Jump to content

Need help building a computer on a budget....


reefgeek84

Recommended Posts

or this one...

 

75.00 bucks

 

SAPPHIRE 100165L Radeon X1650PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Item #: N82E16814102064

 

I think that this one would work great. Radeon is a good chipset (I have one in my laptop and love it) and 512mb would be plenty for what you want to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok lets try this again...

 

Case-

APEVIA X-Dreamer II ATXB4KLW-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 420W Power Supply - Retail

Item #: N82E16811144026

 

Harddrive-

SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD403LJ 400G/B 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Item #: N82E16822152085

 

Motherboard-

Foxconn C51XEM2AA- 8EKRS2H AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Item #: N82E16813186098

 

Video card-

POWERCOLOR 26PRO 512M DDR2 Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

 

Ram-

Crucial Ballistix 2G/B (2 x 1G/B) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail

Item #: N82E16820146565

 

CPU-

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADO4000DDBOX - Retail

Item #: N82E16819103774

 

With rebates 440.00

 

I could get a westerngate hard drive...for a little more and it comes with a 5 year warrenty, is it worth it?

Do I need anything else to make this run?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't totally agree with what your selecting but I tend to go for higher end stuff, but for what your using it for you should be OK, with that said the only thing I would really wish you to consider is getting a western dig hard drive, the rest can break but the drive contains your data, WD is the only brand I don't have trouble with on customers pc's, seagate running a close second, but samsung and especially maxtor are not at the top of the long life charts (MTBF charts)

 

You may want to take a drive down to Frys to and see what labor day specials they are running (usually run the add in the paper).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't totally agree with what your selecting but I tend to go for higher end stuff, but for what your using it for you should be OK, with that said the only thing I would really wish you to consider is getting a western dig hard drive, the rest can break but the drive contains your data, WD is the only brand I don't have trouble with on customers pc's, seagate running a close second, but samsung and especially maxtor are not at the top of the long life charts (MTBF charts)

 

You may want to take a drive down to Frys to and see what labor day specials they are running (usually run the add in the paper).

 

There were worse reviews with the WD hard drive over the seagate...I am going to do with either one of those and drop the samsung...

 

As for higher end stuff...I really see your point, but I am on a budget and can not drop 750+ on this thing...or else I would do it...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget about the cost of your apps and OS' date=' unless you already have them. Windows, photoshop, office, and other programs like that are not cheap. Just something to keep in mind.[/quote']

 

I have all of that stuff :-) I run them now, but my lap is the bottom of the barrel toshiba, so it does not run them well...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

windows xp is just the newest version of windows. so xp is your operating system. You have all the monitor' date=' keyboard, mouse, etc. right?[/quote']

 

Yeah, I have all of that...That is what I thought,but there are OEM versions and wierd stuff and on a version from newegg.com it is retail, but everyone who bought it say that you needed previous windows programs for it to run...so I was just wondering if I had missed something...

 

Thanks to everyone who helped me out...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There were worse reviews with the WD hard drive over the seagate...I am going to do with either one of those and drop the samsung...

 

As for higher end stuff...I really see your point, but I am on a budget and can not drop 750+ on this thing...or else I would do it...

Thats what I was trying to stress, the fact you don't really need to much, I run cs3 and it can be a hog, but it depends on what your doing, just keep in mind you should have more Bad reviews of WD than any other drive simply because they sell more drives than anyone else, when I was in the trade we would sell 7/10th's of our drives as WD but 90% of the DOA's where Maxtor and lower brands.

 

I personally have only had 1 WD drive go out on me, I still have a working 50KB WD drive, but I have had 4 Maxtor drives go out in my house. The funny thing is they are very good at replacing... Lots of experience. LOL

 

Good luck, I'm sure you won't have any trouble. I'm very please with the dual core x64 chips, especially with cs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I have all of that...That is what I thought,but there are OEM versions and wierd stuff and on a version from newegg.com it is retail, but everyone who bought it say that you needed previous windows programs for it to run...so I was just wondering if I had missed something...

 

Thanks to everyone who helped me out...

 

Most likely the version that you found is an upgrade version that is cheaper, but requires a previous version of windows to install it. I guess you could say that it is microsofts way of being nice to their current customers and trying to make them want to upgrade.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok lets try this again...

