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  June 14, 2009 2:38 p.m. 4cylndrfury HalfDork

  When it comes to computers, I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be effective. I build everything from scratch (just like everyone else on here) and wanna do the same with my computer. Its gotta just handle the basics - Interweb, email, maybe some simple gaming, stream music. This isnt gonna be any kinda hardcore music editing or video creation or anything super complex. I was wondering if the list below is complete enough or if theres compatibility issues. I know the parts listed are not the most informative, but I can get more info, just let me know what you need. Im starting off the base of this build with a Dell GX260 - heres the details:

  Product Specifications

  • Operating System- Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition
  • Processor- Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with Hyper-Threading Technology
  • Processor Speed- 2.8GHz
  • RAM Installed / Max RAM Supported- 512MB DDR SDRAM
  • Memory Configuration- (1) 512MB DIMM Memory Module
  • Memory Slots- Total 2
  • Memory Slots Available- (1) Available 184-pin DIMM Slot
  • Hard Drive- 120GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
  • Multimedia Drive- DVD±RW Drive
  • Sound Card- Sound Blaster Pro Compatible Audio Chipset
  • Network Features- 10/100 Fast Ethernet Network
  • Ports and Connectors- (1) Serial 9-pin Port; (1) Parallel 25-pin Port; (1) PS/2 Keyboard Port; (1) PS/2 Mouse Port; (1) VGA 15-pin Port; (8) USB 2.0 "A" Ports; (1) RJ-45 Network Port; (1) Microphone Port; (1) Audio Line In Port; (2) Audio Line Out Port
  • Expansion Bays- 1 (0 free) External 5.25" Bay; 1 (0 free) External 3.5" Bay; 1 (0 free) Internal 3.5" Bay
  • Expansion Slots- 1 (1 free) 4x AGP 2.0 Compliant Low-Profile Slot; 2 (2 free) 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI Slots

  and heres the upgrades list:

  • Trendnet Wireless N PCI Adapter
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 7850 Black Edition
  • EVGA e-GeForce 8400 GS 512MB DDR2 PCIe Graphics Card
  • Buffalo Memory Buffalo Select DDR2 DIMM 2GB, 800MHz PC2-6400 Unbuffered x64 Non ECC CL5 240 Pin

  please let me know if this seems like a realistic goal with this build list. As it stands, I can get this whole list for <$300. Thanks in advance for everyones help

  4cf

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  June 14, 2009 4:55 p.m. ReverendDexter HalfDork

  Well, the first thing that I see is that the system comes with an Intel Chip, and you're wanting to upgrade to an AMD. That doesn't work, you'd have to replace the whole motherboard to do that.

  Second, I see a "Max RAM Supported - 512MB", and you're trying to bump that up to 2GB, so this is likely to not work either.

  Lastly, PCI != PCIe, so the video card you're looking at will not work in that motherboard.

  Here's my suggestion for building a computer. Buy the nicest case you can. Cases aren't changing, so you won't be able to find the same case for half the price in 6 months.

  After that, buy the best motherboard you can. The motherboard is going to be the limiting factor on any upgrades you do down the road. The first decision here is whether you want to go Intel or AMD. It's gone back and forth over the years, but right now the Intels are top dog. Once you know that, look at the CPU sockets. The socket determines exactly what chips you can run. My opinion is that it's better to get the newer socket with a slower chip for now than it is to get the older socket with the fastest chip that will ever be offered for it.

  Buy the cheapest components that will work in that board and accomplish what you need to do. RAM, CPUs, video cards, and hard drives all drop prices quickly. Hold out for a few months, and you'll pay significantly less for the same parts, so get what's cheap now, and upgrade it when the better parts drop in price.

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  June 15, 2009 6:52 a.m. MCarp22 Reader

  As RevDex said, the stuff you're looking to buy probably won't work aside from the network adapter.

  Here's what I would do if i had to make a GX260 work for a relative that just wanted to check email and stuff:

  I'd leave the CPU alone, the 2.8 is almost the top of the line. Someone who really wanted to tweak it could probably find a 3.06GHz Northwood P4. I found one for $65, which is way too expensive to be cost effective. Dell installed a better CPU cooler to handle the heat that those generated.

  Regular DDR memory is pretty cheap, (the DDR2 won't work) you could probably find 2GB of PC2100 for $30.

  http://www.pricewatch.com/browse/system_memory/ddr_pc2100_1gb

  For the video card, there's not much out there for AGP anymore. If i had to add a video card, i'd probably look at this 3450. Yeah, it's $50, but it'd at least get you the ability to hook up to a TV with the HDMI port, and it might even run new-ish games at low resolution ok.

