Need $500 computer

[MegaVovaN]

Hi all, my dad's ancient computer died, now he has $500 to build a computer for work.
We have:
Small LCD monitor
kb
mouse

Need:
fast processor
low hdd space (he had 20gb and it was fine)
about 1gb RAM
(and preferably, quietness)

What do I do? Get a case with PSU in it, mobo with built-in video, 1gb RAM, AMD 64 CPU and small SATA hdd?

Thanks!


EDIT: System = Windows XP.

 

[AtlantaBob]

At that price range and with what you want, it might make sense to (shudder) order a Dell. I have a SC420 poweredge server that I use as a secondary desktop and love the thing. (Got it for about $250)

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
At that price range and with what you want, it might make sense to (shudder) order a Dell. I have a SC420 poweredge server that I use as a secondary desktop and love the thing. (Got it for about $250)

You see, here's the situation:
1. University he works at has it's own Dell distributor that has EVERYTHING Dell sells.
2. He does not want Vista (buying a PC with Vista and installing XP on it = waste of money?)
3. He wants really fast processor because he uses it to calculate 3D molecules of complex substances in real time. This is also the reason for 1GB ram
4. He also wants the case to be small...limited space on desk.

I tried to put together C2D with 1gb RAM, but not sure of motherboard, and it probably won't fir in $500

 

[AtlantaBob]

Ah, well, in that case...

Have you considered a Shuttle or Biostar or other SFF PC? Not exactly the fastest for the money, but if you really want the case to be small, they can be hard to beat. Otherwise, the last I heard was an Antec Aria if you wanted to build everything yourself. Good luck with it!

 

[AtlantaBob]

Darn double post--don't use the center-mouse button to click the submit button in Firefox!

 

[locutus12]

Pioneer 16X DVD±R DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827129001


Rosewill R5604-BK 0.8mm SECC Screw-less Dual 120mm Fans ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811147037


Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822144415R


Sunbeam NUUO SUNNU450-US-BK ATX12V / EPS12V 450W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817709002


WINTEC AMPO 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820161067



**combo deal**
ABIT NF-M2S Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADO4400DDBOX - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCo...gory=22&PageSize=10&SortField=0&Page=1
(its the bottom combo deal)

i checked all the item reviews and compatibility's out myself, its all good and all has tons of features, PSU also has active PFC and dual 12v rails so he will be safe if he wants to pop himself a graphics card in there at a later date for gaming. also the motherboard has some overclocking capacity as does the CPU just in case he needs a few more Mhz


price:

$487.99 without shipping. afraid i cant calculate shipping as despite the fact that i know my way around US pc parts suppliers, im not in your country and dont know your zip codes but shipping shouldn't be too much.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Well, here's what I came up with: AM2 $506 AR shipped. The only concern is case/PSU: Didn't hear good things about Powmax PSUs and case is big...(or is it?)

Screenshot of egg cart.

Dad says "at work they will give me small case that fits behind monitor..." well I think that would be like 4x slower than what I built. Like 512mb ram, and AMD sempron (socket A)?


I will consider other options now.

EDIT:

locutus12 - thanks for suggestions

About PSU, I think it might be okay. I have 2 or 3 year old 450w RAIDMAX PSU that came in $40 case, and it still works well in my mom's computer. Before, I played games on it.
And Dad may cope with case's size for all that power. We'll see what the DELL guy offers him tomorrow, and compare specs

 

[locutus12]

That small case he is refering to is a dell small form factor workstation, the newer models typically come with a sempron 3200+ or a pentium 4 model D single core, or a celleron, 256mb to 512mb ram, small PCMCIA or SATA 2.5 inch hard drive, basically an oversized calculator that usually looks somthing like this...

http://www.computerstore.uci.edu/catalog/images/product_images/40000025606.gif


the problem with dell are as follows:

1) they use proprietary parts, i.e. you could end up with a unit with a psu or motherboard built specifically for dell to specifically fit that system, if it goes wrong after your cover is up, youl find its only supplied by dell itself, for a rather large fee.

2) there budget systems are crap, and i mean crap, the $359 range wont accept an X2 cpu, you have to start at the $549 range, the E520 models. even then you get an inferior pc:

PROCESSOR AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 4600+
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista? Home Basic <---- non optional, money wasted.
MEMORY 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs <---------- slower than my spec.
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache? <----- the smallest they do, money wasted.
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD+/-RW Drive <----- unknown brand, non optional.
VIDEO CARD NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio


My Accessories
SPEAKERS No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)
KEYBOARD & MOUSE Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER No Floppy Drive Included
MODEM 56K PCI Data Fax Modem <----- non optional, money wasted.

