Budget Build for a Friend

[Trevor]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

CS 1.6, Quake Live, and Flight Simulator X for gaming. As for other things, downloading movies, music messing around with Windows and Linux etc.
2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

As cheap as possible.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

U.S.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.
Intel
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Keyboard, mouse, OS, monitor.
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Most likely just the CPU, possibly the RAM.
8. WHEN do you plan to build it?
As soon as possible.

[crispex]

It helps if you're more specific.

"As cheap as possible" doesn't really fly too well, y'know. It would also help if we knew what type of monitor you have, and what OS.

And what level of overclocking are we looking at here?

[Realityshift]

Id go with a build similar too....http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/new-builds/16196-500-budget-build-2.html the one he ended up getting, and then if you have money for more start changing parts of it out, like a P5Q Pro atx motherboard for $148 so you can overclock a bit better if you like. Maybe upgrade to a Cm-690 case. The games you listed will easily run on a 4830 video card and its only around $100.

[ImmaPC]

Okie-Doke, budget build coming up, "Cheap as possible!" If all you're going to be doing is CS1.6 and FS:X as the most graphically intensive game, you can go pretty cheap on that, absolutely. Everything I post below is meant for pricematching at NCIX, not for buying from! Let's see...

CPU: E5200 - $90
Mobo: Foxconn G31MV-K - $52
RAM: 4gb (2X2GB) Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 5-5-5-18$59 before $30 MIR
GFX: Sapphire 4670 - $90 before $10 MIR
HDD: WD Caviar SE16 320GB - $55
DVD: Samsung SH-S223/BEBN blah - $23
Case and PSU: Some cheapo Foxconn Case+PSU combo - $63

Pricematch all this at NCIX and it comes to $432 before taxes + shipping

[Realityshift]

Drop the 4670 for a 4830 imma, DC.ca has a saphire one for just over $100 and they are much better then a 4670.

[Prof. Dr. Silver]

Originally Posted by ImmaPC

Okie-Doke, budget build coming up, "Cheap as possible!" If all you're going to be doing is CS1.6 and FS:X as the most graphically intensive game, you can go pretty cheap on that, absolutely.....

Okay guys.... I haven't played FS:X in a while, but I recall this game being very intense for your hardware. There's no way that that system will even start it up! LOL

Try to 'up' it a little....

[Realityshift]

Uhhh.... the requirements for the game state a 32 mb video card bro...

Flight Simulator X

I think a 4670 or a 4830 could more then likely handle it. Ive never had a flight simulator lag on any of my PCs I wouldnt say they are that hardware intensive, Maybe im wrong.

As for the rest of the system im pretty sure it would handle just fine. a 4830 would run most newer FPS at decent graphic settings and 1650x1080 with playable frame rates, overclocked a little those things come to near 4850 performance.

[Josef]

Since you're buying your parts from the US here is a newgg.com build:


MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
$52.99
CPU: Intel Pentium E5200
$69.99
GPU: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4830
$89.99
PSU: BFG Tech GS-550 550W
$44.00
CASE: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5
$49.99
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB
$69.99
OPTICAL: SAMSUNG
$23.99

TOTAL: $451.92 (check for MIR on some of those as well)

I'm not exactly sure what your definition of as cheap as possible means (when taking performance into account) so its worth mentioning these parts if you want to spend more for better parts:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
$164.99
GPU: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4850
$139.99
MOBO: ASUS P5Q Pro
$119.99

If you swap these 3 items with the ones I mentioned above your total would be:

$663.92

Quite a bit more expensive but also quite a bit more powerful. You never know if your friend will want to start playing games that are better than CS 1.6. With the more expensive parts he will manage to handle every game out there and even new ones to come. You could also spend more on a nicer case imo, because I just picked a cheap $50 coooler master case.

P.S. I don't shop on US websites so I bet you could look around on other sites and find cheaper prices than on newegg.

[crispex]

Newegg's generally pretty good as a reference point for prices. . . there's always something better out there, somewhere, though.

[Lu_D4Cr155]

Why don't you look into building a amd system there always
cheaper then intel based systems and tend to run just the same!