  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121315

  For the wireless card, I'd probably get a regular wireless G adapter as opposed to the N adapter. Since the video card that I recommended takes up a bit of space, and this system has usb 2.0 ports, I'd get a USB adapter.
  

  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166023

  ReverendDexter wrote: Second, I see a "Max RAM Supported - 512MB", and you're trying to bump that up to 2GB, so this is likely to not work either.

  The GX260 supports up to 1gb DIMMs in both slots, so they could upgrade to 2gb.

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  June 15, 2009 8:16 a.m. 4cylndrfury HalfDork

  exactly the advice I was looking for...thanks guys!!!

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  June 15, 2009 11:05 a.m. 4cylndrfury HalfDork

  New Egg is my new best friend:

  • LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model GH22NP20 - OEM Item #: N82E16827136144 $23.99
  • Athenatech A100SC.200 Black/ Silver Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 230W SFX Power Supply - Retail Item #: N82E16811190003 $42.99
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3160813AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM Item #: N82E16822148397 $39.99
  • SAPPHIRE 100264HDMI Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card - Retail Item #: N82E16814102817 $35.99
  • Rendition by Crucial 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Desktop Memory Model RM12864AA667 - Retail Item #: N82E16820148240 $32.97
  • ASUS P5QPL-VM EPU LGA 775 Intel G41 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Item #: N82E16813131387 $79.99
  • Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E5200 - Retail Item #: N82E16819116072 $69.99

  Subtotal: $325.91 Shipping: $28.75 Grand total: $354.66

  whatdyall think? I know I still need an OS, but I am a registered student at a major university, so I can get student copies for dirt. And also a local brick and mortar has wireless USB Network connectors for dirt cheap, so I will be using that as well.

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  June 15, 2009 11:12 a.m. 93celicaGT2 Dork

  I'm not familiar with that brand of power supply, and that scares me. Keep in mind that i have really been "in the game" for a couple years, but after you lose two systems to weak, overrated power supplies, you start to get paranoid quick.

  It's probably fine and i'm just an old fart or something.

  If you could post the direct link to the power supply, i'll be able to make a better opinion.

  OH my bad.... the bullets are screwed up. That psu will be fine, didn't realize it was coming with the case. That's a good company, they usually don't cheap like that.

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  June 15, 2009 12:01 p.m. Dr. Hess PowerDork

  I'd go bigger than 160GB on the hard drive. How can you load an operating system on only 160GB? Today, I'd go one Terabyte or better.

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  June 15, 2009 12:17 p.m. aircooled SuperDork

  160 GB is way out of the "sweet spot" for HD these days (unless it is a Raptor), 500-750 GB is about the best bang for the buck currently, 1TB will be soon. For probably $15 or so more you will triple your storage. For some reason there are not a lot of HD bargains currently (they are usually pretty common) but there is a 1TB on NewEgg for $75, but that might be out of your price range.

  For operating system, what's wrong with your WinXP? Are you planning on keeping that comp running? If you don't know the serial (which can be hard to find on some OEM computers) there are key finders out there.

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  June 15, 2009 2:50 p.m. 4cylndrfury HalfDork

  I currently have no system, so I dont have any OS software at all...hence the student version on the cheap. Also, as is with most things, price is definitely my limiting factor on this build. I wont be needing that much storage up front, so a teensy little drive is all I need inside. I can realistically upgrade to a 1tb external usb drive that is also portable if I really need to, or maybe even go with a standalone wireless HD down the road for backup/extra storage. This will be my desktop version of a Netbook + better graphics. Someday down the road, I will probably want to toss in a bluray drive, but again, I will probably just upgrade my video card and optical drive when I do that.

  I basically look at this as my rolling chassis...I will upgrade to the sleeved block, milled head, turbo and forged internals once I am able to get moving under my own power If its a year before I upgrade, Im fine with that. the build list above is 100% better compared to my current (lack of) computer. I dont mind trimming the fat to get into a stripper model. I'll add fat in later.

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  June 15, 2009 3:08 p.m. Dr. Hess PowerDork

  Ya know, two fifty will get you a netbook at wally world. Plug in a $5 keyboard and a mouse and your there for cheap, plus you have netbook portability available. If you really want to, an external monitor will plug in the back too.