My Software
PRODUCTIVITY No productivity suite added
ANTI-VIRUS & SECURITY No Security Subscription added
PHOTOS, MUSIC & MORE! Trial pack- Basic and trial products from Corel and Yahoo, <---- why ???
My Service
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr Ltd Warranty and At-Home Service <----- god help you if you ever let a dell engineer lose on your system.

Dell Recommends
An Additional Year of Service! <------ im sure you do, its pure profit.
Upgrade Your Years of Service. Choose 2 Years of Service and protect your investment! <----- wehey, more profit.



Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0 <----- its free, why are they listing this.
Network Interface Integrated 10/100 Ethernet <---- again, part of the motherboard.
Miscellaneous Award Winning Service and Support <----- not lately, slight case of exploding battery's.
Labels Windows Vista? Basic <----- big woop.


also you have no way of checking the specifications of the motherboard, so you dont even know if its going to have a PCI-E socket or be some generic rubbish with no possibility of an upgrade as dell have done with their past cheaper systems much to the annoyance of many many people.


oh and i nearly forgot the price tag...

Sub-total $649.00

Calculate Tax, Tax for houston is $53.54
Total Price $702.54

for a slower inferior system with lots of things you dont want imagine the system you could build yourself with $700 instead of relying on dell.

believe it or not, the spec i have given you is not an eco system, its an upper mid range system, the motherboard itself in my spec has a ton of useful future proof features and its what i like to call a transparent build, i.e. you know exactly what the specs are and exactly what its capable of, with a Dell, you simply dont.




also i took the liberty of recalculating the system spec i gave you WITHOUT the psu and case and with shipping (im using a houston zip code, 77001 to get an estimate, god bless google) it came out at $404.53 including shipping, 3 day insured UPS delivery.

now you could either build the system as it is or dump the $95 back into the build, i.e. reove the motherboard and cpu bundle, just get the motherboard alone here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813127016

and spend the saved money on an even faster CPU such as:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor 2.6GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103759

bringing the build total to $474 inc shipping

or a 2 x 1 gig set of ram:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820145590
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit <----- bloody fast stuff.
Total if having the ram and not the faster CPU = $512.02 inc shipping. but! theres a $40 rebate on the ram!! so in effect the total is $472.02 inc shipping after rebate


now take this to your blokey from dell and ask him how much they would charge for it... youl be looking at 7 to 8 hundred dollars as every dell, and HP and any other pre built crap overcharges for parts and comes with all those extra`s that you just dont want but cant remove.


alternatively if he decides to go with a freebie dell small form factor from his work, he will be very very disappointed with the power of the system, they are not built for heavy processing, they are office systems for office tasks such as data input and output with minimal calculations involved.


either way i hope ive been of some use, happy shopping.

 

[absynthe97]

I am building a cheap PC right now to be a file server and also a backup that can handle vista if I need it.

The following system is a little weaker than what I am building.. but it is still pretty decent for the price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115005 184
I chose the Core 2 because it seems to be a better price/performance value according to these charts (dont know how accurate.. they dont show the test setup)
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html
You could save a bit and get one of the cedarmill pentiums.. but in those charts they are significantly slower and it seems like they are drying up from retailers recently. I know there was a new stepping but they seem hard to find in general.. you can get a pentium 4 651 for like 90 dollars

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131044 103
The small form factors are nice.. especially if it is not a high power gaming rig or you need lots of expansion. There are some motherboards that are around 80 dollars but they may not support 1066 FSB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227075 99
Pretty decent memory and you can run them in sync with the 1066 FSB in dual channel
Might want to make sure the ASUS board doesnt have some compatibility issue.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104954 54
Fortron makes clean power supplies in general and it sounds like your dad doesnt have big power requirements... but do make sure you pick a clean supply.. a bad one can be unstable or cause damage to parts

http://www.sffclub.com/store/index.php?...zenid=5b7dc866ca1c09972e5a104f674b36b3
120
This case is a bit nicer but lets you put a full size atx power supply in it

http://www.sffclub.com/store/index.php?...zenid=5b7dc866ca1c09972e5a104f674b36b3
50
A nice cooler that will fit with that case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148095 44
its three dollars more for this 80 gig vs. the 40 gig

Some sort of cheap DVD/CD player
~15

That brings the total to 669. This machine probably would handle vista ok if he for some reason wanted to. It is stronger than my 2 year old laptop and it runs vista fine to me.

If he really wants to stay at 500 (and has no care about vista) he could go with this case which comes with a power supply. You probably should check reviews to see if the included power supply is bad. If it does turn out to be bad... this case will only hold a smaller PSU and you would have to find one.
http://www.sffclub.com/store/index.php?...zenid=5b7dc866ca1c09972e5a104f674b36b3
69

With that case and using the stock heatsink and fan.. the total would be 514 before shipping and taxes if applicable.

And you could possibly just get a regular sized motherboard and a cheap case. Depends on where you want to cut prices or features.