 

Case-

APEVIA X-Dreamer II ATXB4KLW-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 420W Power Supply - Retail

Item #: N82E16811144026

 

Harddrive-

SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD403LJ 400G/B 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Item #: N82E16822152085

 

Motherboard-

Foxconn C51XEM2AA- 8EKRS2H AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Item #: N82E16813186098

 

Video card-

POWERCOLOR 26PRO 512M DDR2 Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

 

Ram-

Crucial Ballistix 2G/B (2 x 1G/B) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail

Item #: N82E16820146565

 

CPU-

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 2.1GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADO4000DDBOX - Retail

Item #: N82E16819103774

 

With rebates 440.00

 

I could get a westerngate hard drive...for a little more and it comes with a 5 year warrenty, is it worth it?

Do I need anything else to make this run?

 

Hey Reefgeek, sounds like a good deal for what you are going to do with it. The video card choices are always tough with many criteria to look at (piplines, fill rates, core clock speed, memory bandwith etc.) but, unless you are going to play high end games, this should be a good workhorse card for you. Powercolor has been around for a long time and Radeon is a pretty solid chipset in general. The only other thing I would check before calling it good is the power requirements for this card. Most high end cards these days have their own cooling fans and require power directly from the power supply (as opposed to just through the card interface on the motherboard). If that's the case, they typically will recommend a minimum wattage capacity to drive the card. You can often get away with less if you aren't running lots of drives but if you end up having problems the card manufacturer will point to that as a possible problem. Also, I would support the suggestion by Nyles to upgrade to a WD drive as I have also had good luck with these and seen a lot of other brands fail in our machines at work. As for the OS question, I think Civicsit is correct on that - make sure you get a full version as opposed to an upgrade version (which is cheaper) as the upgrade requires you to load it on top of an already installed, valid version of the OS. If you don't already have an older version to install before upgrading to XP then make sure you are buying a full version.

 

OK... good luck man. Sorry this is so complicated. Looks like a great deal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Powercolor has been around for a long time and Radeon is a pretty solid chipset in general. The only other thing I would check before calling it good is the power requirements for this card.

 

Here are the specs on the card...

Model

Brand POWERCOLOR

Model 26PRO 512M DDR2

Interface

Interface PCI Express x16

Chipset

Chipset Manufacturer ATI

GPU Radeon HD 2600PRO

Core clock 600MHz

Stream Processors 120 Stream Processors Units

Memory

Memory Clock 800MHz

Memory Size 512MB

Memory Interface 128-bit

Memory Type GDDR2

3D API

DirectX DirectX 10

OpenGL OpenGL 2.0

Ports

DVI 2

TV-Out HDTV Out

VIVO No

General

Tuner None

RAMDAC 400 MHz

Max Resolution 2560 x 1600

CrossFire Supported Yes

Cooler With Fan

Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes

Windows Vista Certified for

 

Will I be ok with the whole power consumption thing?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a slightly larger radeon card with dual core x64 x4200? and I run it with a antec 550 smart power power supply, I honestly would not go much less on MY system. Worst case try it and for what your doing it should work fine, if not order a smart power or whatever you want in the 550-600 watt range. Being that your not doing gaming but graphics, I don't see it as an issue however with that cpu.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here are the specs on the card...

Model

Brand POWERCOLOR

Model 26PRO 512M DDR2

Interface

Interface PCI Express x16

Chipset

Chipset Manufacturer ATI

GPU Radeon HD 2600PRO

Core clock 600MHz

Stream Processors 120 Stream Processors Units

Memory

Memory Clock 800MHz

Memory Size 512MB

Memory Interface 128-bit

Memory Type GDDR2

3D API

DirectX DirectX 10

OpenGL OpenGL 2.0

Ports

DVI 2

TV-Out HDTV Out

VIVO No

General

Tuner None

RAMDAC 400 MHz

Max Resolution 2560 x 1600

CrossFire Supported Yes

Cooler With Fan

Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes

Windows Vista Certified for

 

Will I be ok with the whole power consumption thing?

 

I looked this up on TigerDirects site and it says "400 watt or greater power supply is recommended" so it sounds like you should be OK. Realistically, since you aren't gaming and not running a lot of other drives off of the power supply it will probably be just fine. As Nyles says, you can always upgrade the PS later if you find yourself adding additional drives or other power sinks later and run into problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...