BudgetPuter!

[Omega]

Hey Guys!

I'm still on an AMD Socket 754 system (AGP, DDR, etc), and I really want to upgrade. But I don't have tons of money right now. (180$ + saving my pennies)

So I was wondering if you all could point me in the right direction for some good budget LGA755/DDR2/PCI-e hardware. I'd be fine with single core, I can probably score 1gb of RAM for free, and I want a GPU that won't choke up when I fire up BF2 on medium settings at 1280*1024.


So I'm looking at:

Mobo
CPU
GPU
RAM


With any luck, I'll have about 380$ or so total if I can manage to sell my longboard and tennis racket.

Micro ATX is fine (I don't need to run SLi), and midrange GPU's are fine too.


So yeah, give me some suggestions!

Thanks,
Omega

[.Maleficus.]

Look into an Nvidia 7 series. Prices are seriously nice, and they perform very well still.

Lower-end C2Ds are cheap and OC well. They are also dual-core so no need to upgrade in the future. Otherwise, I suggest this Pentium D 920. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116237

RAM is really cheap now. Just look around and you'll find a good deal.

I can't recommend a mobo for cheap, but you should be able to find a good one too.

[Omega]

As I said, I'll probably be able to score about a gig of RAM for free (and that'll help a LOT), maybe some midrange ATi card for free too.

I actually found out that with the free RAM and about another 20$, I could have a cheapo mobo, cheapo GPU, and a cheapo Celeron D. the downside to that, however, is that everything's cheap (except the RAM, I know it's good stuff).

Thanks for posting that Pentium D link, I'll probably spring for that once I know I can secure a Mobo and that RAM. Then that only leaves me with having to get a Videocard, which I said I might also be able to get for free until I can work up the money to buy a decent one (like a 7800 series, because I bet those are coming down in price and still own performancewise, at least compaed to my X800SE...)


Thanks Mal. =D

[.Maleficus.]

No problem man.

I don't know if you want to necessarily buy a cheaper mobo, because then future upgrades will need XP or Vista reinstalls, but if you still decide to buy cheap now and upgrade later, this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128058) looks like a decent choice for the $50 range. Otherwise, if you can afford something in the $100 range, this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188017) isn't a bad option. It's more current and wouldn't need upgrading for a while.

[dgrmkrp]

Got bored of reading.. stuff.. and so I browsed newegg for some stuff:
mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186109) 59$
cpu (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115014) 126$ ..here you could tweak a lil, with either a celeron 440 or something else..
GPU1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814122027) 137$ or GPU2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241038) for 160$
Total: 59+126+137=322.. you could make serious cut backs.. but if you could afford a lil more :) the cpu is highly o/c and could reach 3GHz with air cooling, the motherboard is.. normal.. and the video card is.. mid-range, but good enough.
I used tom's hardware's video charts to decide what would be worth it, but didn't spend that much time pondering.. I read some reviews on the cpu and the mobo.. well.. I would have liked to know more about the bios.. but I heard it is o/c friendly..
Hope I helped :)

[dgrmkrp]

Do yourself a favor, and never ever ever ever ever ever spend any money that is in your posession on a Celeron Processor. Not for the applicatons you will be running.

"."

-Jeremy

This is very true.. With the "." But, the newer celerons are made with the conroe core.. errmm.. only 1.. and with just a bit of L2 cache.. still, after reading this (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/conroe-l-preview.html) (for different reasons), I'm keeping it on the lower part of my recommendation list.. Not very good, not future proof, not that power full.. but if you want a cheap intel.. I'm still 100% AMD, but I'm not a fanboy..

The core 2 is much better.. I would donate blood and pay the extra bucks for it ;)

[dgrmkrp]

Errm.. I'll stick with the blood giving.. unless any of the companies have good looking.. PR agents ;) or maybe engineer-ess.. ;) hmm.. selling myself for between 220 and 1000$? now that is a moral question..

I'm joking of course.. It is true that in some cases not even overclocking can help, but the problem the new celerons have is not their handicapped core, but their lack of a second one.. And the guys at intel have done something to make them gamer unfriendly. I've seen a vs of a celeron and a sempron and while on paper the conroe kicked ass, it lost in the gaming department.. And it depends what office applications you use.. I think word works well on an old AMD xp at 1.5GHz.. It starts slower, but works exactly the same.. It's not like you type s l o w e r ;) Where I did notice a performance drop is on internet pages with highly active content, like the new yahoo mail interface.. On those pages, old CPUs/Systems take a lot of time to display and prepare for usage.. And it isn't the internet connection, just the active content and the processing power required.. So, I would go for the dual core at 126$, o'c it and then brag about it :) Rant over :)

[TheGreatSatan]

Athlon XP 3000+ are still pretty nice chips

[Killdrath]

Thanks for all the tips. LOL, I suddenly find myself in the same boat. My planned mod just fell apart at some unexpected bills, so I, too, am looking for a new system on the semi-cheap.

