New System: Build my own vs prebuilt

[Topochicho]

OK. So I have been at this computer thing for a while, built my fair share, currently program for a living. I keep an eye on the hardware side but haven't been really paying attention to the bleeding edge.

My system is 5 yrs old. AMD 1.4G (was 800), Kyro2, 512MB... yada yada yada.

I don't get to game as much as I would like anymore *cough* married *cough*. Last new game I bought was Black & White. Still play Starcraft occasionally, and would like to be able to run some of the newer games of the same genre. Might be interested in heavier duty games, but not immediately.

Was planning on building a new budget system, round $800. Saw this Compaq at Circuit City.

? ASUS A8AE-LE Motherboard (supports Athlon 64 X2)
? AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor (Socket 939)
? 512MB PC3200 DDR Memory (2 x 256, total of 4 mem slots, so 2 are still open) (Infineon 256MB, DDR, 400, CL3, hys64d32300hu-5-c)
? 200GB 7,200rpm ATA Hard Drive (IDE/ATA Seagate ST3200822A Barracuda 7200.7)
? 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner with Lightscribe
? AC'97 Audio
? ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Integrated Graphics with 128MB Shared Memory
? v.92 56Kbps Modem and Fast Ethernet
? Seven USB 2.0 Ports
? Two FireWire Ports
? 9-in-1 Media Card Reader
? 3 PCI (2 free)
? 1 PCI Express (free)
? 2 SATA connections (both free)
? 300Watt Bestec power supply (atx-300-12z)
? Windows XP Home... & bunch of crap i don't want
? Standard case config, could upgrade with any ATX MB and PS.

With rebates, I can get the System + monitor(don't need) + printer (don't want) for $499.97... Its $30 cheaper if I get the monitor & printer, instead of the system alone.

So, can I build a system (don?t forget OS) better than this for this price? Is there any point in trying? I don?t care about the monitor and printer, just the system. I figure I can get another Gig of mem, and eventually get a good video card when I need it. I am usually a die hard build it yourself man, but this looks like an awesome system.

As far as I can tell the onboard video should be better than what I have now, and I don?t need any better right now.

What do you think?

 

[reader850]

Is the Compaq upgradeable? For this price, it might not be. Is there an AGP or PCI video card slot? Is there physically ROOM to add a video card? How about adequate ventilation if you add a performance (HOT) card? Plus you'll probably need a better PS. My rule of thumb is if you aren't gaming, you can't build one as cheap as you can buy one. But if you are gaming and can canabalize our old system, you're better off building so you can pick what you want.

 

[Cruise51]

If price is your main concern, pre-built is hard to beat. Though I would build my own even if I was loosing a few $$$, just so I could have it exactly the way I want.

 

[aigomorla]

id wait til black friday and try to get a complete system at bestbuys or compusa. You can probably pull off a better one for a cheaper price.

You can also try ecost.com and try to look at a hp computer on sale.

 

[Topochicho]

Originally posted by: reader850
Is the Compaq upgradeable? For this price, it might not be. Is there an AGP or PCI video card slot? Is there physically ROOM to add a video card? How about adequate ventilation if you add a performance (HOT) card? Plus you'll probably need a better PS. My rule of thumb is if you aren't gaming, you can't build one as cheap as you can buy one. But if you are gaming and can canabalize our old system, you're better off building so you can pick what you want.

Originally posted by: Topochicho
? AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor (Socket 939)
? 512MB PC3200 DDR Memory (2 x 256, total of 4 mem slots, so 2 are still open)
? 3 PCI (2 free)
? 1 PCI Express (1 free)

There does appear to be physical room for a PCIe card. Why would I need a bigger power supply for more mem and a video card? It not like I am going to put a $800 SLI setup into a $500 machine.

 

[Topochicho]

Originally posted by: Cruise51
If price is your main concern, pre-built is hard to beat. Though I would build my own even if I was loosing a few $$$, just so I could have it exactly the way I want.

My feelings exactly... except... what would you do differently? Given my needs? Is there any point to anything but on board video at this stage? Is there any real performance dif between UIDE and SATA? Don't know the memory buffer on the HD... so that may be a loss... what else?

I am not constrained by price, I just don't have a need for bleeding edge tech or costs.

If you were gonna build me a budget system today, what would you do differently?

 

[hwlcd69]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
id wait til black friday and try to get a complete system at bestbuys or compusa. You can probably pull off a better one for a cheaper price.

You can also try ecost.com and try to look at a hp computer on sale.

