Miek Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) Well... my budget got kicked in the face. Long story short. I have a ticket, a court appearance, and an insurance claim to pay out. OOPS! However, I don't know that total of that (the ticket will be paid in September when I make my court appearance, the claim will arrive in the mail, payable in April of 2010 when I renew my license). Because you'll probably ask... I backed into someone with my truck and a feel really stupid. The person I backed into sort of freaked out and is pushing things a little legally. Anyway... I will have SOME money leftover from all of this. And... PC's are upgradable for a reason. And I need a new PC soon because my laptop is dying fast. One of these days it's just going to explode, start smoking, or maybe throw itself out the window because all the hardware is failing and it's a 50/50 chance on whether it'll work when turned on. So. The all important factor. BUDGET = $800.00 giver, or more likely take a hundred bucks. In Canadian dollars. Various preferences... - nVidia (Physx) - Cases with room for big cards - Cases with good air flow - AMD. Lower price = better for me. - Motherboard that will be compatible with the first gen AMD's (7850+ B.E.) as well as the Phenom II's. Namely the Phenom II 940 I'll drop in later. - DDR2 RAM - 4 gigs of ram - VISTA Home Premium. Heard it's the best Vista for the money. 64-BIT, please. - Lots of HDD space, preferably 1 TB. Upgrading later on will not only save money initially, but will also give me an excuse to learn to properly upgrade various components. It doesn't have to be something that will utterly crush whatever you throw at it. It just needs to be half decent and last. At this point, ANYTHING is better than my laptop. Thanks for helping (a moron that can't back up). I'm always looking for a suggestions. Note that if I find a better job, I'll just save up the pennies and get a good PC to begin with. Edited July 6, 2009 by Miek Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
motoray Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) Well for one i just tried doing things on a budget and the only items i skimped quality broke. SO i think you should focus on your motherboard. Get something that can handle what you might wanna do down the road like SLI or something. CPU and vid cards can always be upgraded. Get good ram that you can just add on later. if you know ur ganna get a 940 later (which is what i planned) get like a 6000+ for now its like 50-60$ and u can run it at 3.45 all day. 64bit vista works great for me but maybe consider 7 since im sure vista will start losing support. Props on static-x img Edited July 6, 2009 by motoray Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Miek Posted July 6, 2009 Thanks, lol. I like Static-X a lot. The song "I'm with stupid" is up there in my favourites. And I am considering Windows 7. What is its expected release date? I may use the Windows 7 upgrade option if I go with Vista. Windows 7 looks good, but it's got a few features I don't agree with, namely the taskbar. What were they thinking with taking out the names and only using the logos in little squares? Oh well. If it works, I'll just get used to it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrewr05 Posted July 6, 2009 If you do what I did you can make a petty decent rig for under $800. Just wait for online deals and buy used from reputable people and you can build an awesome rig. The "OCC Marketplace" is your friend... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Verran Posted July 6, 2009 SO i think you should focus on your motherboard. Get something that can handle what you might wanna do down the road like SLI or something. Honestly, I would say the exact opposite. Buying an SLI/CrossFire board generally means spending more (a little, a lot, it all depends, but definitely more). On a budget build, I think it's silly to spend money on things that aren't going to pay off right now. I'm not a big fan of future-proofing, personally. On a budget build, I usually say the motherboard is not that important. When I spec budget rigs, I shoot for the best CPU and best video card I can, and everything else is fairly "skimped". I mean I don't recommend junk, of course, but high end motherboards (for example) really don't offer that much performance increase, so why spend money there if it's tight? The GPU and CPU are easily the top two components that effect performance, so you want to max those and just get mid-range stuff for everything else. I would shoot for a cheap AM2+ board with a single GPU slot (saves money usually, dual-slot carries a price premium), a tri-core 720 or quad 940 if it can fit in the budget, and a cheap set of DDR2-800 2x2GB. Case is totally up to you as that's always a personal preference, and HDD is just whatever's got a good price right now (probably aim for 32MB cache though, if you can). For PSU, I think the OCZ StealthXStream models offer great performance for the price, so I'd recommend one of those in the 500-600W range. Then with whatever's left just get the best video card you can. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
slick2500 Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) I would agree with the motherboard part 100%, a $200 motherboard isn't always better than a $80 dollar motherboard, it usually just doesn't have as many bells and whistles or stuff you won't really need. Edited July 6, 2009 by slick2500 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
feetfats Posted July 6, 2009 do you already have a monitor or are you trying to squeeze that into your budget Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
motoray Posted July 6, 2009 Well he pretty specifically said he wants to upgrade components later on and for me personally its much easier to upgrade cpu and videocards than a motherboard. And a quality motherboard can save a lot of headaches. Plus on the money saving side with a SLI board he can see how fast he wants his graphics to be and find out what 2 cards will surpass it and just buy one for now and get another later. Worked GREAT for me and the 2 good cards were cheaper than the 1 awesome card and much faster. Thats my 2 cents. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Miek Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) do you already have a monitor or are you trying to squeeze that into your budget The monitor is NOT part of the budget. I have a monitor I can use until I buy one later. For a monitor, I'll just go to a store a short drive away. They carry lots of brands, namely Acer and Samsung. And boredom/GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) set in again... I configured a PC on the builder tool on iBuyPower. What do you think of this (for $801 w/out shipping added) Case • Nzxt Apollo Gaming Tower Case Black Power Supply • 650 Watt -- Casegears ECO-Element 80 Plus Certificated High Efficiency Power Supply SLI Ready Processor • AMD Athlon™ X2 7750+ Black Edition Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology Processor Cooling • Sunbeam Core-Contact Freezer CPU Cooling Fan System Fan Controller Included Motherboard • [sLI] Asus M3N72-D NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, IEEE 1394, USB 2.0, Dual PCI-E/HDMI MB Memory • 4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module Corsair-Value or Major Brand Video Card • NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 1GB w/DVI + TV Out Video Video Card Brand • Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA Hard Drive • 500 GB HARD DRIVE [serial-ATA-II, 3Gb, 7200 RPM, 16M Cache] 2nd Hard Drive CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive • LG 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD Edited July 6, 2009 by Miek Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sovek Posted July 8, 2009 I built mine (monitor included) for about $800 The specs are such. Gigabyte MA770 board (a little outdated but ehh) Phenom X3 8650 (not the best but ehhh, fit the budget) 4GB DDR2 1066 RAM (800 just didn't save much money, sides I want room for overclocking) 500GB WD HDD. Sapphire 4870 with the Toxic cooler, Tt 500w PSU Acer 22" Widescreen LCD with contrast ratio of 2500:1 Xclio A380 case (I kinda wished I'd have gone with the wind tunnel Without a monitor to buy, I'd say MA790, 4GB DDR2 and X2 P2 Callisto CPU. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Miek Posted July 9, 2009 Thanks everyone. I really do need a new computer, but I have to pay the ticket first. I wish I wasn't an idiot and got the ticket in the first place. My laptop is making really unhealthy sounds. Right now it's making a grinding noise and a lot of loud clicks. I think I'm going to shut it off. *sigh* It's out of warranty too. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Miek Posted July 16, 2009 I would really like some more opinions/advice. My laptop is driving me nuts. It's gotten to the point where it takes upwards of 10 minutes to boot up. It takes all of the available resources (CPU speed, RAM, etc.) to run Vista and leaves me with tons of frustration trying to do ANYTHING. Even typing this is giving me a headache. Why, oh why, in my great wisdom did I get a laptop? I can't even upgrade this thing. Note that the OS is "clean." No junk files, viruses, or anything like that. Thanks. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