I can probably wrangle 600-800, and recycle the XP Pro license that is on my current system that will be scrapped, but I need basically a complete system, minus maybe the optical drives (my old 80gb sata drive has 3-4 years on it so I'd prefer to replace it).

As for the Celeron... I'm upgrading FROM one. I second that they are NOT gamer friendly. Granted, mine is an older model, but when I moved to my Celeron 2.8 from an AMD 1.8, I noticed very little improvement in my games with the exact same vid card and ram.

So, I'm browsing the "barebone package" deals on like newegg etc. For now, I want a decent mobo with room to grow and a dual core (6600 or higher if I can). I can skimp on ram (1gb) and vid card for now.

As for a case, I'll either get whatever comes with the barebones, or recycle one of my old cases (after modding it appropriately, I dont do beige box).

That jetway mobo looks like a nice start, by the way.

What are opinions on the Shuttle mini-cases?

[Omega]

I'm looking at that EVGA mobo, a C2D T4300, some old ATi Radeon (X1650 or something) and a gig o' ram. Mom's paying for the CPU/MOBO, Dad's giving me the GPU, and the RAM will be bought by myself from best buy because I can get an employee discount.

:banana:

[Omega]

248.something$, shipped

the parts:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115031 CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130099 MOBO

Again, getting a midrange Radeon from my dad, as well as RAM too.

:santa:

Christmas just came early =o

[Omega]

Really glad that I ordered the new CPU and mobo, because at this point it's looking like I just fried my desktop computer.

...Brutal.

[Omega]

The BudgetPuter runs NICELY! The 7800GT chewed through two rounds of CTF on Face Classic (UT2k4 edition) on full graphics like it was nothing. I'm really glad I made the investment.

EDIT:

To add a little

Basically, the mobo, cpu, ram, and gpu were 440$ total. CPU/Mobo was most of that (about 250), RAM was 80, GPU was 110 (used, however, but it still performs well).

I'd say the money/performance ratio is pretty good. A lot better than my estimated 3k or so dumped into the athlon setup. (But six components did carry over, case, wireless card, dual hd's, psu and optical drive)

[progbuddy]

This is very true.. With the "." But, the newer celerons are made with the conroe core.. errmm.. only 1.. and with just a bit of L2 cache.. still, after reading this (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/conroe-l-preview.html) (for different reasons), I'm keeping it on the lower part of my recommendation list.. Not very good, not future proof, not that power full.. but if you want a cheap intel.. I'm still 100% AMD, but I'm not a fanboy..

The core 2 is much better.. I would donate blood and pay the extra bucks for it ;)

The new Celerons are a major improvement over previous models. They use less power, and the larger cache helps too :D.

Still never beats the performance of any dual-core.

[haha49]

No problem man.

I don't know if you want to necessarily buy a cheaper mobo, because then future upgrades will need XP or Vista reinstalls, but if you still decide to buy cheap now and upgrade later, this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128058) looks like a decent choice for the $50 range. Otherwise, if you can afford something in the $100 range, this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188017) isn't a bad option. It's more current and wouldn't need upgrading for a while.

petium d suck.. stick with amd on the lower range stuff.. but if you have more to spend go e6600 or q6600 they are nice.. pack alot of power.. but out of your budget.. the petuim d.. i find alot of people seem to think they are slower then a amd with the same stats.. (well about the same)

[Omega]

I went with a lowend C2D, mainly because I wasn't about to buy AM2 mobo/cpu only to upgrade to 775 later, which means I would have to buy a new mobo.

Right now, basically, my system is just a base for later improvement. But it does run really well (going to play C&C3 on it after I get the game tomorrow prolly)

[Omega]

I'll play C&C3 with you all later, I've been having some optical drive issues and have resorted to using my lappy's optical drive as a network drive... =D

[xRyokenx]

I'll play C&C3 with you all later, I've been having some optical drive issues and have resorted to using my lappy's optical drive as a network drive... =D

Good luck with that, lol. If you check the other thread I have, I've been going through HDD hell lately.

[Omega]

My dad should be dropping a spare DVD drive by my house tomorrow. I'll install C&C3 then.

[xRyokenx]

My dad should be dropping a spare DVD drive by my house tomorrow. I'll install C&C3 then.

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]Cool. Maybe by not next weekend, but the one after, I'll have a HDD working. Nobody in town sells SATA 3GB/s drives, total BS. And Newegg'll take me a week or so to order a new one and replace this clunker, oh well.

EDIT: Well, both these clunkers, my new drive was defective. :'(/COLOR]

[Omega]

Just installed and played it a bit, skirmish against the pooter.

all I have to say is HOLY ****, the graphics are ****ING AWESOME.

[xRyokenx]

My new stuff comes in later this week, and I'll be able to play! Whee! But I have a campout and a court thing this weekend... gonna be having fun and will probably end up going insane with joy if this court crap blows over. But yeah, next week, all will be good so long as school doesn't go nuts. :p

[Omega]

I might or might not be able to play next weekend, depends. But definitely in two weeks.