Building a system

[WonderBread]

I have 300 dollars to build a system for a friend. I want it to be a s754 board with PCI-e and i need a stick of 512mb ram, cpu, and vid card. this comp is going to be used for some graphix design stuff and then will be upgraded buy the owner later for a gaming rig. got any suggestions?

i have to have this system decided by 11:30 AM tomorrow Mountain standard time. i would prefer all the products to be available at NewEgg for shipping reasons.

TIA

[noob]

Why 754? its almost obsolete and has less upgradeability, also $300 isn't going to get you much.

What do you have already?

Was thinking,

gigabyte 939 socket SLi (GA-K8N-SLi)
AMD 3000+ venice
maybe nVidia 6200
Generic RAM (TCCD preferably)
cheap HDD (about 40GB)
Cheapest case

But that is about $500

If he is doing 3D rendering, he is going to need a decent amount of RAM, a decent CPU, and a reasonable Video card. An all in one just wont cut it, unless he doesn't mind watching blocky video, and taking 5 times longer than anything else to render, then sweet.

Just to upgrade, he will basically be able to keep his case and HDD, everything else will have to be replaced, if he can only spend $300, and gets 754, non SLi

[WonderBread]

its not for me, its for someone else...they're not going to be playing any kind of graphix intensive games at all. mostly flight sims

[noob]

Originally Posted by WonderBread

its not for me, its for someone else...they're not going to be playing any kind of graphix intensive games at all. mostly flight sims

Some flight sims are graphic intensive!!

if he wants to upgrade, SLi, and socket 939, but will cost more than $300

[WonderBread]

thats not helping me...he has very little income and needs a new comp. telling me that he needs sli and a s939 cpu does nothing for me. i have $300 hundred to work with and thats all. he has the HDD's, case, psu and 1 sitck of 512 already. he just needs a new gfx card, mobo and cpu.

[noob]

what about:

Motherboard $92

CPU $139

VIDEO $65

comes to $296

This gives greater future upgradeability

[WonderBread]

this is what i've come up with
CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819104245 $76.00
MoBo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136162 $75.00
Video - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814135183 $105
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145026 $40.00

[noob]

Nice,

If he already has 512MB RAM, he would be better off spending that $40 on a better CPU and / or MB, allowing for more upgrade and / or better performance now.

Say this cpu

a little more input from other members would be appreciated

[WonderBread]

yes, that would be nice, but then i would have to purchase a cooler along with it...i also forgot to mention that he wanted 1gig of ram and that he needed 512mb more

[noob]

Originally Posted by WonderBread

yes, that would be nice, but then i would have to purchase a cooler along with it...i also forgot to mention that he wanted 1gig of ram and that he needed 512mb more

Wouldn't need a cooler, the stock AMD heatsinks are much better now.

Well $40 is about the min he would want to spend on RAM.

If he could somehow spare the $40 he could get a much better processor, and it would overclock alot further later on when he can aford to upgrade a bit - costing less. Also 754 is becomming obsolete, so CPU upgrades are going to become harder to find!

[WonderBread]

I talked to robbie, and he helped understand what noob was trying to say to me (sorry for getting uptight at you noob) and ive put together a s939 system.

cpu - venice 3000+ $139.00
mobo - chaintech vnf4 s939 board $74.00
RAM - 2x512 rosewill pc3200 (his old stick of 512 was pc2100, i have to get him something better) $77.99
Vid - eVga 6200TC $68.00

total $374.33 including shipping.

im sacraficing some of my pay i was going to get out of this, but it will turn out for the better in the end for him.

[Logan]

Wonderbread,

Check out a couple of the new nforce boards with onboard geforce 6100 graphics. Save you money on the initial build and he can get a graphics card later. These boards have one 16X PCI-X slot if I remember correctly.

[WonderBread]

can those onboards do light gaming at a decent fps?

[noob]

Don't worry about it wonderbread, I was pretty sure that was the case.

Those boards can do light gaming at decent fps, just make sure you get one that can be upgraded with a graphics card later.

They should be able to do up to MS Flight sim 2004, no noticable jerkyness or artifacts, if thats any help.

[WonderBread]

anyone else have any insights before i order?

[Lazgoat]

The MSI S939 board based on the new ATI Chipset...cant remember the model but it comes in M-ATX form and has integrated ATI graphics.
Cheapest 939CPU
Value RAM

Job done!

[wild_andy_c]

Originally Posted by noob

Why 754? its almost obsolete and has less upgradeability, also $300 isn't going to get you much.

What do you have already?

Was thinking,

gigabyte 939 socket SLi (GA-K8N-SLi)
AMD 3000+ venice
maybe nVidia 6200
Generic RAM (TCCD preferably)
cheap HDD (about 40GB)
Cheapest case

But that is about $500

If he is doing 3D rendering, he is going to need a decent amount of RAM, a decent CPU, and a reasonable Video card. An all in one just wont cut it, unless he doesn't mind watching blocky video, and taking 5 times longer than anything else to render, then sweet.

Just to upgrade, he will basically be able to keep his case and HDD, everything else will have to be replaced, if he can only spend $300, and gets 754, non SLi

754 will outlive 939 "noob"

[robbie]

Originally Posted by wild_andy_c

754 will outlive 939 "noob"

Can he pop out his 754 later on and pop in a dual core?

[wild_andy_c]

Originally Posted by robbie

Can he pop out his 754 later on and pop in a dual core?

Somone stated it was almost obsolete, i stated the opposite, rather than the difference in upgrade path to which you seem to refer.

[MONKEYMAN]

At the moment the 754 boards are just as good in general day to day use as the 939 boards, if the entire initial budget is only $300 then even if he got a 939 board so it was "more upgradable" he presumably wouldnt be able to afford a dual core in a year or two's time which would be the next major step in 939 cpu anyway.
I say get a pci-e 754 board with a sempron 2800+(which will still run anything out there and is quite overclockable) and then you are leaving an affordable graphics upgrade route from say a 6200 to a 6600 and so on, this way he can still upgrade to say a 3400+ in a years time when the prices drop even further.