December 11th, 2008 by hybridgoomba
Well, I figured I would make a new build, similar to my previous “Fast Home PC Build”, but this one is better in some areas(yet worse in others |: ). Either way, here it is:
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135085
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811226020
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182016
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136178
HDD2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822135106
DVD(Burner): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136144
DVD(Combo): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106083
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227199
Overall, this computer is decently fast. Quad-core, 4GB of RAM, yeah decent. The only thing that is weak about it is the video chip. Without a separate video card, it’s still plenty for doing general web browsing, and generally nothing serious. So, since this build only costs $440, you have plenty of comfort to add your own card if you want. Hope you like it!
October 4th, 2008 by hybridgoomba
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.
August 23rd, 2008 by hybridgoomba
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!