I still find it funny to see
ATI cards on a Nvidia Chipset motherboard.

Of those parts I would drop the 9000 ATI card. The 9000
is about the same cost as a Geforce4 Ti-4200. And
the 9000 would only run at half the speed.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030311/geforcefx-5600-5200-03.html#unreal_tournament_2003

 

[DannyBoy]

You should get a T-Bred 1700 B. You can overclock that thing ridiculously.

I have 3 friends all with at LEAST a 2400 equiv overclock, and i think garry (Confused) is currently running his on his Epox 8RDA+ at 2600 speeds.

Then get yourself a 9500

Dan

 

[MichaelD]

An NForce2 board is absolutely the way to go.

Just built a rig for my GF:

Epox 8RDA+
XP1800
512mb Crucial PC2100

About $240, total, IIRC from Newegg and Crucial.

She already had from previous rig:
GF2 Pro
Maxtor 7200rpm 40GB HD

It's a really nice system! Even plays RTCW at 1024x758 reasonably well.

I've no experience with the newer NForce boards w/the integrated video on them. IIRC, it's an MX of some sort, right? If MechBGON recommends it, it's certainly good-to-go, though.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: MrFiTTy
You should get a T-Bred 1700 B. You can overclock that thing ridiculously.

I have 3 friends all with at LEAST a 2400 equiv overclock, and i think garry (Confused) is currently running his on his Epox 8RDA+ at 2600 speeds.

Then get yourself a 9500

Dan

I thought about doing the same thing for my GF (I'm doing it in my main rig...I'm at 2.1GHz (180FSB) and the thing FLIES) but anytime you OC, the potential for failure and "a service call" exists.

I wanted a maintenance-free system for my GF, as I"m sure Hender wants for his sis.

 

[Hender]

All she's carrying over from her computer that died on her is a hard drive, monitor, and CD-RW drive, so I have to purchase everything else. Absolutely no overclocking will be done on this system. I'm not against it personally, but she has this nasty habit of turning any computer she touches into a piece of burnt silicon, so I'm not taking any chances that I don't need to.

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: MrFiTTy
You should get a T-Bred 1700 B. You can overclock that thing ridiculously.

I have 3 friends all with at LEAST a 2400 equiv overclock, and i think garry (Confused) is currently running his on his Epox 8RDA+ at 2600 speeds.

Then get yourself a 9500

Dan

I thought about doing the same thing for my GF (I'm doing it in my main rig...I'm at 2.1GHz (180FSB) and the thing FLIES) but anytime you OC, the potential for failure and "a service call" exists.

I wanted a maintenance-free system for my GF, as I"m sure Hender wants for his sis.

Well then, you have to make sure its a stable oc

A stable OC requires minimal maintenance.

Either way, with computers, your ALWAYS going to need to maintain them.

They always have that funny way of cropping up problems when you least expect it :|

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: Hender
All she's carrying over from her computer that died on her is a hard drive, monitor, and CD-RW drive, so I have to purchase everything else. Absolutely no overclocking will be done on this system. I'm not against it personally, but she has this nasty habit of turning any computer she touches into a piece of burnt silicon, so I'm not taking any chances that I don't need to.

How can you not overclock on an nForce2 mobo?! :Q

I tell you what to do...

Get yourself a STABLE oc on the chip, make sure all the FSB's are running in sync for best performance etc.

Make sure all the bios settings are nicely configured, then Password Protect the bios and DONT tell her the pw

Same with anything else that might potentially damage the system if she plays with it, password it, and dont tell her the pw

 

[mechBgon]

If the old hard drive is as old as the rest of the 200MHz computer then I think you should get a new drive. Drives that old are going to make a fast platform perform badly.

 

[Hender]

Nah, the hard drive has been purchased in the last year or so, and her other hard drive is left over from her old computer (NOT the system she's using now), purchased maybe two to three years ago at the most. I'm not too woried about those.

Overclocking ain't gonna happen on this system. She doesn't need any extra power from an overclocked system, and it's too risky for her abilty to kill a computer by looking at it wrong. Anything that can go wrong with her computer WILL go wrong, so I just want to cut back on the risks. She's not computer illiterate, but she's the very definition of "knows enough to be dangerous." Not the kind of person who would go deleting random files to clear more room on her hard drive, but the kind of person who'll resize a partition in FDISK without thinking about potential consequences (and ignoring the warning messages).

So there seems to be agreement on the nForce2 board, but any more recommendations on video?

 

[m1ke101]

do NOT overclock it. What's the point? she's coming from a p200 so a 1700+ is going to seem like a ferrari compared to her old computer.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Hender, here are some of my thoughts about your components:

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ $69

I agree with you about spending a few extra bucks to buy a faster CPU. I've built both 1700's and 2000's, and the 2000 does seem just a little faster. When I tested these systems after building them (and I'm coming from a P-500), they are unbelivable. Since she's coming from a P-200, the speed will seem even better.

Asus A7N8X nForce2 motherboard $105

This is a great board. The nForce2 chipset is really nice. The onboard sound isn't too shabby either. I have used many asus boards and have never had a problem with any of them. I recently built a system using the nForce2 chipset (I think it was an MSI board, not sure though) about a month or two ago, and he hasn't had a problem with it yet. Good choice.

