$450 build - suggestions?

[rowebil]

I actually am familiar with the whole eastern sea board. My mom likes to take road trips a lot : P

 

I see you found a store near you. 77 miles might be worth it. The CPUs are almost always 30-40 bucks cheaper there, and if you get an i5 3570K, you can get a matching asrock z77 board for 100. With take it would put your at 300 where as newegg might run you 350. 

 

Honestly. I would skip the notion of getting something cheap now and upgrading later. Just save up a bit more and get an i5 3570K an asrock extreme 4 z77 mobo, some samsung low profile memory, NZXT source 210, a 1TB segate drive, and a good AMD 7950 for 753. 

 

You can get away with getting everything other than the graphics card for 450. Then I would overclock that ram, go into the BIOS and dedicate 1Gb of your ram for the integrated graphics, and hold out for a used AMD 7950 for like $230 or something. 

 

 

I know that probably isn't going to be a good situation for you, but you will be saving money by getting the parts you need right off the bat rather than building it one upgrade at a time. Trust me. By the time I built my PC the way I wanted it, I dumped a good 300 to 400 extra into it than if I had just saved up and bought it further down the road.  

 

I take road trips a lot as well haha - I just took one today! Driving allows me to focus and gather my thoughts. I think I have ADD and I always need to keep moving. When I focus on something, I move away from that thing. However, when I'm relaxed such as driving or hiking, I can focus and put thoughts together. 

 

I was just wondering what I can do for $450 - I have a lot of room to grow with the budget lol. 

 

I honestly didn't know you could even dedicate 1 GB of RAM to the Integ. graphics. I may have seen it before, but  I haven't ever explored that area yet.  Computer maintenance is so boring to me because I've done everything and I cannot learn anything new in college. I actually had to switch majors to something more challenging - behavioral neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology. However, I guess I can explore and learn about overclocking.

 

But I have never explored the overclocking area because I don't play much video games, but I wanted a desktop instead of a laptop, and I've seen many good $600 builds and I asked myself if I could go lower. 

 

What I meant of upgrading was not to buy junk parts now, but to buy good parts - and when technology changes and processors - I could upgrade without burning out a new motherboard. Also, if I do become game oriented, I can get a better graphics card. I was going to use a cheap one or on-board, for now for playing video games in medium quality - and then if it becomes an interest to me, I could buy a video card! 

 

I do like your recommendations though! Thank you for helping me out! 

[Tjj226_Angel]

 

I actually am familiar with the whole eastern sea board. My mom likes to take road trips a lot : P

 

I see you found a store near you. 77 miles might be worth it. The CPUs are almost always 30-40 bucks cheaper there, and if you get an i5 3570K, you can get a matching asrock z77 board for 100. With take it would put your at 300 where as newegg might run you 350. 

 

Honestly. I would skip the notion of getting something cheap now and upgrading later. Just save up a bit more and get an i5 3570K an asrock extreme 4 z77 mobo, some samsung low profile memory, NZXT source 210, a 1TB segate drive, and a good AMD 7950 for 753. 

 

You can get away with getting everything other than the graphics card for 450. Then I would overclock that ram, go into the BIOS and dedicate 1Gb of your ram for the integrated graphics, and hold out for a used AMD 7950 for like $230 or something. 

 

 

I know that probably isn't going to be a good situation for you, but you will be saving money by getting the parts you need right off the bat rather than building it one upgrade at a time. Trust me. By the time I built my PC the way I wanted it, I dumped a good 300 to 400 extra into it than if I had just saved up and bought it further down the road.  

 

I take road trips a lot as well haha - I just took one today! Driving allows me to focus and gather my thoughts. I think I have ADD and I always need to keep moving. When I focus on something, I move away from that thing. However, when I'm relaxed such as driving or hiking, I can focus and put thoughts together. 

 

I was just wondering what I can do for $450 - I have a lot of room to grow with the budget lol. 

 

I honestly didn't know you could even dedicate 1 GB of RAM to the Integ. graphics. I may have seen it before, but  I haven't ever explored that area yet.  Computer maintenance is so boring to me because I've done everything and I cannot learn anything new in college. I actually had to switch majors to something more challenging - behavioral neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology. However, I guess I can explore and learn about overclocking.

 

But I have never explored the overclocking area because I don't play much video games, but I wanted a desktop instead of a laptop, and I've seen many good $600 builds and I asked myself if I could go lower. 

 

What I meant of upgrading was not to buy junk parts now, but to buy good parts - and when technology changes and processors - I could upgrade without burning out a new motherboard. Also, if I do become game oriented, I can get a better graphics card. I was going to use a cheap one or on-board, for now for playing video games in medium quality - and then if it becomes an interest to me, I could buy a video card! 

 

I do like your recommendations though! Thank you for helping me out! 

 

 

As for majors, you could also go into Systems biology or Bio-engineering. There isn't a degree program for it yet, but they are experimenting with using biological systems to replace silicon for computers. In the end, you don't have to completely change your major. Maybe you can just change the flavor of your major and get a more challenging curriculum while at the same time applying what you already know. 

 

As for computers, you can still go with something like my build, stay in budget, and still have a great machine. It just won't be as good of an investment as building a machine with a current generation pc.