The ones listed on Black friday so far are celerons and they are crap. like some guy said before if price is a big concern buy a pre-built. I recently purchased dell 5150 for $500 with P4 3Ghz, 256 DDR2 400 ram, 80GB HD, onboard sound and video. expanable PCIX slot. came with 17" LCD display too. It's not really my system... I purchased it for someone and I'll occasionally use it. If it were mine I'd use the extra money I saved on the PCIX card.

 

[Some1ne]

Little disappointed about no SATA (need to look again to be sure) but I don?t know if there is really that much of a performance dif right now?

Not much, it's more of a convenience thing in terms of the cabling and not having to worry about master/slave anymore, although SATA-II has some nice features that won't ever be appearing in IDE form, like NCQ.

What do you think?

Personally, I would always build my own PC just as a matter of general principle. In your case, since it sounds like you have the experience necessary to do a custom build, I'd still recommend it, though I won't pretend like it's really possible to custom build something better at that price point. If price is really the main/only concern, I'd recommend the Compaq.

If you do build your own, I'd recommend:

Socket 939 Athlon64 3000+ or low-end Opteron (to be overclocked of course) @ ~$130
Middle-end NF4 Mainboard @ ~$90
1 GB RAM (2x512) @ ~$80
250 GB SATA HDD @ ~$100
6600GT Graphics @ ~$140 (or 6800GS if the price drops a bit)
NEC 16x DVD burner @ ~$50
Whatever case/PSU you want @ ~$70
Generic keyboard, mouse, and FDD @ ~$50 combined total
Integrated audio, ethernet, USB, etc. @ $0
I assume that as a programmer you know all the standard methods of getting a copy of Win XP Pro installed on a PC, but if not then add a copy of XP Pro @ ~$150

Obviously it doesn't come close to beating the Compaq in terms of price at $500 (especially since there's no monitor and printer), but it is fairly competitive with the base-system at $800, especially if you throw out the $150 OS (though even if you don't, it totals $860, and comes with a number of upgraded features beyond what the $800 PC offers).

 

[Topochicho]

Originally posted by: Some1ne
Personally, I would always build my own PC just as a matter of general principle. In your case, since it sounds like you have the experience necessary to do a custom build, I'd still recommend it, though I won't pretend like it's really possible to custom build something better at that price point. If price is really the main/only concern, I'd recommend the Compaq.

If you do build your own, I'd recommend:

Socket 939 Athlon64 3000+ or low-end Opteron (to be overclocked of course) @ ~$130
Middle-end NF4 Mainboard @ ~$90
1 GB RAM (2x512) @ ~$80
250 GB SATA HDD @ ~$100
6600GT Graphics @ ~$140 (or 6800GS if the price drops a bit)
NEC 16x DVD burner @ ~$50
Whatever case/PSU you want @ ~$70
Generic keyboard, mouse, and FDD @ ~$50 combined total
Integrated audio, ethernet, USB, etc. @ $0
I assume that as a programmer you know all the standard methods of getting a copy of Win XP Pro installed on a PC, but if not then add a copy of XP Pro @ ~$150

Obviously it doesn't come close to beating the Compaq in terms of price at $500 (especially since there's no monitor and printer), but it is fairly competitive with the base-system at $800, especially if you throw out the $150 OS (though even if you don't, it totals $860, and comes with a number of upgraded features beyond what the $800 PC offers).

I understand the idea of general principle... its kinda why i am looking for an obvious out to buying this system, I just can't throw away $400 on principle though (damn this growing up and responsibility thing).
Comparing the system to your rcommendations:
Are you suggesting a slower processor?
Probably a better DVD burner, but then it doesn't have the lightscribe feature.
More ram, but thats a $40 upgrade to the compaq
Little more HD.
OS.. I get your meaning, but I sometimes do small contract jobs (using my own machine) for a little extra $$. Can't be getting in hot water over the cost of an OS.
Are the NF4 motherboards that much better than the ATI?
What other advantages does your recommended system have?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

AMD 3500+ $169.50
PC chips s939 mobo with onboard video $50
2x256 PC3200 ram $39.99
Samsung spinpoint 200gb ide $83.01
Rosewill Black Case with 350w PS $24.99
NEC 3550A 16x DVD-RW $39.99
Window XP home $91.95

Total $499.43 + s/h

 

[Some1ne]

Are you suggesting a slower processor?