512 MB PC2700 DDR-SDRAM $60

It is good to have 2x256. I noticed that with any chipset (even with older computers, like mine ) it makes a difference in benchmarks.

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro $82

This is a great card. I have the 128MB DDR version. I have a Pentium 3 500MHz, 384MB PC100 SDRAM (really PC133 but runs at 100) with this card, and I play UT2K, Madden NFL 2003, watch DVD's (not possible on this computer with a 32MB card!), and everything, all set at 1024x768, at the highest detail settings, and not one skip or jump. I guarantee this card will perform great on an AthlonXP (I hope to get one soon).

i think u should keep the 9000pro, which i had and was a great card + it overclocked like a mother (motha, sista, whateva)

Yes, I agree with Vonkhan that this card overclocks great! I hardly even saw an increase in temp after overclocking (I'll have to check what speeds I'm running, I'm on a different comp. right now). Even while playing UT2K3 at 1024x768 at all the highest detail settings (pretty hard to do on a P-500) it ran stable at pretty low temps.

CPU cooler

I'd go with the ThermalTake Volcano 9. The 2000+ I built recently uses this cooler, and it runs really cool. He even has it oc'ed to 2200+ speeds (I forget the exact MHz, he just told me 2200+), and it runs nice and stable.

This sounds nothing like a value system to me! If you need to cut a few corners to save $$$, maybe only get one stick of 256 now, and 256 when she has more money. Make sure to get a ATA133 hard drive. A slow HDD will slow the rest of the system down dramatically. Also, make sure to not get a really cheap PSU with your case. If you can spend the extra money, for $60 at CompUSA (maybe cheaper online), you can get an Antec case with a 250W PSU, also made by Antec. That is what I use with all the systems I build. Check out pricewatch.com if you want to find the cheapest place to buy the parts. Good luck, Josh

 

[JEDI]

whats wrong w/pent pro 200?

my parents still have it. runs Word and Internet explorer great! pent pro 200mhz overclocked to 225mhz, matrox g400 16megs, 192megs ram, win98.

add a 128meg chip into your machine, and reformat into win98 and you'll do fine if she doesnt play FPS games!

btw-under $400 system is VERY possible. last week dell p4 2.4ghz 60 gig hd systyem for $329+tax, or compaq Athlon XP 2000+ system for $269

 

[foofoo]

just another vote for the nforce2 igp setup
check out the
CHAINTECH Motherboard for AMD Processors, Model# 7NIF2-SUMMIT NFORCE2/IGP u-ATX-RETAIL
at newegg, $98 and nforce2 integrated video. this is about as cheap and good a solution as you are going to find. and definitely get her a faster hard drive with the money saved. that'll make a huge difference (like mechbgon says) if it's relatively new, make sure that it's 7200 rpm at least, if it's 5400, replace it.
if you get her an xp2100+ and 256 mb ram, she should be set. it doesnt seem like she's doing all that much with it and when she is ready for gaming, upgrade the video (if needed ) then. my policy is to buy components just when they are needed, not in anticipation, this gets me the fastest cheapest stuff.
good luck

 

[andyfasthands]

- AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred
- Thermaltake Volcano 6 Socket A or RETAIL Heatsink
...either way use ARCTIC SILVER 3 thermal compound
- Asus A7N266-VM AA (ASUS stability, nFORCE2, ~$70 pricetag)
- OLD HARD DRIVE
- 256MB DDR266 or 512
- (Integrated) GeForce
- (Integrated) 6-channel sound
- Lite-On LTD166 16X DVD-ROM, Black
- OLD CD-RW
- (Integrated) 10/100 ethernet
- 3.5" Floppy (black)
- FoxxCon SuperCase (midtower,black)
- 300W (included with case)
------------------------------------------
~$335 from newegg

i'd go with 256mb DDR and integrated video because thats truthfully all girls really need. of course, she can always expand later if she's not satisfied. but let her decide if it's good enough.

 

[Jeff7181]

If every dollar counts... I have an XP1700 T-Bred A for sale... I've had it overclocked to 1667 mhz. Works fine. If you want it, let me know, I'll sell it cheaper than anywhere you could find one at an online store... I'll even smear some AS3 on it for ya =) I also have a retail heatsink/fan that came with my XP2500, should work fine on that XP1700.
Also have an MSI KT4VL motherboard... good board, except the location of the IDE ports, ALL the way at the bottom... makes it hard to keep things clean in a large case.
PM me if you're interested, I have more used parts for sale too... if you're not interested, sorry for bothering you =)

 

[Jhhnn]

You guys aren't coming anywhere near a real value system. Start with an Asus a7n266-vm in a Fong Kai fk611 case (300w psu) with a 1700 xp and gc68 hsf, 256 megs pc2100. Forget the vidcard, bring the hdd, floppy and opticals from the old box, or see what you can find in the hot deals forum for new stuff.

About 90% of all computer owners can't tell the difference between that and a very high end box. Or check out the Dell deals in the same hot deals forum- Can't build 'em yourself for those prices, even using pirated software....