You could go with the Pentium 4's and save maybe 100 dollars... but since the CPU calcs are important.. he really should go with the core 2 as it does seem to completely own the P4... and it has much cooler temps

Anyway... hope this helps some

 

[locutus12]

meh, nice chips but Intel are still a dirty company.

 

[Moose1309]

Wow lots of posts, I haven't read them all but - for cheap PCs, I love the Dimension E521. Athlon X2 3800+, 1GB should run you under $500. Definitely the way I would go - you can order it in a smallish case (almost SFF), and I'm sure you can order it with XP instead of Vista (altho I haven't ordered a Dell recently so.)

Edit: I meant the C521. That's the one with the smaller case.

 

[absynthe97]

They are a little dirty (intel) but they caught AMD with their pants down. It looks like it will be a little tough on AMD for a while. They better start getting tough with their pricing because Intel is giving them no slack.

 

[locutus12]

Originally posted by: absynthe97
They are a little dirty (intel) but they caught AMD with their pants down. It looks like it will be a little tough on AMD for a while.

lol, have you been smoking something ? first off they didnt get caught with their pants down, AMD`s new architectures been on the boards since 2005, put simply it just wasn't ready yet, it comes out in august, the Barcelona quad core featuring K8L architecture and integer performance far beyond that of conroe, by which time of course Intel will have 45nm penryn out so the playing field should be about level again.

its whats known to technicians like me as swings and roundabouts, one year one company is on top, another year its the other sides turn, back and forth, round and round.

Originally posted by: absynthe97They better start getting tough with their pricing because Intel is giving them no slack.

i say again, have you been on another planet ?? there's a price war on, its been raging since December and despite Intel having the faster CPU`s and Quad core, AMD have eaten into their market share now accounting for over 24% of all CPU`s sold in all markets world wide.

AMD have eaten into Intel's business server markets too, an area that untill 2006 was and had always been 100% Intel based systems, what changed is that AMD launched a court case against Intel in 2005 for illegally paying the big 3 pc distributors hundreds of millions in subsidies on Intel CPU`s on the proviso that the big 3 (DELL, HP, Compaq) do not ship main stream product lines with AMD CPU`s, Thus protecting Intel's dominance of its server and desktop market share.

in 2006 Dell changed its mind, presumably due to the fact that it was as guilty as sin and wouldn't of avoided the court wrangle that Intel's currently in. the other manufacturers have followed suit and with AMD able to offer far cheaper CPU`s, they have eaten up the business sector market share. Incidentally its interesting to note that Dell being the largest beneficiary of those subsidies from Intel have been having a tough time of it for the last year or so, coincidentally around the same time as the subsidies stopped. Profits are down, profit margins are lower and HP has now over taken dell as the largest manufacturer.

Also remember, if your a business and you need 5000 small form factor work stations, your not going to go with an overpowered Intel workstation that's sporting a $160 Intel core2 4300 intels cheapest CPU, just for staff that write letters and send e-mails, your going to go with workstations sporting a $49 Sempron, you save a bundle on the cost of the workstations AND you save on electricity too.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Thank you all!

I built a second option:
Even faster AM2 CPU and only 1gb RAM. Comes to $502 shipped after $10 MIR.
Screenshot - $502
What this build doesn't have is power converter - that 4pin white to SATA - but I got one laying around
(Need one SATA power for HDD, and one SATA for DVD drive). Mobo includes 2 SATA cables - nice!
I am gonna run that AMD CPU on stock HS/Fan. It's cold in the basement where my Dad works.



EDIT: btw another reason I don't want Dell is that I don't need operating system - University Dad works at already bought Windows XP.



EDIT: Damn, they do want to throw money to DELL

Just called Dad, and they offered him a C2D set-up (around $900, he can give $900 to Dell but can't get them in cash to custom-build a killer system that will smoke this Dell:
6300 cpu
1gb DDR2 533 dual-channel (2 sticks of 512)
80gb HDD
built-in gfx
DVD Writer
Vista <--to be deleted

I think 533mhz is not fast enough for this CPU.
And just 1gb...meh.

What do I do? tell him to ask 2gb 533 RAM? I don't think they have any DDR2 800 memory...

 

[locutus12]

$900 for that is a rip off, you could build it yourself for $700 max.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: locutus12
$900 for that is a rip off, you could build it yourself for $700 max.

I told him I can build awesome C2D for $700, and that for $900 that's gonna be uber mega super PC (we don't have to buy large HDDs and $150-300 gaming video card, so most of the $900 would go towards MOBO/RAM/CPU.
BUt he can't get $700 in cash, either.

Now you know where your tuition money goes!

 

[Accord99]

Here's a pretty decent Dell deal, should be better than the one offered to your dad:

http://www.gotapex.com/daily-deals/1506...-for-689-with-free-shipping-print.html