Only at spec settings. The thing with the socket 939 chips is that the 3000+, 3200+, and 3500+ chips are essentially identical. They are produced in the exact same batch process at the exact same quality level, and as such a 3000+ is essentially guaranteed to run as fast as the 3500+ without breaking a sweat if you overclock. In fact, any of those chips based on the Venice core should overclock to at least 2.5 GHz on stock cooling, and sometimes getting into the 2.6 to 2.8 GHz range with them is not unheard of. So anyways, I'm suggesting getting a slower chip at stock settings, and overclocking it. Note also that if you go the Opteron route, you also get twice the cache. Also, either CPU (3000+ or 3500+) will be adequate for your proposed system, and I doubt there'd be much if any noticible difference between the two.

Probably a better DVD burner, but then it doesn't have the lightscribe feature.

I'm not a DVD burner buff...what is lightscribe? And whatever it is, I would expect that you could get a 16x burner supporting it at the same $50 price point, but I'm not positive about that.

More ram, but thats a $40 upgrade to the compaq

Now quite, if you populate all 4 memory slots on the Compaq, it will force your RAM to run at 2T instead of 1T, and depending on which core the 3500+ has, it may even force DDR333 at 2T. This will cause quite a bit of a performance hit, especially in the latter case.

Are the NF4 motherboards that much better than the ATI?

It depends which ATI we're talking about, but in general, yes, and given that the Compaq probably uses a proprietary mainboard with an absolutely minimal feature set (as you mentioned for example, no SATA), almost certainly in this case. They offer better compatibility with X2 CPU's (I've heard lots of complaints about non-nvidia chipsets in this area, though admittedly VIA chipsets are usually the source of the complaints), more robust tweaking features such as AGP and PCI bus locks that not all competitor chipsets/mainboards implement, better integrated things like SATA-II and gigabit ethernet w/ nvidia's firewall, and so on. The NF4 is widely used and reviewed and generally considered the standard that other socket 939 chipsets are compared against.

What other advantages does your recommended system have?

To enumerate them (including the already mentioned ones):

1. Dedicated graphics as opposed to integrated. You mentioned that you might want to get into "heavier" games at some point, and integrated graphics really won't cut it here at all. The 6600 GT/6800 GS are priced well and offer good value for the money. It's an entry-level solution, so you won't get crazy detail at 1600x1200 or anything like that, but it'll give you enough power to play anything out there at decent quality settings, and should remain adequate for playing future titles for quite awhile yet.

2. Double the RAM. This will give a noticeable performance increase when gaming, or when running programming IDE's like Eclipse or Visual Studio, if you use them.

3. Better integrated features on the mainboard, like SATA/SATA-II, nvidia's gigabit ethernet, and possibly dual gigabit ethernet or other things depending on which middle-end NF4 board you pick (there are tons of them to choose from, all at the same price point).

4. Slightly bigger HDD, in SATA format, for easier installation and better case airflow (plus you could likely get one with a larger cache and/or better overall performance than the one Compaq uses as well).

5. Faster processor if you overclock. More cache if you go with an Opteron.

6. Better support for overclocking and tweaking.

7. No Compaq bloatware installed on your system.

8. No proprietary hardware or software anywhere in your system. Everything remains fully reusable and upgradable, and support doesn't rely on dealing with Compaq or an authorized Compaq service place.

 

[Topochicho]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
AMD 3500+ $169.50
PC chips s939 mobo with onboard video $50
2x256 PC3200 ram $39.99
Samsung spinpoint 200gb ide $83.01
Rosewill Black Case with 350w PS $24.99
NEC 3550A 16x DVD-RW $39.99
Window XP home $91.95

Total $499.43 + s/h

Wow. Thanks... not too bad.

Originally posted by: Some1ne
Only at spec settings. The thing with the socket 939 chips is that the 3000+, 3200+, and 3500+ chips are essentially identical.

Didn't know that.

Originally posted by: Some1ne
I'm not a DVD burner buff...what is lightscribe?

Gimmic that labels you thermal topped discs.. neat but not important

Thanks for the info & advice... definately worth pondering.

 

[Topochicho]

I decided to pick up one of these machines for my parents, conviently providing me with an excuse to really get a good look at it.

Still haven't decided for myself, but I did edit my original post to reflect things I found just in case someone else is thinking of this machine.
Added:
Standard ATX case.
ASUS A8AE-LE Motherboard (supports Athlon 64 X2)
Infineon memory 2x256MB, DDR, 400, CL3, hys64d32300hu-5-c
SeagateATA Hard Drive ( ST3200822A Barracuda 7200.7)
2 SATA connections (both free)
300Watt Bestec power supply (atx-300-12z)