HG Computer Blog

Low-Cost Build

Here is a build I made, but the thing that is special about this one is that I actually made it so I can vouch for it’s strengths and weaknesses. The budget for this build was $400(or as low as possible with good performance), so here we go-

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103211

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138111

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075

Case+PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147093

DVD Burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106228

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141300

So far the CPU has worked great, and it is a great value for a really cheap price. It works great at 2.6Ghz and Dual-Core performance. For the RAM, I just went with a cheap stick of DDR2 800 2GB model, and it has exceeded my expectations like the processor has. For this I got by with a $50 motherboard that has also worked well, although if I had my choice, I would have chosen better sound and more PCI/express slots. But it suits the job well. Right now I am just using the onboard video, which is fairly good- it can play Star Wars Battlefront II in 800×600 pretty fast, but in the scope of things it isn’t that great. The video will probably be one of the first thigns I upgrade. I also went with a pretty cheap case and PSU, but the quality is mostly good. It retains a nice basic look so it should look good just about anywhere and the PSU has worked suprisingly well so far. The two bad things I have found are that it is sort of flimsy, and you should take caution when you are punching out optical drive faceplates because the metal guards on then can cut you pretty good. Got a nice little gash on my thumb. The Hard Drive- a 160GB model is good since I will be the only one using it, and it isn’t like I can’t just add another one in the future. And the DVD Burner has worked great so far beside the fact that it is a little noisy, but I have it directly on top of my desk so of course the vibrations would go throughout the desk. For these parts, the price total comes to $246, but keep in mind that I bought a keyboard+mouse, speakers, and several other thigns with this so for me the total came to about $400.

Fast home PC build

For this build, I decided to go for a budget of $800. Here’s the component list:

Processor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773

Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130182

RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134641

Hard Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136161

Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068

Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052

Optical Drives

DVD Burner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136149

DVD ROM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827101131

Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130292

Okay, at this point the total comes to $549. Safely under our budget limit. And at a pretty good price as well. I’ll explain now why I chose the products I did.

For the CPU, I wanted something very fast and reliable, and AMD’s 6000+ Athlon X2 seemed to fit that description well. I know by experience that a computer hold-up due to the processor trying to do too much at once is a very frustrating thing. For the Motherboard, I planned on choosing something with plenty of room for expansion. And it does. It has a good amount of PCI slots, SATA ports, DIMM slots, etc. So this will be prepared for the future. The RAM I didn’t really want to get too terribly fancy on, but 4GB should be plenty for any average user. Many people might be a little scepitcal about my choice of a 250GB Hard Drive instead of a larger one, but really, most people don’t even use that much and there are plenty more SATA ports to choose from. For the case, I wanted something really simple to fit in anywhere, and the Cooler Master case looks like it can achieve that. When I used the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite v2.5 to find the wattage I needed for my power supply, I got 288W, but I decided to choose 500W since this computer oculd be upgraded in the future. For the Optical Drives, I went with one DVD Burner to burn stuff and one DVD-ROM drive to help copy discs easily. And finally, for the Video Card, I went with a card that featured the 8600 GT GPU. It’s not the most powerful card out there, but it will definitely help a system by a pretty good margin. A different card could be used, however, to achieve greater graphical performance. Although most people that aren’t gamers won’t need anything better than this.

Really, that’s basically it. However if you want to add an operating system and some thermal paste:

Vista Premium

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116485

Arctic Silver

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007

The total comes to $655, which still comes way below our $800 margin.

Enjoy!

How you can help

When I create a build, usually I have put a lot of effort into it. However, sometimes there are good components out there that I may have missed. When I post a build, I hope that the community will help by putting their own thoughts into it, and not just by watching me do all the work. It’s really quite simple to help though- all I ask is that when I post a new build, that you post a comment on it. In it, it would be great if you would put your thoughts about the build inside the comment, and make suggestions or point to better parts(for the same general price range). Also, if you want, you can rate it on a scale from 0-5 on how much you liked it. Of course all this is optional, and you may choose not to comment whenever you wish.

One last thing before I go for today, my next post will be the first build for this blog so be ready for the days to come. I’m not sure when it’ll be, but hopefully sometime this week.

My definition of a build

Today I’m going to talk about what will be included in a build when I post one. Usually I will only put the base minimum of parts that a computer needs in the build. So what’s usually included? Here we go: Motherboard, CPU, case/PSU, Optical Drive(s), Hard Drive(s), RAM, and information and products on the cooling. Many times I will also post a Video Card or suggested Operating System for the build as well. For those of you who want to create your own build list, I have designed a simple checklist for your use, located here. As of right now, I am working on it to make sure that it is up to date, and also please do note that I have not intentionally included any saving functions, so if you close or reload the window/tab that it’s in, most likely you will lose all of the data that was on the page unless your browser saves it for you. That’s pretty much it for today, but also remember that I am working on the checklist right now so if it isn’t looking perfect, I’m probably fixing it. See ya

It’s here!

The thing that no one was really looking forward to since no one knew it was coming! But really, that’s okay anyway since I never announced it. But anyway, what is this? Well HG Computer Blog is kind of short for Hybrid Goomba Computer Blog, but it kind of sounds better this way. What will I be posting here? Well over the past few months/weeks I’ve gained a new interest in computer hardware. Not that I am abandoning all other aspects of computers, but that generally will be my main focus since I am most interested in hardware. Things are will be posting are builds, which are basically compilations of computer parts. More on those when I post the first one. I will also be posting many other different things about computers like web development and software, so just stay tuned until I get something ready. In the meantime, I will be working on getting the blog ready for regular posting by mainly just doing updates in the background. So, stay tuned, and if you like what you see, subscribe to the RSS feed and/or post some comments.