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  June 15, 2009 4:22 p.m. RedS13Coupe Reader

  Dr. Hess wrote:

  Ya know, two fifty will get you a netbook at wally world. Plug in a $5 keyboard and a mouse and your there for cheap, plus you have netbook portability available. If you really want to, an external monitor will plug in the back too.

  yeah, but the computer that he currently has is better then one of those in pretty much every spec, and he still wants to upgrade.

  looks pretty good, but I would agree that a bigger HD is a much better idea. For not too much more you could go several times larger on the hard drive, even if you don't think you could ever use the space throw in a 750GB and be happy never worrying about space again

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  June 15, 2009 5:34 p.m. aircooled SuperDork

  RedS13Coupe wrote: ...For not too much more you could go several times larger on the hard drive, even if you don't think you could ever use the space throw in a 750GB and be happy never worrying about space again

  You always think that, but it never seems to be true.
  

  I have an interesting situation with my new computer. I was going to go with a 1 TB drive, but got freaked out at the last minute when I saw that drive was having reliability problems (turned out it was a previous release) and was trying to figure out how I was going to back up a 1 TB drive!! I ended up getting another one as a backup drive. So now I have 2 TBs worth of storage in one computer!!
  

  The real challenge is figuring out how to partition them. All that space make it real easy to install a bunch of operating systems, but a HD can have only 4 primary partitions, so that makes it interesting. So far I have XP installed, two version of OSX (one to do installs from, one as the "final" install), I want to put Win 7 somewhere (maybe on the 2nd drive), and what the hell, might as well put Linux somewhere just to play with it.

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  June 15, 2009 11:25 p.m. RedS13Coupe Reader

  aircooled wrote:

  RedS13Coupe wrote: ...For not too much more you could go several times larger on the hard drive, even if you don't think you could ever use the space throw in a 750GB and be happy never worrying about space again

  You always think that, but it never seems to be true.

  agreed, never enough storage... But I was speaking more towards the person who would be content with a 160gb drive.

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  June 16, 2009 2:21 p.m. 4cylndrfury HalfDork

  I keep bouncing back and forth between buying everything I want new, and buying something refurbished solely for the mobo and powah supply and upgrading slowly. I can get everything I want for around 350-400 brand spankin new, or I can get close for ~200 with a refurb...the internet is the best friend Ive ever hated when it comes to advice

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  June 16, 2009 2:57 p.m. Scott Lear Club Editor

  Newegg is the bomb diggity.

  Definitely spend a few more bucks on a 500GB drive. Space is cheap, you'll kind of be throwing money away trying to save a few dollars on a tiny drive that will need to be supplemented before you know it. After the OS, you'll be left with less space than you expect.

  Also, your RAM choice is actually under-performing and overpriced. DDR-2 667 RAM is more expensive than the faster DDR-2 800 stuff that your motherboard would be happier with. Check out this link, you can get 2GB of 800mhz RAM for less than the 1GB you selected.

  DDR2 800 RAM LINK for Newegg

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  June 17, 2009 9:05 a.m. 4cylndrfury HalfDork

  new egg certainly is the bomb. But like I said, Im on the fence about going full on DIY when I find deals like a Dell Optiplex sporting a P4 @ 2.8GHz (iknow how outdated it is, trust me I know) for <$80 with a 90 return policy from a brick and mortar a block from my job!!! I know that the ind. standard for CPU sockets on the MOBO design has been upgraded recently, and it will have to run IDE rather than SATA hard drive, but $80 bucks for a valid copy of XP and office 03 is worth it for those alone (backup CDs with Valid COAs and all). Toss in a bigger HD, a 256 APG card and a USB network card and Im set honestly. Anyway, I think Im just gonna sit and stew on it. I go on Vacation in a week and we're in the middle of a bathroom remodel (tile work sux BTW), so I dont have any extra cabbage to play with for a week or 2 anyhow.

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  June 17, 2009 3:41 p.m. RedS13Coupe Reader

  IDE is a LOT slower then a good sata drive. That processor you posted is almost twice as fast as the P4.

  Spend a little to do it right the first time and have a computer that will be decent enough for years to come, rather then spending $80 on a computer that was outdated 3 years ago.

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  June 17, 2009 6:24 p.m. Redhornet New Reader

  Best computer forum, ever. The computer equivalent of this board. You'll get very informed and pretty objective suggestions:

  http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/

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